7:00 - breakfast
7:30 - leave for conference and register
Explore exhibits in conference center
11:00-12:30 - World Conference of Churches "Renew the Face of the Earth": Faith-based approaches to Climate Justice
Lunch at the Green Cafe
2:15-3:45 - Gender CC: Lessons Learnt from Gendered Development Cooperation - Conclusions for Gender and Climate Policy
More Exploring
5:00 - United Nations Daily Briefing
It was all good until we got to the conference and encountered a HUGE line!
This is the line after we'd been there for about 20 minutes. (The building in the upper right corner is straight across from the entrance.)So, we waited... and waited... and waited. Eventually we ended up right front and center, and waited...some more. This time, we were in a huge crowd and packed together tighter than sardines. I couldn't even move my arms enough to get out the camera and take a picture! I have included one from the other side of the police baracade courtesy of someone on flikr.com. On the up side, we all stayed much warmer since we were squeezed so closely together.
Probably we wouldn't have made it the 6 1/2 hours we did had we been standing in a neat, orderly line. At any rate, we didn't make it in. After we had been there for 6 hours a leader from the United Nations came out and made an announcement that capacity had been reached for the day and they wouldn't be registering any more until spaces opened up. We had the choice to either stand there and wait for people to leave (there was a couple hundred people waiting in line once you got past the police baracade) or go find a warmer place and some food (we didn't have any food or drink with us since we weren't anticipating such a long wait). We chose to leave and try again early tomorrow. But, as I said in the title, today wasn't a total failure.
Since we were standing in such close quarters for such a long period of time, I had the opportunity to get to know some wonderful people and I'd like to share their stories. First I met Anna. She is here with the Church of Sweden and is primarily interested in climate change and social justice. She is here representing those who must walk 5 miles to the nearest well which is probably contaminated. She is here representing those while others overindulge. She is here to remind us that while we do indeed need to care for creation, we are also caring for our neighbor.
Another person I met was Naor. Naor is from Israel and was here with an NGO to lobby the Israeli government. Thus far, climate change has not been even a topic for discussion in Israeli politics. However, the NGO Naor is with lobbied the government to at least talk about climate change and they had a discussion in their session yesterday. He hopes that talking about climate change will also help with the conflict in Israel/Palestine as he admits that since Israel supplies most of the power and water to the Gaza Strip a lot of conflict revolves around energy. He also hopes to help the government put to use some of the renewable and solar technology that Israel sells to others: Spain, China, and California.
I stood next to a Canadian who works for the Yukon government, a Brazilian who works at the Brazilian stock exchange, an Englishman who works for an NGO that lobbies for environmental rights in Hong Kong, a pair of Spaniards with a group called "Friends of the Earth", a musician who uses music to spread the message about care for creation, a woman from Botswana, and many, many more.
As we waited, a gentleman behind me commented that our waiting right in front of the doors was a great metaphor for what is happening with climate change in general. We, as a global community, are very close to making some wonderful things happen - it is just taking a lot longer than any of us expected. People are pushing to try to make it work (there was a LOT of pushing in this crowd!) and people are hoping for the sake of our earth that some good will come out of Copenhagen.
While I remain hopeful that some good will come out of this conference, it is more and more plain that any policy is far out of reach. The conference was suspended this afternoon after some African countries protested. The G77 which represents 130 developing countries is concerned that because Kyoto is expiring the emissions policies won't be upheld while a new protocol is formulated. Action as a result of this conference is obviously an imperative, regardless of whether or not a new protocol is reached in negotiations.
Hopefully I will get registered tomorrow morning (we're planning on taking the 5:27 bus) and I will have more firsthand information to report. Until next time...
Sweet, hope you get in tomorrow. did you see anything about the g77-china group delaying talks?
ReplyDeleteHello Swedishdest,
ReplyDeleteWe did hear quite a bit about the G77 countries leaving, and that is primarily why the conference was suspended. The 'developing' countries are worried that 1) they won't have the finances to implement any changes and mostly 2) that the G8 countries won't agree to continue Kyoto (which the US isn't abiding by anyway) which will further endanger the millions of Africans already suffering from climate change.
The conference negotiations were resumed last night, and there has been significant progress in talks about water and carbon emissions. We'll see today where it goes.
Hello Swedishdest,
ReplyDeleteWe did hear quite a bit about the G77 countries leaving, and that is primarily why the conference was suspended. The 'developing' countries are worried that 1) they won't have the finances to implement any changes and mostly 2) that the G8 countries won't agree to continue Kyoto (which the US isn't abiding by anyway) which will further endanger the millions of Africans already suffering from climate change.
The conference negotiations were resumed last night, and there has been significant progress in talks about water and carbon emissions. We'll see today where it goes.