Despite Pleas In Doha, Our Governments Have Failed Us & Our Children

The lead negotiator for the Philippines at the Climate Conference in Doha, Naderev Saño, could not keep back the tears as he made a passionate appeal for real action on climate change.

“I appeal to all, please, no more delays, no more excuses. Please, let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around…

The outcome of our work is not about what our political masters want. It is about what is demanded of us by 7 billion people…

I ask of all of us here, if not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OpI-PD6weG8]

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Here is more coverage from the last day in Doha, when 19-year-old Syrian-American student Munira Sibai addressed the delegates at the U.N. climate summit.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vKMexhHhy5s]

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“So let me now speak beyond the negotiators in this room to the people who I represent. Your governments are failing you. They are afraid that offering visionary pathways to low-carbon economies will make them look foolish, that taking responsibility will make them look weak, that standing up to the money and power of polluters will cost them political support. Unchecked, this cowardice will cost lives. Here in the halls of the United Nations, the voices of global citizens are limited, regulated and relegated to these short, symbolic statements. Outside these walls, these walls, there is a global movement, growing up from the grassroots, calling for climate justice. Join us.”

0 thoughts on “Despite Pleas In Doha, Our Governments Have Failed Us & Our Children”

  1. Munira’s comments and observations are right on. Her denunciation of the lack of political leadership to meet the challenge of climate change was very powerful and of course ineffectual as we knew it would be from day one of this conference. We need to come to terms with our own great failing which is our continual misguided faith that some how or other our political masters will come to their collective senses and save us. Harper and Obama have children and they don’t even care to act to save their own children. It’s up to us as Munira so powerfully said.

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    • Well said, Barry. You’re absolutely right, there is no knight in shining armor who’s going to appear on this one. It’s one big wake up call – and so far, not enough people are responding (although there’s more every day).

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  2. I wonder if these people are insane, ignorant or too afraid to act? It is shameful that our elected leaders are putting political gain and tax revenue ahead of the well being of the next generation (and all of those after them). And, sadly, many of us (in Canada) do not even know the danger we are in.

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    • Maybe a bit of all the above? My sense from talking to all kinds of different people is that most of them have a sense that something is very wrong, but many of these same people don’t take action for a variety of reasons including their inability to comprehend/contemplate the horror we are inflicting on our children, their belief that our elected leaders will step in and do the right thing, and because people are very busy and it takes effort to focus on this issue (and it’s easier for most people to carry on with business as usual).

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  3. The 19-year old student spoke with the clarity of an uncorrupted mind. However, in Storms of my Grandchildren, James Hansen is even more blunt; because he says that, in failing us, our goverments are lying to us and themselves… Our governments are now down to the last few deckchairs on the sinking Titanic, but still the music plays on and the game of musical chairs continues. They continue to argue about who should act first, when what they should be doing is implementing incentives to change people’s behaviour (such as Hansen’s revenue-neutral Fee and Dividend’ system). This, of course, they cannot do because they are mostly controlled by the power of the fossil fuel industry that has hypnotised them (like people who count to five but miss out one number).

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