Tracking Cancun for a safe Climate

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Humanitarian Aid

When a crisis hits, we work with local partners to provide life-saving aid, and support to rebuild.

Advocacy and campaigns

We mobilise people to challenge the structures that sustain poverty and advocate for a better world.

Long-term development

Together with local partners, we develop projects that will address poverty now and into the future.

Cancun, Mexico is often associated with being a popular holiday location for fun seeking American students, yet for two weeks from November 29th, the coastal city will be host to the 2010 UN Climate Summit. We’re hoping that this will mean that there will be a little less tequila and more politically inspired discussion…

This event will be the first time since the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit that Environment Ministers will come together to continue to work towards an international climate agreement. I will be there throughout the negotiations tracking the Australian delegation—and other key players—to report developments back to you, as they happen. Sign up to receive UN Climate Tracker alerts

Now is the time for progress, not delay
Around the world, climate impacts are already hitting people hard, particularly in developing countries. Extreme weather events are destroying harvests and making it tougher for the poorest people, especially women, to provide food for their families. In the Pacific and South East Asia, changing weather patterns that can be linked to climate change are having significant effects making it more difficult for people to protect their homes, families and livelihoods. Scientific predictions confirm that this is only set to get worse.

It is at the UN global climate talks that governments must deliver the global action that is needed to prevent a climate catastrophe. Developed countries, like Australia, need to follow through on their commitments reduce greenhouse gas pollution as well as to provide climate finance for adaptation in the less-developed world.

Far away from the beaches of Cancun you can play a role in ensuring that the Australian negotiators do what is needed. Intrigued? Read on.

Tracking Australia – your involvement is powerful
During the talks I will be working hard to track the Australian delegation as they engage in the negotiating process, listening to their interventions, meeting with various negotiators, getting the perspectives from other governments and civil society.

But most of all I will be working hard in Cancun to keep our delegation accountable, to you, the citizens of Australia, and the world.

Please send me your questions, your comments, your ideas, by leaving messages for me on my blogs. I will make sure that these are passed onto the Australian negotiating team, and where I can, will get answers for you.

There will also be opportunities to get involved in mass twitter actions, and live web casts. Stay tuned for details.

I pack my bags and prepare for the long trip I feel slightly anxious about the urgency for strong climate action yet cautiously optimistic that Cancun can deliver strong progress.