ClimateDebate

About thirty eager NGO representatives and climate enthusiasts yesterday attended the Model United Nations Climate Conference at the HK Headquarter (the Union of Commercial and Clerical Employees in Denmark) in Copenhagen. They were tasked with the difficult but important job of setting an example for the worlds leaders by attempting to reach an ambitious climate agreement within the COP15 framework.

It was the second time that DanMUN and the Danish UNA teamed up together, to offer interested parties the opportunity to fill out the shoes of the worlds leaders in the quest to reach a global climate agreement. And once again it was a big success!

The participants all expressed their gratitude for being given the opportunity to engage in the climate negotiations on close hand as opposed to the usual  distant stance which NGO representatives usually finds themselves in. Most of the participants were accredited to enter the negotiations at the Bella Center and therefore visually had a good connection with how the “real negotiations” played out. However, only a few were aquatinted with the many technicalities that the climate negotiations entail, but everyone were very willing to learn.

It is a hard task to ignore your personal point of view and take upon you the agenda of a politician which you might disagree with. It is nonetheless a task that is very rewarding.

We look forward to offer this opportunity to even more students and climate enthusiasts in the future.

Her lige på falderebet kommer en opfordring til at støtte op om den folkelige demonstration på ’Global Day of Action’

 I morgen lørdag d. 12. december deltager FN-forbundet i den folkelige demonstration, der skal sætte fokus på, at verdens befolkninger ønsker en klimaaftale, der er ambitiøs og globalt og socialt retfærdig.

Flere organisationer støtter demonstrationen, som på en fredelig måde skal manifestere, at civilsamfundet ønsker handling nu.

 Demonstrationen starter kl. 13 på Christiansborg Slotsplads og bevæger sig herefter ud til Bella Center.

 Mens vi venter på slotspladsen på, at demonstrationen går i gang, og også mens demonstrationen bevæger sig afsted, har vi (lige som vi har gjort det her på menneskerettighedsdagen den 10. december) lavet en lille hyggelig ’ryst-posen-og-træk-et-spørgsmål-konkurrence’ med børne- og voksenspørgsmål om FN, Klima og menneskerettigheder.

 Kunne du tænke dig at deltage sammen med os, så mød op på FN-forbundets sekretariat kl. 12.30, hvorfra vi går i samlet flok til Christiansborg Slotsplads og slutter os til demonstrationen.

 Man kan læse mere om demonstrationen på nedenstående links:

 http://www.peoplesclimateaction.dk/dk/41555/12.%20december og http://12dec09.dk/content/nyheder/12dec-hvad-sker

 Vel mødt

Tusindvis af verdens borgere er rejst til København her i december for at lade deres stemme høre – i håbet om at netop deres stemme bliver hørt i de politiske forhandlinger, der foregår lige nu.

En god håndfuld af dem har vi haft på besøg her på FN-forbundet i denne uge. Heriblandt fra Finland, Brasilien, Tanzania og Indien, hvad der til tider har været ret underholdende for os her på sekretariatet. Eksempelvis at præsentere fænomenet æbleskiver for en meget skeptisk inder (der dog blev så overbevist om æbleskivens kvalitet, at hun fik en pose med hjem). Eller tanzanianeren, iklædt stor og farverig Manchester United-jakke og hue, der egentlig var pænt ligeglad med fodbold, men syntes, det var meget koldt i Danmark, og meget kan man sige om briterne, men de forstår sig på at lave vinterovertøj.

Men dét til en side, så står alvoren bag tal-legene og forhandlingsspillene i Bella Center lige pludseligt meget klar, når man sidder over for dem, der rent faktisk mærker klimaforandringerne i deres hverdag og ser, hvordan det landskab, de er vokset op med, ændres i takt med den globale opvarmning.

Der er brug for det etablerede diplomati, der i øjeblikket kører for fuldt blus lige her midt i København (selvom det er helt derude på Amager). Men der er sandelig også brug for stemmerne fra sidelinjen. Nogle gange tænker jeg, det ville være sundt for alle embedsmændene og deres ministre at komme lidt væk fra de bonede gulve og måske – oh ve – uden for murene? Måske de ville møde nogle af alle dem, der lever med konsekvenserne af klimaforandringerne i hverdagen? Måske en fair og ambitiøs klimaaftale så ville komme ét skridt tættere på?

All is not just meetings, unless you are in the specific text-negotiations. Might sound contradictory as the reason to meet at COP15 is to negotiate text. But COP15 is just so much more.

At the core you have the negotiators, who need to have prepared texts for the Ministers coming in during the weekend, who needs to have text ready for the Heads of States coming in Wednesday, who needs to have decisions ready for the World next Friday.

Surrounding them you have “the professional Civil Society” closely following the negotiations, knowing the subjects, the positions and the discussions, being ready with suggestions for solutions, and putting on pressure when things are about to go wrong. Also acting is the business and industry having their interests.

