Addendum: George Monbiot speaking

… and Polly speaking as well.

Ok… this is probably gonna be my last entry in this blog… After a horribly long train ride, ‘sweetened’ by a group of English and presumably French Greenpeace activists having a party in the compartment next door until one in the night, a two-hour something delay we caught in Hannover when stopping and waiting for a train from Russia we got the engine from (yes, this is globalization… the train’s cars were all frozen and covered by snow, and a strange bergamot aroma was in the air… weird… very weird) while our engineer decided to switch off our heating… I’m home in the end, in Cologne… so yeah… lean back for this last bit of my blog and enjoy!

I promised a couple of days back I’d comment on my return to DGI Byen a.k.a. Klimaforum these days. As you already know, there was no way to get into the Bella Center on Thursday and Friday, so there was not too much of an alternative to joining in the more left-wing folk. And this time, it seemed it would really be worth it, as well-know climate and environmental activist and journalist of the Guardian George Monbiot would be speaking. There were actually two people sitting at the speaker’s table in the end, George and Polly, an environmental lawyer from the UK. Her point was mainly that in analogy to the care a legal guardian takes for an underage kid, mankind or individual human beings should (all) take care of Mother Earth as her legal guardians. There would only be the need of an analogous legal framework allowing for eventual suits, and yeah, things would be pretty much settled. At least that’s what I understood from what she said… Polly was impressing and really determined (her favorite start of a sentence would be “I, as a lawyer…”), although I kind of perceived that her view was a bit too ‘idealistic’ for my taste. The whole presentation (mainly held by Polly) and subsequent discussion round (directed by George) left me with a weird aftertaste. I guess I’m just not idealistic enough for believing that it’s all that straightforward – and yeah, COP15 made me loose some of my childlike airiness, believing that ‘in the end everything would just turn out fine and all problems dissolve themselves magically’… like the proverbial Gordian Knot.

As I really can’t reproduce the discussion we had in DGI Byen’s orange hall/room (too complex, too many comments, too many strange reasonings/deductions), I post an interview Ronack Monabay (UCJS) held with George, which I retrieved from Klimaforum.

A short interview with George Monbiot

After a missed interview with the President of Maldives, I finally managed to interview George Monbiot -thanks to Hanshenrik-. Well known journalist and ecological activist, he writes regularly for the Guardian. I wish I had time to ask sharper questions but I promise, I will do better and longer next time. It gives us his rough impressions of the bankruptcy already announced from COP15.

First of all, what is your opinion of the COP15 talks?

It has been a complete wash out to be honest… It is absolutely hopeless. Cutting each other rather than bidding each other up, which is what they should have been doing, and just producing weaker and weaker proposals every day, as times have gone by. Some countries have done alright. The UK government has not been bad at all but the European Union has just disappeared off the face of the Earth. During the Kyoto talks in 1997 it was the EU who was really pushing it. This time they are nowhere to be seen. The real hero of the talks seems to be Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese delegate who has really pushed the wealthy nations to pay attention to what the science is saying. It is ironic that it takes someone from one of the poorest nations on Earth to tell the rich nations who commissioned and paid most of the science themselves to tell them what the science actually says.

Do you think that your view of the COP process has changed during this couple of weeks? Were you more hopeful at the start?

I was never bursting with optimism, because I knew what the constraints were. We also have to remember that hanging over everything is the fact that the US Senate hasn’t made a decision yet, and is unlikely to make a decision that reflects the gravity of the situation. Until the Senate sings everything else is a dead letter really. But I have to say that even my fairly gloomy outlook doesn’t match the full scale of the uselessness of those cretins who are so far utterly failing to produce anything resembling a sensible agreement.

Do you think it is time for a all new political process?

Yes, I do. I think one of the things that is very striking to me is how little has changed in 150 years. The faces round the table are different, there are people from many more countries of the world than during the old negotiations when European powers took a map of the world and drew lines across it and divided it up between them. But there are simply no engagements with people outside those national governments. It’s just not happening. There is no process by which the people can feed their views into the process. We have got to move on from this model, where national governments who were elected for totally different reasons than the negotiations taking place here and assume a mandate to speak on behalf of all the people of the world without any reference to the people of the world. That has to change. The process is corrupt, it is exclusive. There is a complete wall between those who claim to represent us and the people, and it’s hardly surprising really that it’s produced so far nothing of substance.

Indeed, but don’t you think that it’s very difficult for governments to have any kind of public participation when actually a lot of the policies which they might propose may be very unpopular?

