Monday 23 November 2009

Citizens rag while world elites drag -- WWWViews

Connie Hedegaard, Danish Climate Minister set up WWViews to hold a worldwide citizen survey and discussion forum, on actions that need to be taken at Copenhagen. Their answers put political elites to shame.

4,000 participating citizens from 38 countries were chosen, reflecting the demographic diversity of their respective countries and regions. They were provided with unbiased information about climate change and the COP15 negotiations, and asked to discuss it with their friends.

Across nations, income groups and geographical regions, citizen responses are remarkably consistent:
· Seal the deal at COP15: an obligatory Copenhagen treaty to replace Kyoto
· Keep global warming below 2 degrees C
· Developed (Annex 1 countries) should cut emissions 25-40 % or more by 2020
· Fast-growing economies should also reduce emissions by 2020
· Low-income developing countries should limit emissions
· Establish an international financial mechanism for mitigation aid
· Punish non-complying countries
· Make technology available to everyone [no patent payments, corporate kickbacks, capture and control of export market share]
· strengthen and add to United Nations [not World Bank, giveaways and sales of offsets]

This sharply contradicts the niggling, higgling, and backwardness of national elites in the whole series of Bali-to-Copenhagen negotiations. Download the citizens' WWWViews Policy Report or view the questions and responses online, with further discussions on Facebook

See also the WWViews experts blog, Connie Hedegaard's biography, her June 2009 Greenland Dialogue, and the C40 "green city network" founded by Clinton Climate Initiative.
We do not recommend the WWWviews official video wrap-up, which shows a bundle of boring bureaucrats, among a handful of citizens. Its preparatory info videos are visually exciting but accompanied by numbing "father knows best" commentary.
For real grassroots opinions see Global Voices Online, and our previous posts on youth , online videos, and networking.

No comments: