COP18 (05/12/2012) Graham Reeder from Earth in Brackets describes the work of his organisation at COP18, as a group of 12 international students from the College of the Atlantic who are working between global south civil society and YOUNGO in Doha to connect those movements and bring forward a strong justice message by helping these organisations to understand policy and politics that isn’t accessible to most people.

He discusses the political issue of loss and damage within adaptation, focusing on the direct impacts of climate change on communities. He uses the example of the recent typhoon in the Philippines to demonstrate what this issue really means, showing the way communities are being directly impacted by something they haven’t caused. By translating the politics of loss and damage in the negotiations, he hopes to help civil society raise issues of compensation within loss and damage mechanisms at the talks, and has been working with Filipino delegates and ministers in the past days.

He concludes by describing how students and alumni from the College of Atlantic in Maine, USA are working in climate change from a huge range of perspectives, and trying to move this issue forward from all the different angles available.