Perhaps for now, those requiring a meaningful paradigm shift in global climate change discourse and negotiations have to reconsider their struggle.

It has been proven over time that the one thing that can change the attitudes and behaviour of political leaders is people's power.

In the past few months we have seen the regimes of Egypt and Libya crumbling as a result of their citizens' collective resolve.

People's power is not an unknown phenomenon to South Africa. The history of the UDFcomes to mind. The UDF focused itself on building on-the-ground democratic organisations of people's power while offering a united front for all those who shared in its cause.

Some environmental campaigns tend to highlight tips about what individuals and households must do to save the environment.

If COP 17 was to deliver an alternative and meaningful outcome to the negotiations, then it should be networks and partnerships that connect citizens across the world.

The extent to which the latest technology, such as social media, could turn this effort into a global people's power movement is phenomenal and potentially regime changing.

In the last few years social media has been the main source of news for a range of international news media.

Civil society groups, labour, industry and communities have to speak as one, acknowledging and reinforcing their various efforts as steps in the right direction.