That is definitely one of the problems, I’m no champion of the UK government normally, but it is ahead of the people, unfortunately. You’d like to believe that it is the people pushing the people, but in the case it’s the government pulling the people, and it’s saying we are taking a relatively firm position on climate change, doesn’t go far enough but a relatively good position on change, because we believe this is the right thing to do and it’s saying we are taking a relatively firm position on climate change – doesn’t go far enough but a relatively good position on climate change because this is what we think is the right thing to do and is what our scientific advisors are telling us we ought to do. But we don’t see that massive groundswell of popular opinion saying these are the climate policies we want – deliver or else we’ll boot you out at the next election. It is a real shame. We should be seeing hundreds of thousands of people on the streets. This is after all the most important meeting that has ever taken place or it should have been because it is about the most important issue, about the biggest challenge humankind has ever faced. So where is everyone?

Supposing that it does collapse and nothing or a very weak deal comes out of it. How do we galvanize civil society and the public to gather energy together and focus on the issue once again? Is there not a risk that people forget about it and see it all as a complete waste of time after this?

That is the real danger once the excitement is over, the red carpet has being rolled up and the cutlery has all been cleared away then people forget about it and it loses momentum, the talks lose their thrust. And I believe that those people who are really committed to see action taken on climate change, we must get much more confrontational. I want to see a series of big confrontational non violent direct action across the world against the most carbon intensive industries, against coal mines, against tar sands, against oil refineries, against the banks and investors making these things happen. We need to see people thrusting this much more into the public mind and you do that by taking action rather than just by saying things.

What kind of links you see between the social movements and the Nation States?

The Nation States must be part of the process but there has to be a way by which civil society and the citizens can deliver their views to the Nation States and formulize what they should do. That is why I believe we need a world parliament but of course we are not going to get that between now and the next set of talks.

So yeah, I suppose you can pretty much estimate now what kind of discussion Franziska, Stefan and I sat in. In fact I wanted to speak up as well and ask (“I, as a chemist, like to do practical experiments… so please, everybody ready to abandon meat, flying and driving a car stand up…” just to see what would happen…), but George must have seen my cheeky face of a troubleshooter and never gave me the chance to have my five minutes of glory (but the two ladies just behind me, dammit). Well… perhaps it’s better this way!

It’s hard to depart… but I guess it’s time to formally close this blog. COP15 is over… I hope you enjoyed reading and will stay loyal – perhaps I gonna re-open it on the occasion of COP16 in Mexico next year!

Farvel og Glædelig Jul! (danish, Goodbye and Merry Christmas)

The end

Hiya folks,

my bro just told me he’s been to lazy to read my blog ’cause it’s in English. No words left to comment on this I guess… groase! Perhaps next time I don’t bother and write it in Kiswahili or Malayalam, dammit

In principle there’s not a lot left to say and I could simply opt for closing this blog tonight. All cards are put on the table, there’s nothing more to say. High spirits were harshly brought back to earth, at the latest when Obama spoke yesterday evening. Some people believe it’s rather worthwhile to listen to Morales, or even better Chávez – they’re at least entertaining, albeit perhaps not to be taken too serious. Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, held an impressing speak after Obama had disappointed not only us grass roots folks but also the delegates. Chávez’ opinion was that after harvesting all the glory and conveying a feeling of “Yes, we can!” previous to the climate summit, when actually on the floor speaking, Obama brought no new impulses into the discussion and severely flawed everybody’s hopes. Chávez accused Obama of “making a dash through the back door” and disappearing without giving clear and concise explanations and numbers. Costa Rica’s delegation could not quite apprehend that the consensus met before in the plenary – to reach a binding agreement before COP16 in Mexico next year – was eliminated from the Copenhagen Accord. 25 countries, among them the US, Germany, India and China, had agreed on a minimal consensus late in the evening… To make things worse and render the whole scenario even more obscure, it’s worth mentioning that COP-Präsident Lars Løkke Rasmussen was virtually chucked out of the conference after some countries had complained about his way of conducting the conference. First Connie Hedegaard, then Lars Løkke Rasmussen… this conference has been tough for many.

This climate summit has been quite non-transparent, with clandestinely composed ‘sub-agreements’ leaking out to the press. It has been like in a tug-of-war between youngsters in order to know who’s the best and strongest – childish and without any compromises. In the end, all parties have the right to decide on their own if (and when?) they will accept the Copenhagen Accord text – or not. What a depressing result after two weeks of negotiations, one might believe. The ‘good bit’ about it is that at least it gives a solid grounding for later discussions. COP16 in Mexico next year will show if our country leaders and delegates have made their homework or if they keep on preferring to release a lot of ‘hot air’!

Yes, we can!… But no, we don’t!

