Apologies everyone, this blog post is a little late due to the hassle of packing and traveling back to the States (we made it back safely!). Reflecting back on the last few days at the conference and on the week as a whole, I can’t help but feel grateful for this tremendous opportunity to witness and engage in international climate change policy negotiations. On Thursday, I attended the first events of the We Are Still In Campaign, which generally featured informative panel discussions concerning the economic solutions to climate change. On Friday, we were able to listen to a sobering and inspirational talk given by Al Gore on the climate crisis. I also was able to go to a event on Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s latest survey on US public opinion on climate change juxtaposed with a similar survey commissioned over the summer in China. While most Chinese believe in anthropogenic climate change, Americans are generally skeptical of the connection to man-made causes. The panelists suggested that the failure of domestic action on climate change is because of the absence of an organized and vocal grassroots movement that would increase salience this issue in the public mind and pressure the federal government to implement policy change. It will be interesting to see if Sam, Shiv and Professor Graves see more of this bottom up mobilization from US businesses, state/local governments and environmental justice organizations in the second week of negotiations. Overall, attending the first week of COP 23 was an unforgettable experience!
Look for more pictures here!
