The Philippines chief negotiator, Yeb Sano, opened the UN climate talks with an impassioned plea for urgent action, and announcing a hunger strike in solidarity for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.
Must watch: Philippines speech moves COP19 plenary to tears
http://tcktcktck.org/2013/11/cop19-philippines-speech-moves-plenary-tears/58705
(this video lasts about 17 minutes. I suggest that you at least start at the 12 minute point where he starts to talk about the impact that the recent Typhoon has had on his family.)
Exerpts-
"To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of you armchair. I dare you to go to the islands of the Pacific, the islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian ocean and see the impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon, and the Nile where lives and livelihoods are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confronts similar monstrous hurricanes, to the vast savannas of Africa where climate change has likewise become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce.
Not to forget the massive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard of North America. And if that is not enough, you may want to pay a visit to the Philippines right now."
His Call to Action-
"In Doha (COP 18), we asked “If not us then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where? It may have fell on deaf ears. But here in Warsaw, we may very well ask these same forthright questions. “If not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here in Warsaw, where?
What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw."
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