Abigail Borah is an American environmental activist who interrupted Todd Stern at the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference [1] [2] and who co-founded Race to Replace Vermont Yankee.
Borah grew up near Princeton and attended Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart. [3]
Borah studied at Middlebury College [1] where she majored in Conservation Biology. [4] While studying, she joined SustainUS, who sent her to the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun (also known as COP-16.) [3]
In 2011, when she was 21 years old, [5] [6] Borah interrupted US negotiator Todd Stern at the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-17) in Durban [3] to say:
“I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait.” [1] [7]
Borah was met with applause from the audience [8] [6] and had her credentials allowing her to attend the conference removed by guards. [5] Stern later conceded that he agreed with her points. [1] She was later dubbed as the "Durban Climate Hero" by Climate Progress. [9]
Borah is the co-founder of Race to Replace Vermont Yankee, a campaign that aims to replace nuclear power in Vermont with clean energy. [10] [11]
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson is an Irish politician who served as the seventh president of Ireland, holding the office from December 1990 to September 1997. She was the country's first female president. Robinson had previously served as a senator in Seanad Éireann from 1969 to 1989, and as a councillor on Dublin Corporation from 1979 to 1983. Although she had been briefly affiliated with the Labour Party during her time as a senator, she became the first independent candidate to win the presidency and the first not to have had the support of Fianna Fáil. Following her time as president, Robinson became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN process for negotiating an agreement to limit dangerous climate change. Formally it is an international treaty among countries to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It was signed in 1992 by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. The treaty entered into force on 21 March 1994. "UNFCCC" is also the name of the Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the convention, with offices on the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany.
Middlebury is the shire town of Addison County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,152. Middlebury is home to Middlebury College and the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History.
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont.
Bairbre de Brún is a former Irish Sinn Féin politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Northern Ireland from 2004 to 2012.
Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart is an independent all-girls Catholic country day school located in Princeton, in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, that serves students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. Stuart is divided into a co-educational Early Childhood Program, a Lower School for junior kindergarten through grade 4, a Middle School for grades 5 through 8, and an Upper School for grades 9 through 12. The school was named for Janet Erskine Stuart. The school operates under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton.
William Slade Jr. was an American Whig and Anti-Masonic politician. He served as a U.S. Representative from Vermont from 1831 to 1843, where he was an outspoken opponent of slavery. He was the 17th governor of Vermont.
Ray Lyle Fisher was an American professional baseball pitcher and college coach. He pitched all or part of ten seasons in Major League Baseball. His debut game took place on July 2, 1910. His final game took place on October 2, 1920. During his early professional career he played for the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds.
Post-Kyoto negotiations refers to high level talks attempting to address global warming by limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Generally part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), these talks concern the period after the first "commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol, which expired at the end of 2012. Negotiations have been mandated by the adoption of the Bali Road Map and Decision 1/CP.13.
Helen Hartness Flanders, a native of the U.S. state of Vermont, was an internationally recognized ballad collector and an authority on the folk music found in New England and the British Isles. At the initiative of the Vermont Commission on Country Life, Flanders commenced a three-decade career capturing traditional songs that were sung in New England—songs that, in many cases, traced their origin to the British Isles. The timing of her life work was critical, coming as it did when people were turning away from traditional music in favor of listening to the radio. Today her nearly 4,500 field recordings, transcriptions and analyses are housed at the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont and have been a resource for scholars and folk singers, since the establishment of the collection in 1941.
Todd D. Stern was the United States Special Envoy for Climate Change, and was the United States' chief negotiator at the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen is a Costa Rican diplomat who has led national, international and multilateral policy negotiations. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in July 2010, six months after the failed COP15 in Copenhagen. During the next six years she worked to rebuild the global climate change negotiating process, leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement, widely recognized as a historic achievement.
Climate Change TV is the world’s first online broadcaster dedicated entirely to climate change issues. It contains interviews from heads of state, government officials and negotiators, NGO's, Civil Society and business professionals with a range of views on the climate change negotiations.
The International Day of Forests was established on the 21st day of March, by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on November 28, 2013. Each year, various events celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests, and trees outside forests, for the benefit of current and future generations. Countries are encouraged to undertake efforts to organize local, national, and international activities involving forests and trees, such as tree planting campaigns, on International Day of Forests. The Secretariat of the United Nations Forum on Forests, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization, facilitates the implementation of such events in collaboration with governments, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, and international, regional and subregional organizations. International Day of Forests was observed for the first time on March 21, 2013.
The 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) was held in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 11 December 2011 to establish a new treaty to limit carbon emissions.
Allison Katherine Stanger is an American political scientist and the Russell J. Leng '60 Professor of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College, Vermont and the founding director of Middlebury's Rohatyn Center for International Affairs. Stanger has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2004, and between 2009 and 2011 she worked as a part-time consultant to the United States Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a fund for climate finance that was established within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Its objective is to assist developing countries with climate change adaptation and mitigation activities. The GFC is an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC. It is based in Incheon, South Korea. It is governed by a Board of 24 members and supported by a Secretariat.
The 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference was the 18th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The conference took place from Monday 26 November to Saturday 8 December 2012, at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha.
The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC parties – the Conference of the Parties (COP) – to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Starting in 2005 the conferences have also served as the "Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" (CMP); also parties to the convention that are not parties to the protocol can participate in protocol-related meetings as observers. From 2011 to 2015 the meetings were used to negotiate the Paris Agreement as part of the Durban platform, which created a general path towards climate action. Any final text of a COP must be agreed by consensus.
Luisa-Marie Neubauer is a German climate activist. She is one of the main organisers of the school strike for climate movement in Germany, where it is commonly referred to under its alternative name Fridays for Future. She advocates a climate policy that complies with and surpasses the Paris Agreement and endorses de-growth. Neubauer is a member of Alliance 90/The Greens and the Green Youth.