The United Nations climate negotiations are back under way (yet again) here in Bonn, Germany.  Today is day 3 of this round of talks.  You can check out our posts from the last intersessional meetings back in March and April here, here, and here.

What makes this round of talks different than the last?  This time all the ideas and proposals for addressing climate change submitted by countries at the last conference and since then have now been synthesized into a draft text for the treaty that countries hope to sign in Copenhagen this December.

That draft treaty is intensely complex, and most key decisions in the text are still outlined as a series of options full of brackets leaving very open the possibility of a strong deal and a weak deal.  The good news?  Among the many choices governments now face in the official text is whether to accept the goal of reaching 350 ppm!  It was only just at the last Bonn intersessional meeting when discussions of 350 ppm really became a commonplace part of the negotiating process.  (And remember, it was only roughly one year prior that anyone in the world started to learn about the real significance of 350).  So we’ve come a long ways.  But there’s a long ways left before we get the whole world to adopt this target.  In fact, at this very moment it seems most of the world — most particularly industrialized countries — is shying away from much discussion of targets at all, leaving the tough decisions for later.

But now is not the time for procrastination!  Time is tcktcktcking, we need bold leadership starting now!  That’s why we’ve teamed up with the international youth here in Bonn and many of our friends and allies from all around the world  to keep the pressure on as this conference takes place.  The photos attached in the post are from our opening day “greet the delegate” action — check out the time on the clock).  And we’re planning a big aerial action and rally here on Saturday (please share details with anyone you know if Germany: www.350.org/bonn-action).  But it will take far more than our presence here to change the government policies forged back in home countries around the world.  And that’s precisely why it’s so exciting to see momentum build for the October 24 global day of action.

We officially announced the plans for the October 24 global day of cliamte action only just before the last round of negotiations back in March.  It was incredibly uplifting to see the government delegations here in the conference look on as our home-made cardboard action counter started to tick up and up, reaching 350 actions during the second week of the talks in April.

Since that last conference momentum has steadily been building more and more, and we are now fast approaching the 1,000 actions mark — which we’re displaying now on an upgraded, home-made action counter inside the conference.  Let’s keep the actions coming and top the 1,000 actions mark while we’re here in Bonn!