Project Survival Mediacivil society http://www.projectsurvivalmedia.org Survival is the issue. Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:17:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 How can you decide about us without us? http://www.projectsurvivalmedia.org/how-can-you-decide-about-us-without-us/ http://www.projectsurvivalmedia.org/how-can-you-decide-about-us-without-us/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:08:58 +0000 Chris Chang-Yen Phillips http://www.projectsurvivalmedia.org/?p=675 This is an empty room. Why is it empty, and why does it matter? Well, between the coat check and any of the actual meeting rooms in the Bella Center where all the COP15 negotiations are taking place, you have to walk through this arcade. It’s where NGOs and other civil society organizations set up booths with information, where Avaaz gave out the Daily Fossil award, that kind of thing. Not today, though.

Civil society groups have played a crucial role in advocating for a fair, ambitious and binding deal from these talks. As observers, they can be invaluable in making sure our representatives are responding seriously to the gravity of the climate crisis. And now they’re getting shut out almost entirely from the final stages of these negotiations.

Yesterday, youth in the Bella Center staged a sit-in to demand negotiators listen to the more than 11 million voices that have signed the tcktcktck petition to get a real deal. Today, they’re responding the silencing of civil society groups inside. This is what it looks like when our voices are silenced.

Without us from Sébastien Duyck on Vimeo.

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