After two years of negotiating, debating and wrangling, but very little agreement, there now remains just one day. A single day for world leaders, environment ministers and other delegates at the COP15 to sign a deal.
It’s been an incredible 24 hours here in Copenhagen. On Wednesday, there was an astonishing show of unity, ingenuity and solidarity as thousands of protesters assembled outside the Bella Center. The UN climate talks are in chaos.
NGOs like Oxfam are getting excluded from discussions while corporate lobbyists are being included. The atmosphere at the Bella Center could not be colder. A few miles up the road, however, warmer discussions are taking place.
Understanding climate change needn’t be as complex as the UN negotiators are making it. The solutions themselves, too, should be simple. Yet no-one in the Bella Center seems able to agree.
With the weekend over, a sleepy Copenhagen 3 have departed Denmark for the UK after 36 hours of intense campaigning, marching and banner-waving. The train journey has afforded us much time for reflection, to pull together the events of the weekend and evaluate our experience.
Today has been a time for reflection as we’ve had the chance to really digest yesterday’s exciting events and find out more about the current state of the negotiations and the upcoming week of the Conference.
The sky was blue and the sun was shining as thousands of activists gathered in downtown Copenhagen for Saturday’s epic march to the Bella Centre, host of the UN Climate Change Conference.
I hope that the world’s leaders are watching today, I hope they’re reading the banners, listening to the chants and really taking on board our message. I hope that they translate the clarion call of activists across the world into a deal that we can all be proud of: now is the time to be brave and ambitious.
The atmosphere at St Pancras is one of excitement, with activists from many different organisations crowding onto the train; banners of all colours, a veritable music shop full of instruments and even a blue windmill are catching the attention of the other mainly business suit-clad travellers.
For me the most frustrating thing is that while global warming can be tackled and catastrophic climate change avoided, they appear to be flirting with disaster. The targets that they need to achieve are not insurmountable and are much preferred to the possible consequences of them not reaching a decision.