The next layer is the media observing and reporting – when there is no breaking news in the negotiations they’ll report on anything moving or dying, as long as they consider it being of public interest.

Then you find the “outsider” NGOs acting outside to the Bella Center, working with and involving greater constituencies, educating and interacting more closely with the general public, staging events and mobilising for action.

Whether being insider or outsider NGO you do also use the COP as an opportunity and a venue to network, establishing new or strengthening old contacts and networks, to share your knowledge and expertise, to participate in side-events learning things you maybe didn’t know, planning for the future where decisions taken and not taken in the Bella Center needs to be implemented.

And then there are the events and cultural stuff. Copenhagen is not only filled with activities closely related to the climate negotiations (like “Klimaforun‘09” in the DGI-byen, “Klima for Dummies” in Borups Højskole, “The Bottom Meeting” at Christiania). The COP is also utilised as an opportunity to frame or stage more general cultural activities, like “Hopenhagen” at the Town Hall Square. Tuesday afternoon I attended an event at the beautiful museum “Thorvaldsens”, where my youngest daughter and her choir presented Songs for the Earth. It is a big choir so the parents and relatives did create a crowd but apart from that not many ordinary people or COP-participants were present. I think too many things are getting the “climate-label” so people get tired of it all or stop noticing – or if they are in the process they don’t have time to attend.

The same evening we had our “get-together” reception at the UNA-office for participants from or friends of UNAs. A nice group turned up and we had a good opportunity to interact and get familiarised.

Wednesday some of the reception-participants had the opportunity to present their work in a side-event organised at the “Klimaforum’09” titled “Making marginalised voices heard in the UN climate process”. It was interesting to learn about the experiences of India, Brazil, Tanzania and Finland. Being a political scientist and keen observer of overall civil society involvement, I particularly appreciated the Finnish observations on the issue of participating not being the same as influencing (“Civil servants use these sometimes as synonyms; CSO participation is not an objective in itself (at least not for the NGOs); Representatives of NGOs see that it is not desirable to legitimate administration procedures with non-effective participation; Especially Sámi people are fed up with quasi-participation” Jenni Kauppila). Amongst the other interesting points raised was Tanzania quoting a local fisherman “What do I care about [abstract threats, i.e. Aids and Climate] when I can die tonight fishing?”.

One of the more entertaining events of COP15 is the daily presentation of the Fossil of the Day. The Fossil of the Day Award is given to the country or countries doing the most to obstruct progress in the global climate talks. The award is presented by the NGO group Climate Action Network, and the winner on the first day of COP15 was the Industrialized Countries. They received the award for coming to Copenhagen with a profound deficit of ambition for cutting carbon emissions and keeping warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Ukraine received “the honour” of being Fossil of the Day on day 2. The honour was bestowed upon them because they have the single worst carbon emissions reduction target in the world: a -20% reduction from 1990 levels, which means a 75% increase from current levels. Congratulations to Ukraine!

Who will get it the next days? Wait and see… you can find the newest Fossil of the Day here

First time at a UN Climate Conference, and when I left late Tuesday afternoon from Bella Center, it was with a feeling, that I had just attended something very important. Thousands of people gathered in one place to discuss the climate – although with different agendas: people fighting for rights of indigenous people, people showing new climate friendly technologies and others ensuring, that the participants were entertained with happenings, where they showed their point of view on whatever topic they were interested in. But all were, in some way or another interested in the climate.

 My own interest, forestry, brought me to sessions about REDD – reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; an initiative rewarding developing countries financially for avoiding deforestation and forest degradation. The statements from the countries were positive in regards to REDD, yet, as we all know, there is a long way from positive attitudes to a decision on REDD that has positive impacts on local forest dependent people in the developing countries. As a spokesperson from an organisation for indigenous people said: there is a need to involve indigenous people in the development of technical and implementation issues of REDD – otherwise the benefits from REDD will not reach this group of people. And although, statements from some of the countries mentioned involvement of forest dependent people in regard to REDD, only time will show, if the further development of REDD will become inclusive.

 My Climate Conference experiences in Bella center will continue next week, and until then I will join the rest of climate interested people in Copenhagen in some of the many other activities that are taking place these two weeks in Copenhagen. This Thursday I am involved in a mini climate conference (www.muncc.dk) with the Danish United Nations Association, which I am looking forward to.

The genie is out of the bottle and something hit the fan. It is only 10 hours ago we asked the Danish negotiators about the Danish non-paper that had been circulated. We couldn’t get it because 1) it was confidential 2) it didn’t exist anymore. The paper seemed to be an attempt to table one coherent package but seeing the futility of this attempt, the Climate Ministry’s piecemeal approach took over, i.e. working on many issue-papers. One hour later The Guardian leaked the old paper resulting in strong reactions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text

What seemed to be a dull Wednesday now will become a day of damage control.

