Up Until This Point…
Up until this point, the negotiations seemed to be going like always, lots of prepared speeches, expressed opinions, frequent rebuttals, and the like. The youth at the conference, or YOUNGOs as we call ourselves, have been meeting everyday to brief each other on what is going on at the meetings, what to expect, who is likely to hold negotiations back, etc. Since we are an actual delegation now, we have a seat at the negotiations and the other day our representatives got the opportunity to address all the delegates at a COP meeting. That is basically amazing. We even dropped in (or perhaps interrupted) a climate skeptics talk with some banners and chants on how clean energy creates jobs and how this is now an energy revolution. O and did I mention it was a live broadcast? Pretty cool stuff.
But what is even more interesting, and perhaps a little frightening, is what has been actually happening at the plenary sessions since Tuvalu declared a suspension of the COP. The answer is, well, nothing. Thursdays plenary session was originally when Kazakhstan was to give their two cents, like Tuvalu had done before, about their provisions to the Kyoto Protocol. But it seemed the same set of occurrences followed. There was much debate coming from all sides, from India and China holding tight to Kyoto, some small nations looking for Kyoto to have some changes, and European countries just wanting a legally binding agreement.
Since the suspension and the endless debate on virtually nothing, the NGOs have spent hours waiting in the plenary room for hours, making sure we could get a seat for the next plenary session, but it seems this morning when we tried to sit down to listen to the meeting, to our surprise, we were told to leave and told that it is a closed session. Great. This makes us all even more nervous. Hedegaard pulled select delegates into the closed meeting yesterday and we will supposedly see some form of decision about where to go next by tomorrow. Supposedly, the nations are to have some form of draft by tomorrow. But with the, what looks like, secrecy regarding these sessions, I just don’t see that happening. We are halfway through the conference and have yet to see any solid progress come out. The contact groups have not even been able to discuss anything because Hedegaard canceled all contact group meetings until she and the delegates came out of the closed meetings.
Tomorrow will be an interesting and stimulating day, I am sure, which makes me happy that we are leaving Sunday and not Saturday like I thought. The IC delegation has some unnamed sources that say the delegates will for sure have some form of a commitment treaty, less than 10 pages long, by the end of the two weeks. And a number of people we question about it say the same. I am of course hopeful in every way that that some form of solid commitment will occur, but if it is to happen, the delegates are going to have to work diligently through this next week to make sure of that. All nations have their own interests in mind, like I have said time and time again, but this is the time to understand how drastic this issue is. As I heard in one of my side events the other day, this is not an issue that is happening “over there,” it is happening here. Let’s get it done.
Until tomorrow…
Categories: National, The World
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When you went to the climate skeptics discussion with banners and chants, are you saying you were involved in a “pro protest”? What did your banners and chants say? Any of them: “There ain’t no power like the power of the people ’cause the power of the people don’t stop”; “There’s no such place as away”; or the like?
Hi Ben! Sorry for the miscommunication. We were protesting against what the organization was saying in regards to climate change, referring to it at one point as something we would find out in later years was all a hoax. Chants were things like “We are sick of the pollution…this is an energy revolution,” and “Clean energy makes jobs.” I am definitely familiar with those chants you mentioned though. The banners said the same things as the chants. Hope that helps!