Right now Copenhagen is the most important city in the world. In just 2 short months, the city might witness the formation of a global climate treaty. You’ve heard of the Kyoto protocol – the climate treaty that the US helped draft 12 years ago? The one that pretty much every other country has signed on to?

Well, the US, with 1/4 of global greenhouse emissions, has more excuses than a student with a late term-paper about why it hasn’t done its part to help solve climate change. The people of the world aren’t impressed.

Two years ago in Bali after a dramatic plea from Papua New Guinea in the final hours, the US and other leaders agreed to make a global treaty in Copenhagen in 2009. According to the Bali agreement, the plan needs to have four key elements to bring all nations together (here’s the homework assignment). It needs to set mitigation targets for every country (reducing carbon emissions). It needs to protect forests from destruction (which cause 20% of global emissions). It needs to help poor countries develop more responsibly than we did by providing clean technology because the world can’t afford to repeat the dirty energy economies of the 20th century. And it needs to help poor countries deal with the present and increasing effects of the climate crisis.

The road-map to Copenhagen, agreed on by the leaders in Bali, places a responsibility on every national government, but the path has been most difficult for the United States. Stubborn, short-sighted politics have delayed action for years, but the window of opportunity for a global deal in Copenhagen has added urgency to our fight.

When the the timetable was set, climate activists like myself stepped up efforts to get the US on track in the two years from December 2007 to December 2009. We threw ourselves into an election that promised change and took on challenges on a historic scale. But that clearly hasn’t been enough.

Photo Credit: Robert Van Warden

We brought 12,000 activists to Powershift09 for the largest lobby day ever, and then stopped the U.S. Capitol plant from ever burning coal again. Just last month over 1,800 flash-mobs all over the world placed wake-up calls to world leaders on the need for climate action. And it’s working; the global movement we’ve been working for is here and its beautiful.

The one tiny, little problem is that a handful of US senators stand between us and a global climate treaty. In Bali, they said the treaty needed to deal with 4 things, things that the senate (and specifically the finance committee) can provide.

Luckily, large environmental organizations are pulling out all the stops to fight for ambitious reductions in domestic emissions – as ambitious as we can get. (But boy are my fingers crossed that we can get something better.)

What we’re lacking, and this is where you come in, are people fighting for those other three provisions. Adaptation, clean-tech transfer and forest protection receive mere lip-service in the initial draft of the Kerry-Boxer bill.

Developed countries need to put money on the table. How much? According to the Climate Action Network International policy paper, $150 billion per year, additional to existing aid, and raised from auction allowances. The European Commission Communication on Climate Financing is talking on a similar scale at least, calling for €50 billion annually by 2020.

What that works out to for the US, is in the range of 5% of allocation revenue for international adaptation, 5% for clean tech-transfer, and 5% for forest protection. The House climate bill in June allocated just 1%, 0.5% and 5%, respectively for those provisions. The Senate can do better and needs to do better. Whether we get a global deal or not could all come down to the next few weeks in the US senate.

We’re so close to the global climate deal we need, but three of the four major provisions required aren’t getting much attention. Let’s give the senators on the finance committee a reason to look beyond their petty interests and own up to the responsibility we have to the world. Take a look at the senate finance committee members and how to contact them.

Two years ago, we could only hope that a good US Senate bill would be the biggest remaining obstacle to a good global climate treaty. It took millions of calls and letters, thousands of individual meetings and one of the largest days of action the world has yet seen to get us here. We’re not done yet. If we can make the case for financing global solutions to the Senate, we can start to see the outlines of history — the story we can tell our grandchildren about how we fought for, and won, a planet they can still enjoy.

Morgan Goodwin is a fellow at the Avaaz Action Factory in DC

As far back as I can remember, water was a right, and right there for the drinking. When I was a kid, I would turn the knob and cool, clear H2O would just come out, as much as I could want.

Water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface and is recognized as one of the absolutely essential elements in the development of life as we know it…meaning without water, we wouldn’t be here. Due to climate change, that staple of human life is becoming a bit harder to come by.

Check this factoid from the EPA:

All regions of the world show an overall net negative impact of climate change on water resources and freshwater ecosystems. Areas in which runoff is projected to decline are likely to face a reduction in the value of the services provided by water resources. The beneficial impacts of increased annual runoff in other areas are likely to be tempered in some areas by negative effects of increased precipitation variability and seasonal runoff shifts on water supply, water quality and flood risks (IPCC, 2007)

This means that due to climate change, water is becoming a precious commodity. While over 90 percent of the world delivers water as a public utility, water privatization is on the rise in poorer countries and now in stressed areas of the US, as the climate of our planet steadily changes.

By 2013, thirty six states will experience some sort of water shortage. And the enterprising businessmen of America would love to step in and charge us to supply fresh water, even though the industrial pollution of our waterways (often by the same businessmen who support privatization) is a primary factor in the climate change that is leading to these water shortages!