I just attended my first two COP-meetings and thereby had my “formal” climate virginity stripped. I can’t say that what I experienced was overly surprising. Both were start up meetings and mostly dealt with listing up the agenda for future meetings, pointing out stakeholders for specific issue areas and of course the initial opening speeches with momentarily highlights. All in all it is an overwhelming and exciting experience merely to be present here. Time will tell whether I’ll be allowed to participate in some of the more interesting meetings – that is if I can find my way there in this huge climate forum. More from me later on. Writing from my cell phone so please excuse my spelling.

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Well, it got off to a good start – or so the general feeling of the opening is. Especially the President of the conference, Ms Connie Hedegaard, did give an upbeat opening speech where she emphasised that now is the time to act. No pointing finger at that. But it was a bit peculiar to see and listen to the Danish Prime Minister, his comments on “we are all commited to take action” and his reference to the civil society: “…the involvement of the Civil Society is of paramount importance”.

Nice words, but not really based on reality. For one thing, there are no NGOs on the Danish delegation, being thrown out more than a year ago (and meaning that the next reporting on the Aarhus Convention can no longer contain the paragraph on Denmark involving NGOs on delegation in international environmental negotiations). This policy fully in line with the Governments policy of the last 8 years of disengaging with experts and people who know what they are talking about (“smagsdommere” in new-speech), replacing independent panels with groups loyal to Government policy or removing funding to inconvenient truth. One consequence for Danish UNA is that we no longer are able to participate in the UNs General Assembly on a regular basis.

Later in the day PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen hosted an event on “Delivering the message” to allow civil society present conclusions and recommendations to the COP-presidency. Funny thing was that the State Ministry did neither consult nor inform the Danish NGO-coalition most closely following the negotiations and facilitating NGO-involvement in the COP-process, the Danish ’92 Group. They/we had to read about it in the side-event schedule. Not to criticise Mr Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace International, who was directly asked by the State Ministry to attend, but it seems a bit strange, after the PM have cancelled two prior meetings with us.

Green NGOs in the USA are today referring to the Danish Government and PM under the heading “Scandal! Bullying!” Just hosting a climate conference does not automatically make you green.

The clock at unfccc.int is not counting the days anymore; we are down to 11 hours! About time, as we have waited for this event since 2007. On this last day before the COP starts the mood amongst people could be described as anxious anticipation.

At “Øksnehallen” the Climate Exchange ended 4 days of exhibits, lectures and discussions, and I just managed to catch a glimpse of what had been going on out there. Met Jeffrey, a friend from the CSD and WSSD-processes I haven’t seen since 2003, but only for a brief moment before he was dragged away to finalise a joint statement of participating organisations.

Prior to that Lars Myrthue had happily invited me to the reception Monday on Øko-nets latest CD-release with the artists Sara Grabow, Thomas Buttenschøn, Povl Dissing & Rasmus Lyberth, Mikael K & Klondyke, Henrik Strube, Juncker & Jonas Breum + Jøden, Mike Sheridan & Kenneth Thordal, Kinski, Mouritz/Hørslev Projektet, Donna Cadogan, Bænken Inc. and Tamra Rosanes. If you are not doing anything else, it takes place Monday December 7^th, 15.00-18.00 in RÅHUSET, Onkel Dannys Plads 7, 1711 København V.

I managed to be in time for the opening at Borups Højskole of the Danish Folk High Schools Come2gether-project “Climate for Dummies”, that will end Saturday the 12^th – to be a relaxed place with adult edutainment. Problem was that the opening was not in time for me. That is, Kim Nguyen (Ride Planet Earth) who set out from Brisbane on bike August 10^th 2008 to reach Borups Højskole December 6^th at 14.00 was slightly delayed. Had a nice talk with his parents about non-formal education, one of Kim’s Austrian hosts, and Anders whom I spent memorable moments in Johannesburg with during WSSD. Line and Berit and their team have worked wonders and I am sure Borups will be a natural meeting point for people the next week.

Had planned to get some papers at the Bella Center but as I was approaching I first noticed a fairly large queue in front of the East entrance, then the even larger queue waiting to cross the street and show ID’s to the police – and decided to just bike on home. Turned out to be a wise decision as Anni, the SG of the Danish UNA, later called to tell about Anne Marie, our media-coordinator, who after 1½ hour in line had been turned away by the police at 17.30 because they claimed they would not be able to make it in time for the closure of the registration. Funny thing is, had it been any other day the police would have been right, but Sunday the registration was to be open ‘till 21.00. Somebody should have told the police. Anni also referred to the registration people when telling about the Monday opening, and the limit of only 500 NGOs in the Bella Center. That must be in the plenary, as it is not big enough for the many registered participants. We’ll be wiser tomorrow!