FOE climate justice bloc: Photo by Push Europe / FlickrCivil society organisations are leaving the climate change negotiations today on mass. Members from Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, Actionaid, Friends of the Earth, the International Trade Union Confederation and 350.org all started leaving the conference at 2pm. This is an unprecedented action, the first time several major civil society groups have staged a mass walkout.

Friends of the Earth International highlighted that the Warsaw Climate Change negotiations were failing, with Tension high in Warsaw talks as G77+China walk out. The role of Australia and reduced ambition of Japan  have been widely mentioned. Australia and Canada are seen as the major wreckers, but there has been substantial intransigence from much of the developed world to progressing the negotiations forward on finance, ambition, and a loss and damage mechanism. Poland's Coal Summit has shown the fossil fuel corporatism entwined in this COP with widespread dismay at the coal powered negotiations of COP19 and at UNFCCC official Christiania Figueres who gave the keynote speech at the coal summit 

Related: Democracy Now: "Nature Does Not Negotiate": Environmentalists Walk Out of U.N. Climate Summit in Warsaw | "Polluters Talk, We Walk": Civil Society Groups Abandon Warsaw Talks over Inaction on Global Warming | "We Have to Consume Less": Scientists Call For Radical Economic Overhaul to Avert Climate Crisis Analysis: The Warsaw walkout and the Climate Movement

Rally against pipelines and tankers in Vancouver: Photo: Mark Klotz / FlickrLast Saturday thousands of Canadians took to the streets marching and rallying for a safe climate, and against tar sands expansion and more pipelines.

From coast to coast to Repulse Bay, Nunavut on the Arctic circle, people gathered in over 180 events. Many concentrated on opposing the Enbridge Pipelines and tar sands expansion, on fracking or the more general threat of climate change, and the anti-climate policies of the Harper Government.

The protests were co-ordinated by Defend our Climate. Many were organised at the local level on short notice as word spread of the national action. But the protests were also connected to the organising of climate protests in Australia that drew in excess of 60,000 people, with an estimated 30,000 people attending a rally in Melbourne against the climate denial policies of the new Australian Government lead by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

From Defend our Climate Blog: Charlottetown | First timers step up in Halifax | Oka is Defending our Climate | North Bay Ontario comes out strong | Ottawa: Bringing the wall of opposition to Harper’s doorstep | Ottawa: Canadians stand with the Philippines today | Solidarity in Winnipeg | Nunavut braves a blizzard to defend our climate | A pipeline through the heart of Toronto | Edmonton’s barrel blockade | Looks like the start of a prairie fire | Awareness builds along 2 new routes in Ontario and Quebec | Resistance in the Interior | Vancouver: National Day of Action Wraps on the West Coast

thousands rally for climate action in Australia: Photo by TakverMore than 60,000 people are estimated to have rallied or marched for climate action across Australia in a demonstration that a significant number of people view climate change as a serious issue requiring substantive action from all levels of Government, including the Federal Government lead by conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Related: COP19: Australia wins unprecedented fourth Fossil of the Day award for finance stance | Australia wins Fossil awards for repeal of carbon pricing and abandoning neighbors on loss and damage | Australia earns first rebuke by civil society at UN climate change talks | COP19: Australia and Canada are leading the wreckers at Warsaw

Japan wins fossil of the day award for reducing targets: Photo: Adopt a negotiatorJapan, the third largest single economy, has announced in the Warsaw climate change negotiations a change in it's voluntary pledge emissions target to change from a 25 per cent emission cut on 1990 levels to a 3.1 per cent increase on 1990 levels by 2020, citing the closure of nuclear power stations for safety reasons after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

"This move by Japan could have a devastating impact on the tone of discussion here in Warsaw. It could further accelerate the race to the bottom among other developed countries when the world needs decisive and immediate actions to "raise" ambition, not to "lower" ambition." said Naoyuki Yamagishi, leader, Climate and Energy Group, WWF Japan in a media statement at the climate talks.

