Australia Waking to Cancún · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

In the lead up to Cancún (the  COP16  meeting of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol) online discussion in Australia has finally spiked.
Oxfam Australia’s Andrew Hewett posted at the ABC’s Unleashed. He used his experiences in Bangladesh to highlight the urgency of addressing the needs of developing countries.
One of the major sticking points at Copenhagen was the need to secure finance for adaptation. In other words, the assistance needed for poor people in developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change they are already experiencing.
…The people of Bangladesh are resourceful and resilient yet they, and millions of others in the developing world, cannot afford global action on climate change to be delayed any longer.
Action must prevail in Cancún
Regular political blogger Duckpond made a plea to overcome our “dysfunctional polity”:
Do we do nothing and just wait for the planet to crash and burn, because as human beings we cannot use our collective cerebral capacities, which we as a species proudly claim make us to superior to other beings on this Earth? Such a claim sees us outside the natural system on which we like them are dependent and interdependent. Why is it that the leaders of nation states are so pathetic?
CLIMATE CHANGE: LET’S DO NOTHING?
Former Australian Democrats Senator and recent Greens candidate, Andrew Bartlett, writes for Asian Correspondent. He hopes that the threatened future of one of our national icons might re-invigorate climate action:
With the future of the Great Barrier Reef at stake, which is not only an environmental wonder but directly generates tens of thousands of tourism industry jobs and export income, public support for stronger action on climate change is likely to grow once again, assuming there is strong enough political leadership this time around.
CO2 levels threaten Great Barrier Reef
Crikey’s blog for environmental campaigners is focusing on Cancún. Rooted will feature some of the bloggers I have posted about previously:
The Cancún climate change conference kicks off today and we have a variety of people blogging from there, including Phillip Ireland from Adopt-a-negotiator and Ellen Sandell from the Youth Climate Coalition. But first up, check out this article extract from Giles Parkison over at Climate Spectator, who’ll be blogging the event from the swim-up bars at the Moon Palace resort.
Cancún Calling: No international accord likely, but good swim-up bar prospects
Meanwhile the media have become the story yet again. Andrew Dodd reports at Crikey’s website about media coverage of climate change:
A former senior News Limited journalist has described trying to write about human-induced climate change at The Australian newspaper as “torture” and has blamed the editor-in-chief for limiting coverage on the topic because he has “taken a political view”.
It has a further dimension, with implications for tweeting as well as the role of mainstream media in controlling the debate:
Her comments were quickly reported on Twitter, prompting editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell to threaten legal action against the author of the tweets and anyone else who published the “lie”.
The ‘torture’ of writing about climate change at The Oz
Greg Jericho of Grog's Gamut was an anonymous blogger until outed by the very same newspaper. His view on this David and Goliath tussle : “I think the entire thing is utterly silly.” His full post examines the implications of this more seriously: Surely you can’t be serous? Part Two – Posetti et al
I’ll keep an eye on MSM reporting of Cancún over the next fortnight as well as the Oz blogosphere. Let’s hope things hot up.