Images of Merran Smith's two-year-old twins, Rowan and Taya, will be on a wall in Copenhagen next week as a reminder to world leaders that the next generation has to deal with their successes or failures.

The eyes of the world will be focused on Copenhagen as international leaders attempt to hammer out a global climate agreement, but much of the action will be taking place away from the official conference centre.

Thousands of grassroots environmental activists, including contingents from Victoria, will gather at KlimaForum 09 for an eclectic mixture of networking, lectures, brainstorming sessions, marches and demonstrations.

Smith, climate director of ForestEthics, has reluctantly decided not to go to Copenhagen, but she will be there in spirit and the twins' photos will be on the wall of pictures organized by Moms Against Climate Change.

"About 2,000 images will be projected on walls in Copenhagen, Ottawa and Vancouver to remind Stephen Harper who he is representing. I'm not sure that he gets that the environmental and economic impacts of foot-dragging today will be felt by our kids," Smith said.

Ken Wu, who will step down next month as campaign director for the Victoria branch of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, will speak on the importance of saving Vancouver Island's old-growth forests at a forum on temperate forests, but his main role will be joining with other Canadians to put pressure on Harper.

"The Harper government has been atrocious in its anti-environmental efforts to sabotage an effective international climate agreement by continually demanding weaker targets," Wu said.

"Harper's main role has been to continually ratchet down expectations, targets and measures that would shift the economy away from extracting and burning dirty fossil fuels toward a cleaner economy based on renewable energy."

The government has committed to reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020, but has not said how it will reach that goal.

The target, if met, would mean a three per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 -- well short of targets for 2012 made by Canada in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Indications that Canada is using the Alberta oilsands as a reason for special exemptions are particularly galling to B.C. activists who are fighting the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

The pipeline would bring oil from the oilsands to Kitimat and it would then be shipped in supertankers, through dangerous northern B.C. waters, to China and India.

"The oilsands are already Canada's fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas pollution, and production related to the Enbridge pipeline would produce an estimated 6.5 megatonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions each year," said Karen Campbell, legal counsel with the Pembina Institute's B.C. energy solutions program.

Jamie Biggar, a master's student at the University of Victoria's School of Environmental Studies, is one of 30 official Canadian youth delegates heading to Copenhagen.

"We'll be watching what our government is doing and making it transparent to Canadians so they can respond," he said.

Biggar believes Canadians want government to do more to reduce greenhouse gases.

"It has been shown that 75 per cent are embarrassed by the lack of international leadership from Canada," Biggar said.

"But I don't think most Canadians understand the degree to which our government is working to block an agreement in Copenhagen."

jlavoie@tc.canwest.com