The effects of privatization on lower income communities are drastic. Water bills skyrocket and invariably, the city runs dry. Check this real life story, entitled “Water Warriors”:

You’d think that if you’re paying high prices for a substance as fundamental as water that it’d be pristine and non-toxic. According to a recent report by the New York Times, that isn’t always true. Forty percent of community water systems have violated the Safe Drinking Water Act on – at least – one occasion, which is a startling factor.

So, we could look at it this way: we could purchase overpriced, potentially polluted water from multinational corporations or we could urge the administration to rexamine and come down on climate change profiteers, who purchase and poison the water systems of our communities.

Some things are too priceless to sell, and it is an affront to all Americans that we would be required to pay a privately owned company for what is, in affect, the ability to stay alive, if the climate keeps changing. That isn’t consumer choice, that’s piracy, and the question is, what are we going to do about it? Will we stand back and accept corporate control of our very ability to live and breathe?

It’s our call, and it’s about time we make it.

Take Action: the Public Citizen Foundation’s Activists’ Guide to Fight Water Privatization is an introductory guide to organizing against water privatization in your community. Get informed and get involved!

The League of Young Voters Education Fund is a youth run non-profit, organizing in urban and low income communities around green jobs, marriage equality and health care reform. LYVEF makes civic engagement relevant by meeting young people where they are, working on issues that affect their lives, and providing them with tools, training, and support to become viable players in the civic process.

This December, President Obama will join world leaders in Copenhagen to craft an international treaty to reduce global warming emissions. We know that to get a strong treaty, the U.S. will have to be a strong voice for change and lead the way.

President Obama’s started the ball rolling, but he’ll need a solid team behind him. Already, he’s called for strong action from Congress and world leaders. This past month, his administration also proposed new rules to decrease global warming pollution from cars and the biggest factories and power plants.

Now, we need to help by sending him to Copenhagen with victories that show the U.S. is ready to lead the way and the public support to call for bold international action. That’s why, the week leading up to the October 24 International Day of Action, we will be filming thousands of videos to Make it End in 2010!

Join the Student PIRGs for this week of action by creating your own video for Obama, your Senator, and the EPA.

Check out the sample above: then upload your videos to YouTube and tag them with “MakeItEndin2010”. Then, we’ll send them to Obama, the EPA, and the United States Senate.

Both in the U.S. and abroad, 2010 is the year where we have more opportunities than ever to get significant action on global warming. World leaders will begin to implement the next international treaty to reduce emissions; the Obama administration’s proposals to reduce emissions from vehicles, factories and power plants will all be finalized. In addition, if we don’t get a climate bill this fall, the Senate will vote on a climate bill at the beginning of 2010. We have the solutions to this global problem now, it’s high time we put them to work. So, help us “Make it End in 2010!”

The Student PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups) are a network of nonpartisan student-directed and student-funded organizations working on over 200 college campuses in 25 states to solve public interest problems and increase civic engagement. We work to increase the youth vote, tackle global warming, make education more affordable, address homelessness and more. Over 10,000 students get involved in our projects every year – visit us at www.studentpirgs.org for more on what we do.

Make our voices heard on September 24th

On September 24, students and youth all over the country will be taking action and calling on their Senators to pass a strong climate bill that creates millions of new jobs and protects our future. The Student PIRGs have teamed up with Campus Progress, the Energy Action Coalition, and the Clean Energy Works youth table to make thousands of calls into the Senate from strategic states.

It’s not too late to plan your own call-in day event – download the TOOLKIT with a three-day plan!

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is set to introduce comprehensive legislation to combat global warming next week. Student Leaders will be targeting key states to pass the Senate climate bill and strengthen key provisions (in House-passed ACES) including the Clean Air Act loophole and the Renewable Electricity Standard.

This week, as the G20 meets in Pittsburgh, the international community is looking to the United States Senate to pass a global warming bill before the next phase of Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009. As young people, we need to pressure our Senators to pass a bill this fall!

Here are a couple examples of the dozens of events going on around the country – overall, we plan to make 5,000 phone calls into the Senate on Thursday! Join us by planning your own event (here’s the easy how-to toolkit)!

Students and young people are ready for the clean energy economy. Let’s call on our Senators to pass a stronger version of the house-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act this fall.

At today’s College Park rally, President Obama reiterated his promise to our generation to build a better future. While health care reform remained the topic of the day, Obama emphasized that the promise includes a clean energy revolution.

This promise is a good sign. However, the promise to our generation will not be fulfilled unless our generation stands up and demands it. The President cannot and will not act alone. We must stand behind him and demand action from Congress to make this vision a reality.

I promised to be president who would build a better future, who would move this nation forward. Who would ensure that this generation, your generation would have the same chances and opportunities that our parents gave us. That’s what I’m here to do. That’s why I ran for President of the United States of America… Part of that promise is an economy that leads the world in science, and technology, and innovation. Part of that promise is a clean energy revolution that protects our planet, protects our security, creates jobs of the future right here in the United States of America.