One Year Left And The Power Isn’t At The UN

Walking through the halls at the UN Climate Negotiations in Poznan  last December, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were at the heart of  the struggle to defeat dangerous climate change. Top-level ministers  from every government in the world met to forge a global agreement,  the contents of which will decide how the latter half of this century  plays out. But from my experience as a UK youth delegate, the real  decisions are not made at the UN.

Woven through the endless meetings, lobbying sessions, cocktail  parties and plenaries was a palpable sense that we will pass the  critical 2 degrees tipping point causing ‘runaway’ climate change with  the very real possibility of 6 degree temperature rises within this  century. Forget far off impacts for our grandchildren, this is about  you and me over the next 50 years. At the talks, negotiators repeated  ad nauseam the party line about how CO2 concentrations of 450 parts  per million will stave off the worst impacts of climate change, whilst  being briefed behind closed doors about exactly how out of date this  same target is. When we cornered negotiators with questions like  these, they often admitted the contradiction. It’s exasperating to  watch because we know that the time left to act is running out.

Is there an end to this? Not within the conference halls. Negotiators  have little freedom to negotiate freely. One NGO put it to me that up  to 90% of their platform is pre-determined before they even step on  the plane. With special interests, short-termist electoral cycles and  near instantaneous judgement by stock market edict, it is easy to see  why governments act in this way. Operating within such rigid  parameters, our negotiators are essentially players in a game. The  small slice of autonomy granted to them offers precious little  potential for a breakthrough and is certainly not enough to secure a  deal which takes the latest scientific discoveries seriously.

So, what do we need now? Firstly, to recognise that we are a long way  from where we need to be and second, to understand that our power lies  in the ability to make a just agreement possible. Negotiators are not  champions of humanity or social justice. They’re playing a game,  according to the rules they’re given. Their capacity to act is limited  by what is politically acceptable.

Nonetheless, politicians as individuals want to act on this – nobody  who has seen the true scale of this problem couldn’t. But at the  moment, taking meaningful action necessitates defying the negotiating  position set by domestic governments, which means losing your job. By  Copenhagen next year, where the final treaty will be agreed, the  playing field must look substantially different. In essence, the  ground rules must be that taking strong action on climate change is  the only way a treaty can be signed because the public will accept  nothing less.

To drive this point home, just a few weeks ago Climate Change and  Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called for a “popular mobilisation” to  make it possible for the process to move forward, whilst Al Gore has  said publicly that he “can’t understand why there aren’t rings of  young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing  coal-fired power plants.” We should think seriously about this call to  action – it comes from a place of real desperation and an awareness of  the limitations of a politics not yet built to deal with a problem  like climate change.

Having watched the negotiations for two weeks, I can tell you that if  the situation continues as it is currently, we will fail to halt  runaway climate change. The enormity of this statement should not be underestimated. In the time remaining before Copenhagen next December  we must substantially alter the context of the debate to make it  impossible not to act. Many more campaigns like those that forced  through the Climate Act in the UK will be needed and on a far bigger  scale. Now really is the time to consider what role you as a Sussex  student have to play in this, our last best chance to stop dangerous  climate change. History shows time and again the importance of a  strong student voice at the heart of progressive social movements and  yet, with notable exceptions, we’ve not been anywhere near loud enough.

We’ve got to stop pretending that this is about polar bears or banners that rhyme because at its heart, climate change is about social  justice, it’s about people. It’s about whether or not we chose to act  now to safeguard a livable society whilst we still can or whether we  take a back seat as our future gets pissed up against a wall in favour  of short-termist and ill conceived economic pressures. The next year  is the most important in human history. It’s up to us, not the  politicians in Poznan, to determine how it plays out.

To take action log-on to www.itsgettinghotinhere.org or e-mail daniel@ukyd.org

Write them off at your peril

The Perils @ Latest Music Bar, 19 Jan

Rough Trade’s Breakthrough event at the Latest Music Bar most definitely made like Ronseal and did exactly what it said on the tin; though as The Perils took to the stage they couldn’t have impressed less. With an arrogant ramble front man Danny began to extol the virtues of making music for the sake of good music, and not of course for being “trendy or… whatever”. So far so generic and, compounded by the combination of indoors sunglasses with skinny jeans and a wifebeater and an opening song that sounded a bit too much like a copy and paste Fratellis’ tune, my palm was soon hitting my face. Read more

SUDS review: ‘The Luggage Room’

SUDS’ first play of the new term is one-act comedy ‘The Luggage Room’, which centres around three teachers trapped in a small luggage room. There is no explanation as to how the characters got there, nor do they make any visible attempts to escape, other than recognition that there is no mobile phone signal; the characters are simply waiting to be rescued and in the meantime, their clashing personalities annoy each other immensely.

