Cop 15, December 2009 : A Reflection – by Elisabeth Mills, 2i
Last December I had the opportunity to be an observer at the 15th meeting of the conference of parties, which took place in Copenhagen's Bella centre.
The Youth Association of Science (UNF) had in the past been co-organisers of the 'Youth Climate Conference'(http://www.ycc2009.org/) around the world. Through this project they were granted access to the conference as observers.
Our delegation at the conference consisted of 17 people of which 8 were from Denmark, and the remaining 9 were from Tunisia, Namibia, Kuwait and Mexico.
Monday I intended to go to the official opening plenary, but was too late – even though the meeting itself was about ¾ of an hour behind schedule. Despite this the atmosphere in the beginning of the conference was positive, with high spirits.
The ceremony was webcasted into another big hall, where many NGO's and journalists sat.
As a part of the presentation of Denmark the film “please help the world” was shown, it presented the concern of a little child over climate change, and pleaded that something be done about the issue.
Once the meeting itself began, official matters such as electing the chairman were conducted. Connie Hedegaard was elected.
At that time I was alone, and awaiting the arrival of my companions. It took a few hours for them to get inside and registered. Finally, at around 2pm we were together and decided to go to an official meeting in the big Tycho Brahe plenary hall. |
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At the entrance of the hall stood the UN security guards. They said that in order to see such meetings we would require a special NGO card, and thus the elusive search began.
However if there where spaces left we would be able to go in, and as the security guard explained to other NGO's 'you must do like them' – as we walked in bagless.
The hall was so big, that at the back there was hardly a better view than watching it on the television, the people at the front were miniature, just barely visible.
The meeting itself was confusing, instead of referring directly to the issues concerned, people referred to documents and used mostly unintelligible acronyms. However even to an uninitiated observer the divisions were already clear; with non Annex I countries raising their issues to the proposed.
Come break time we decided that we could not possibly follow what was going on, and left to go to the reception at Copenhagen's city hall. This was also the inaugural event of “Hopenhagen”. People got the opportunity to reflect how much energy even the little everyday things such as powering Christmas tree lights took. Several people, all cycling hard.
Wednesday:
The amount of participants and demonstrations (both inside and out) was increasing.
We went to a presentation by the small island state Kiribati. The islands, located in the south pacific are at great risk of the consequences of global warming. Being such narrow islands, their freshwater supply is at great risk from being contaminated by saltwater before the end of this century, which in conjunction with receding landmass may force them to relocate, leaving their community spirit, cultural heritage and ancestors behind.
During this presentation I realised what one of the main conflict points between different parties were; whether to adapt to or mitigate the effects of climate change.
The AOSIS (Association of small island states) of which Kiribati is a member, campaigns that pollution levels be kept at a minimum, and that warming be kept below 1.5ºC.
Although a difference of 0.5ºC between targets may seem little and insignificant, for a low lying country such as Kiribati 60 cm of sea level rise makes a big difference.
Although Kiribati seeks to keep their islands, they are adapting by educating their youth through projects such as KANI (http://www.kaniworld.com/) to fill the labour gaps in countries and avoid becoming climate change refugees.
Friday we heard some European hosted lectures, talking about how citizens are aware of the climate. On large problem for people is their perception that a degree or two more will not make any difference.
This was illustrated when, only a few days later, the cold and spells of snow began. Which according to some sources may have been what messed up the talks... who can talk about climate change and global warming, when it is cold outside – and perhaps the first snow in some person's life? At any rate this caused a proliferation of satirical facebook statutes along the lines of “wow, the climate meeting really was effective, I can feel the cooling already”.
On Sunday the remainder of our delegation arrived, until then we had only been 3 at the most. We took the opportunity to visit 'Klima forum' in DGI byen, it was nice to see the amount of people who participated.
Unfortunately the conference was entirely closed on that day, which meant people couldn't register.
Where already on Monday in the first week it took hours to queue, on the second Monday it was near impossible:
Almost our entire delegation had not yet been registered, so they had the joy of joining the day long queues to get in; there was no official word on what was happening. They had gone before breakfast and queued from 9am to 6pm in the cold, until it was finally announced that no-one was going to get in.
This trouble was for everyone; no matter how “important” a person was, they still couldn't get in.
It's hard to say, but this probably routed in the fact that around 3 times as many people had gotten accreditations as there were places.
It is hard to say why this happened, but possible reasons could be the fact that whoever accepted people for accreditations weren't thinking practically – by allowing about 3 or so times as many people apply as there were places.
Within the centre confusion was growing. On information screens meetings were displayed as postponed, but with no form of information circulation (apart from the internet)within there was no way of knowing what was happening.
This confusion is reflected by the following article. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/12/cop15_lockouts_and_walkouts.html
Throughout the weeks NGO's were trying to raise awareness of what was going on, and which countries had stalled in talks, and which had progressed forwards. It was also done in a humorous way that captured people's attention and imagination.
http://www.fossiloftheday.com/
http://www.ageofstupid.net/stupid-show
Monday was the last day I spent at the conference; as the organisers had allowed far too many people in, the amount of NGOs was restricted to about half. As I had already been there the previous week the other's were prioritised, and all but one were able to actually get inside, if only for a day.
On Thursday and Friday only 300 NGOs were granted access, to be selected by the community focal points.
The outcome of the meeting is known as the 'Copenhagen accord' and is a non-legally binding document that recognises the problems faced by the world, and that something should be done. But there is no target, countries themselves must set it. Temperature changes should be kept to 2ºC, which would mean that small island states will indeed have problems. It was hoped that Copenhagen would be able to replace the Kyoto, but that seems not to be the case.
Now it only remains to see how many countries will sign up before the January 31st, and wish everyone luck at COP 16 in Mexico later this year! |
