The United Nations-led Climate Conference at Cancun was not a diplomatic disaster, but for climate activists and grassroots groups, it wasn’t a success either. Representatives sent from around the globe to hammer out an agreement on climate change were unresponsive to grassroots concerns about how to lower carbon emissions quickly, and how to ensure fairness in the process.

The most recent round of United Nations-led climate change negotiations began this week in Cancun, and although international expectations are muted this year, the stakes are still high. As Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard explains, "The 2010 meeting could make or break the future of global negotiations.”

The  World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth is over, but the momemtum generated by this first initiative will create ripples that will continue for some time.   I am left with a feeling of tremendous hope, and a sense that this is just the beginning, that we are on our way to the formation of a global movement for climate justice, that there are  many, many people who care, who are prepared to devote their hearts, their minds, and their passion to slowing down and turning around the tragic trajectory that has been set by the industrial growth society.

In his first State of the Union address, President Barack Obama touched on climate issues only briefly. He called on the Senate to pass a climate bill, but did not give Congress a deadline or promise to veto weak legislation. Nor did he mention the Copenhagen climate conference, where international negotiators struggled to produce an agreement on limiting global carbon emissions.