climate chaos

Sorry for the delay - the internet connection at our hostel has been sketchy.

Lots of news: First of all, it turns out that the Bella Center has a maximum capacity of around 15,000 - and yet the UN accredited 34,000 observers. This means that more than 15,000 of us stood outside the conference center yesterday morning for over five hours, waiting to get our badges, before we were informed that we would not be allowed to enter the building. It was snowing. The guards were literally holding back the crowd with their outstretched arms. This crowd was composed of NGO reps, students, and journalists, all of whom had been promised accreditation. In an effort to ward off hypothermia, some of us performed frantic aerobic exercises, and huddled together for warmth. After five hours of waiting, someone announced that accreditation had ended for the day - there was simply not enough room to accommodate all of us.

This strikes me as extremely poor organization on the part of Denmark and the UN. According to UCSB professor Bob Wilkinson, who is here in Copenhagen with us, and who has been to many similar conferences before,  this kind of chaos has never occurred at any other COP or similar conference. Since there are too many accredited observers, it seems that the new plan is to assign a quota to each group or NGO - one third of the members of each group will receive secondary passes, which you must now have to enter the center. Our group of twenty-four students received three secondary passes, which we will have to trade off between ourselves. Furthermore, the UN is apparently going to pare down on the number of observers allowed each day - so by Friday, only ninety NGO observers will be represented at the conference. Of course, all of this is merely rumor - no one seems to know exactly what is going on.

But all is certainly not lost. After the five hour ordeal yesterday morning, I headed over to Klimaforum  - "the people's forum on climate change." This is a huge event happening in the city center, comprised of hundreds of lectures, exhibits, panels, and workshops. I went to a panel called "Indigenous Voices on Climate Change," in which indigenous people from Guatemala, Kenya, the Philippines, Australia, and the US spoke about how climate change impacts their communities. Since indigenous communities are so closely engaged with the natural environment, to destroy that environment is to destroy their homes, their gods, their livelihoods. But though indigenous people are now disproportionally bearing the effects of climate change, they reminded us that we are all connected, and all effected, in the long run. The panel was very inspiring, and I have a lot more revelations about it to share with you later.

Next at Klimaforum, I saw Bill McKibben and the president of the Maldives speak about how we need to work immediately to reduce CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. 350 is the number that many scientists have agreed is "safe". We are currently at around 394 ppm. Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an campaign to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The president of the Maldives has a vested interest in this campaign because the Maldives lies only 5 meters above sea level, and will soon be underwater if climate change continues at its current rate. The president is a sort of Nelson Mandela-like character - once imprisoned for political protesting against an authoritarian regime, he is now the first democratically elected leader in the Maldives. His speech was  inspiring - it was refreshing to hear a political leader speak so frankly and logically about climate issues. He also reminded us that politicians are reactionaries, not activists - they must eventually respond to their constituents - and so he encouraged us to continue lobbying and protesting for stricter climate reform, citing his own success with democratic protests in the Maldives.

Last night, our entire UCSB delegation met up to swap stories and information from the day. Some of  my peers who had registered early got into the conference yesterday, and reported some big news: the G-77, an alliance of developing nations including China and India, walked out of the negotiations. According to Professor Wilkinson, the walkout was spurred by disagreements over whether or not the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCC legislation that is partially set to expire in two years) should be preserved and revised, or scrapped and completely reframed. 

In somewhat better news, the US agreed to put up 80 million dollars to assist developing nations with sustainable, "green" development, and China agreed to stop insisting on reparations. 

This morning, I got up at five, rushed to the Bella Center in the cold darkness, and stood in line for over two hours - but I finally made it inside!!! Right now I'm sitting in a conference room with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, waiting for the Oxfam International Climate Hearing to start. I'll report more in a few hours.

From the Bella Center in Copenhagen (at last!),

Natasha