The actors play up to three hardened stereotypes of teachers: Dino Kazamia plays a failed actor turned eccentric drama teacher, whose random outbursts of laughter, pretentious referencing of Greek tragedy and aloof detachment from the conflict of the other two characters proves to be very comical.

Charlie Edgcumee-Rendle plays a very highly strung and over sensitive music teacher, with a pompously close-minded attitude towards anything outside his sphere of worthiness.

The third and final member of this ensemble is James Macklin, who plays the typical down-with-the-kids style language teacher with his cap, shades and passion for electronic music. Many laughs ensue from this language teacher’s ironic inability to get articulate a single sentence in less than a minute, much to the annoyance of the music teacher.

‘The Luggage Room’ opens with simple lighting a sparse set; only a few suitcases are scattered about the stage to convey the luggage room in which the actors sit looking bored and despairing.

In a desperate attempt to make conversation the language teacher tries to discuss electro music, serving to make a firm enemy in the pretentious music teacher. This dislike is further magnified by the inarticulate speech of the language teacher, so much so that the music teacher proceeds to steal his sunglasses and furiously stamp them to pieces. Meanwhile, the drama teacher reminisces about failed dreams and occasionally interjects to provoke the other two.

The final straw comes when the language teacher reveals he needs to ‘take a shit’ and does so behind some baggage (he’d consumed a lot of moussaka the night before). In a state of complete outrage, the music teacher hits his colleague round the head with an extremely large suitcase,
rendering him unconscious or perhaps even dead.

On this shocking and baffling note the play ends, and we never find out if the language teacher has indeed been murdered, although the clues were perhaps in the drama teacher’s rambling
references to Greek tragedy.

On the whole, ‘The Luggage Room’ is a tremendously comic play with impressive performances from all three actors; my only disappointment came from such an abrupt and ambiguous ending.

Runway madness…

The decision on Heathrow’s third runway came on Thursday 15 January. It was not, unfortunately, a surprise. The government has continued to prioritise the needs of business and profit above the people, and Labour’s planet green rhetoric is exposed as meaningless by their deeds.
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Info appeal – Big Lemon bus seat stolen

On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning of the 21 January between the hours of 3am – 4am, a bench seat was stolen from a Big Lemon bus.
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Volunteering can boost your sex life

Tim Loughton, Tory MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, caught the attention of the House of Commons last Wednesday with the statistic that 17% of 18-24 year-olds claim volunteering has improved their sex life. This was during a debate about how to make it easier for volunteers to enrol in youth projects.
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London students start wave of protests to support Gaza

On Tuesday 13 January a group of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) students began their occupancy in the Brunei Gallery where the Ministry of Defence(MOD) were holding an exhibition. A list of demands was requested to be met by the university management before the occupancy would retreat. Read more

Brighton: a history of fascism?

Brighton has traditionally been seen as a ‘liberal’ city: a place of diversity with little discrimination or prejudice. In fact, Brightonians usually seem to be quashing fascism rather than promoting it. But at the end of last year a list of BNP members was leaked onto the Internet, giving not only the names but addresses and telephone numbers of its members. Read more

Chemistry department investigation

As I approached graduation in the summer of 2007, I was able to reflect on a wonderful and life-changing time at Sussex. Events and experiences, too numerous to mention, that I will never forget. I had made so many friends here and learned such a lot in my chosen field of Chemistry that I felt there was still more to do and I made arrangements to continue as a post graduate research assistant Unfortunately, events since then have irreparably damaged my opinion of this institution and the way my new research group and I have been treated has lead me to believe that, despite recent assurances, the senior management have no interest in maintaining a functional Chemistry department.
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The prospect of graduating

As I began writing this I receive a text from my boyfriend. “My Mum has just suggested I get some training as a plumber. ‘It could be fun…’ God help me”.

He graduated last year, a 2.1 in English from UCL, with a second year internship at a big company under his belt. He has been living in London and since graduation has made hundreds of applications to a variety of weird and wonderful roles.
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