Stuart Grad Gets Standing Ovation, Then Ejected from UN Conference

Abigail Borah, a 2009 graduate of Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, disrupted and was then ejected from the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa on Thursday.

Borah interrupted Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s special envoy for climate change and top U.S. negotiator as he spoke to the delegates.

"I am scared for my future," Borah said. "2020 is too late to wait. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty.” She urged Stern to “ Take responsibility to act now.  The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait.

“We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. We need leaders who will commit to real change, not empty rhetoric. Keep your promises. Keep our hope alive," she said.

According to a report in The New York Times, Borah was voicing concern that the U.S is dragging its feet on climate change until the Kyoto Protocol and voluntary programs have concluded. 

Borah is currently a junior at Middlebury College in Vermont where she majors in Conservation Biology in the Environmental Studies Department. She attended Stuart for 16 years, from preSchool through graduation. 

She is in South Africa as a member of the Sustain US delegation, the single U.S. youth delegation to the conference.