Related: COP19 – Day Five: Disappointment and despair over Japan's new targets | | COP19: Japan Gets Married To Coal | COP19: Japan’s Revised 2020 Target Causes Despair

Dismay At The Coal Powered Negotiations: photo by Sarah Marchildon via theverbHosting COP18 in Doha, a city built on oil, was a choice that didn’t go unnoticed for its irony. The fact that Poland, a country that relies on coal for 88 per cent of its energy needs, is hosting COP19 has proved to be an equally controversial topic. Further scrutiny has been placed on Poland after news that the World Coal Association is hosting the International Coal & Climate Summit in Warsaw on November 18th and 19th, in a direct scheduling conflict the UNFCCC meetings.

Related: Poland: Greenpeace protests at coal power stations as Warsaw Climate talks start |  Polish Government Perform Poorly, As Citizens Shine  |  Poles back renewables and climate action despite Tusk government’s total support of coal | Warsaw climate talks: nearly 3 in 10 countries not sending ministers | COP19: Youth observers expelled from UN climate change talks for Philippines Solidarity | Climate scientists say Success of climate talks vital for 2°C target

Philippines lead negotiator Yeb SanoHalf a world away from the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan, the Philippines delegation is in Warsaw, Poland, for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks. Yeb Sano leads the delegation and has made a speech at the plenary of the importance for taking substantive climate action now.

Last year Naderev Saño (Yeb Saño) made an impassioned speech last year at the Doha meeting after Typhoon Bopha slammed into the Philippines. Once again, this mild mannered diplomat feels the personal anguish of a disaster unfolding at home, indeed affecting his own family.

It is clear for several years that developing countries like the Philippines are bearing the brunt of the high costs of climate change. But even western countries are feeling the power of extreme weather events like superstorm Sandy, the Colorado extreme rainfall and floods, Alberta Floods, the Russian heatwave of 2010, England's trend for more intense rainfall, Australia's angry summer and sizzling autumn of 2013 or the unusually early Sydney bushfires.

Related: Time for turning tears into anger says Walden Bello | Philippine groups demand action on climate finance, loss and damage in Warsaw climate talks | Typhoon Haiyan: This is a climate crime | Filipino Diplomat Fasts for Progress at COP19 Warsaw Climate Change Talks | 

Super typhoon HaiyanOn the eve of the annual United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) meeting in Warsaw Poland, an extreme weather disaster has struck the Philippines with record-breaking Super-typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Yolanda), bringing devastating winds and storm surge.

Over 10,000 people are feared dead ,according to several media reports like this one in the Sydney Morning Herald, just in the province of Leyte, where the regional city of Tacloban, population of 221,000, was right in the path of the northern hurricane eye wall experiencing the full ferocity of destructive winds and tsunami like storm surge of over 5 metres.

Related: Philippines negotiator: "time to take action. We need an emergency climate pathway" | Time for turning tears into anger says Walden Bello

Bushfire smoke cloud over Sydney. Image: Maarten Danial / FlickrWidespread October bushfires in NSW are unusual, but have happened before, such as in 1991. This year there was an Early start to Australian bushfires, record temperatures in early September.

It is now the 7th time this bushfire season a total fire ban has been declared in Sydney. Very Unusual. If the fire weather is this bad so early in the season, it can only get worse over the coming months as Summer heats up, especially if we have extreme summer heatwaves similar to 2013.

Climate departure will affect the tropics disproportionately moreResearchers from the University of Hawaii have estimated the year when we depart the climate variability we have historically known for cities around the globe. But the study also identifies that the planet's oceans have already passed their climate departure point, and that the greatest impact of global warming will be felt in biodiversity and ecosystems in the tropics.

In a study published in Nature - The projected timing of climate departure from recent variability (abstract) - researchers lead by Camilo Mora from the Geography Department at the University of Hawaii sought to identify the point at which the climate at 54,000 locations on Earth will exceed the bounds of historical variability. They used a baseline period of 1860 to 2005 to determine natural temperature variability. Using results averaged from 39 different climate models, they then determined for each location measured the year point in which the coldest years are likely to be consistently hotter than any of the past 150 years.