Sept, 27th marked the end of a busy week-long journey for Malagasy blogger and Foko coordinator Stephane, a.k.a pakysse. Stephane took off from Antananarivo, Madagascar on the 21st and landed in JFK, NYC on the 22nd for the Climate Change Conference in New York City at the United Nations Headquarters and the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh. Oxfam invited Stephane to participate thanks to a suggestion from the The Youth Climate Movement (via the Rising Voices Network).

Stephane shared the proceedings at both conferences with live blogging and tweeting in Malagasy, French and English.

Reflecting on the conclusions from the Climate Change Conference, Stephane wished that more concrete measures were offered and a true collaboration between developing and developed nations: ( here is the original text in Malagasy):

Personnally I think that all the speeches were very vague and there were more promises than actions during this UN summit [..] Climate Change is already causing so many indirect or direct damages in Africa : wars, flood, famines,…and sadly religious extremism that causes terrorism. The lessons we have to take from this is that we have to preserve our environement and use green alternatives in order to reach development. Efficient collaboration between countries developed or developing ones is the only solution.

As Stephane followed the Climate Voice team to Pittsburgh on the 24th, he witnessed the heavy security and various protests.

Protesting the lack of airtime for poverty issue

taking photos of police forces

Stephane also inquired a few of the participants about the usefulness of such Summit for the developing world, here are two of the interviews he conducted:

Stephane offers the following thoughts on the G20 Summit :

“the developed countries’ presidents present at G20 seem to worry about nothing else but themselves. I was very disappointed…”

Stephane's flickr photo album of the conferences.

Stephane's video collections from the conferences.