During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF had an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, there was a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
By Clive Tesar
The Arctic Tent comes down today, on the same day that President Obama comes to town to join other world leaders in the negotiations. There is hope that he will be the catalyst for a deal that truly does give the world what it needs, levels of emission reductions that keep the global average temperature rise at well under 2 degrees.
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By Clive Tesar
We have heard a lot this week from the peoples of the Arctic, those who live with climate change effects as a daily event. Today we heard from people who go even where the peoples of the Arctic do not, people who have been drawn to the unpopulated areas of the Arctic. As one of these people remarked today, there are no more blank spaces on the map to explore, but there are places seldom visited, and things unknown and unmeasured. In that sense, those who travel in the seldom visited areas of the Arctic can still be considered explorers.
Without the voyage of Sweden’s Ola Skinnarmo through the Northeast Passage above Arctic Russia we may not have known about the trampled walrus that he saw scattered across remote Chukotkan beaches.
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The Peoples Orb – a shimmering 20cm silver sphere containing a 350 gigabyte mosaic of stories, voices, images and action on climate change collected from around the world – arrives in Copenhagen.

By Clive Tesar

Today was turn of the youth voices to dominate the Arctic Tent. They were not the first youth in the tent, but this was their day, entirely given over to young people from the Arctic, or inspired by the Arctic.
What was amazing was the how the Arctic has become a magnet for young people intent on making a difference in the world. No fewer than three groups, the Cape Farewell Group, the Students on Ice, and the WWF Voyage for the Future have within the past two years taken people from as far afield as Japan and Chile on expeditions to the Arctic, so they could experience the imprint of climate change first-hand. Although they were all impressed by the receding ice and the slumping ground that are the hallmarks of arctic warming, what shone through in the presentations was their contact with northerners.
It was hearing the personal stories of the people who live with climate change in an intimate way that really brought home the impacts to the visitors. And once those impacts were brought home, they were transformative. In some cases, the transformation was more personal, starting a commitment to eat less meat, use local products, cycle more, turn off unnecessary power sources. In other cases, the witnessing of arctic change gave birth to movements, like Green Finger, a youth-driven movement that has pulled in thousands of people, resulting in pictures that now adorn the outside of the Arctic Tent.
Today, visitors to the tent did not have to travel thousands of kilometres to hear people from the Arctic: the people of the Arctic came to them. They came from a university class from Alaska, where one presenter talked of his home town of Shishmareff, a place that is being eaten away by increasingly violent storms, as the frozen ground which once held together its sandy bluffs melts away. They came from Canada’s Northwest Territories, where another presenter spoke of the increasing desperation of people whose ability to survive on local foods is being taken away from them.
We can only hope that the audience today, having heard these voices from the young people of the north, leave feeling as inspired as today’s young presenters from the south.

During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
By Clive Tesar

The speakers list for today read like a who’s who of arctic climate science – which I guess is understandable since it was Science Day in the Arctic Tent. Still, it was impressive that all these big names were assembled in a tent on a chilly Copenhagen Sunday afternoon because of their passion to bring their messages to the world. Continue reading →

During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
By Clive Tesar
It seemed grand to me anyway – the culmination of more than a year of planning, the WWF Arctic Tent opened today. The audience, a mixture of the curious and the committed, heard stirring words from the speakers today – starting with Kim Carstensen, WWF’s climate spokesperson, who told the audience that the states gathered here must step up their pledges to cut emissions if they hope to keep world temperatures at levels considered reasonably safe. Continue reading →

During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
Meet the exhibit team from outdoor exhibition specialists weCommunic8, who helped to create the beautiful outdoor photographic exhibition at the Arctic Tent on Nytorv Square, Copenhagen. With them are members of the WWF Arctic Programme and some of the Arctic Tent team. Continue reading →