It’s over. The first ministers and heads of state are leaving the Bella Center, perhaps even flying back home (yes, it’s groase, I guess that’s why COP15 allegedly emits as many emissions as an average town of 150,000 inhabitants, the Tagi voiced some days back). COP15 will enter history, and I doubt it will do so for constructive negotiations, steps forward and towards each other… and certainly not for transparency. The important bit first: A legally binding agreement could not be reached, and President Obama is defending the outcome saying that a better deal could not be attained at this point of time. He stated that a higher level of confidence towards each other would be needed first. Some hope might be that concrete emission reduction targets shall be agreed upon and signed later and added to the agreement in an annex. Although this outcome had become more and more likely in the last few days, I still feel pretty let down. How can it be that 192 parties, together with more than 100 heads of state, join here in Copenhagen for virtually agreeing on nothing?

This is what I’ve just witnessed via live-streaming from the Press Conference Room. The President of Mexico stated that (I hope I was typing fast enough to get the key points…)

“… Largos, tensos… Ha habido una enorme tensión, habrá un acuerdo de Copenhague, compromisos de reducción de emisiones, y también el fondo verde de Copenhague de financiación. El acuerdo está lejos de ser lo que muchos esperaban. Los avances logrados deben servir como base para un acuerdo en el futuro. Estoy convencido que los seres humanos podrán tomar las decisiones necesarias para combatir el cambio climático.”

“… Long, tense… There has been an enormous tension, there will be a Copenhagen Accord, compromises of emission reductions, and also a Copenhagen green finance fund. The agreement is far from being what many hoped for. The progress reached shall serve as the basis for future agreements. I’m convinced that human beings will be able to take the necessary decisions to fight against climate change.”

With this, good night folks… I’m off to bed!

P.S. Canada wins the Fossil of the Year award, witness the ceremony. Their tar sands are just too precious…

Fossil of the Day

COP15 is interesting to witness, but also tense and tiring, especially these last days. Proceedings are still slow, if not even worse than in the first week and beginning of this second week of negotiations (although Saudi Arabia is not any more claiming half of the speaking time as far as I know, which can be considered an improvement). Although I guess it’s mainly my fellow yellow-badged folks watching the awards at 6 pm every afternoon, I believe a little joke or ‘wake-up call’ for the hard-working delegates comes in quite handy after some tough hours of tiring work. What a relieve when you feel once again lost in jungles of UN abbreviations, like JI, CDM, NAMAs, PoAs, AWG-KP, AWG-LCA… and so on and so forth! This bright ray of light making your day in tight negotiations is called ‘Fossil of the Day (award)’.

The Fossil. What sounds like a weird biologists’ joke is in reality an award bestowed upon the three parties or groups that within a specific negotiation day of the COP15 hamper the proceedings significantly. The NGO (non-governmental organization) umbrella organization CAN leads through the awards every night, and this is when their information stand in the designated area in Bella Center is most crowded. Ben Wikler by part of avaaz.org does a fantastic job out there, check out December 15′s award on youtube. – - – In this very moment, Stefan’s telling me that the Fossils are awarded now in an alternative location, the Copenhagen Forum, as we NGO accredited people are shut out of the official meeting since this very morning. What shall I say? That information made my day! And it’s been quite a long one… (before you start asking: YES. I DID return to Klimaforum. Perhaps I gonna post something on that tomorrow, or later today.)

P.S. In case you’re really interested in the fossils now… wanna know what I’m so passionate about… click here! (It’ll be worth it. I really got addicted, Franziska by now freaks out when I say fossil dreading that I could give it a go on youtube again.)

Locked out

Finally they locked us out – no way to get into Bella Center for NGOs these days, unless you’re a ‘VIP’ (is that supposed to be the Greenpeace president?). I guess we are damned to attend just some more Alternative Climate Summit a.k.a. Klimaforum events in this case. As you can see, in the end everything arranges itself. Quite analogously to Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand… you see, I’m back on track to economics, since I’ve seen Franziska reading Roger de Weck’s brand new book. I LOVE to read his texts since I discovered and devoured some of his articles that are currently published in the weekly magazine of Zurich’s Tagesanzeiger, the Tagi… just to give you a broad hint in case you are still chasing after X-mas presents for me (I hope I don’t get 10 copies now… haha!) If anyone remembers the name of the other author, similar mind-set, French name, who publishes in Tagi as well… please… remind me of his name. I’m getting older… memory blackout…

Anyways, to get back on track: We’re still here. We’re still in Copenhagen, where the deal is sealed – HOPEFULLY. The three of us from ETH Zurich still holding the fort, we’ve considered to participate in the more left-wing stuff now, now we’re locked out. There’s plenty of opportunities… as NGOs are re-organizing, relocating and rescheduling their events and ‘besieging’ the other conference centers like the Forum Copenhagen. In this sense… I guess I’m off now. Gonna talk to you later, and please, everybody: Keep fingers crossed that they SEAL THE DEAL!

P.S. Cheers for reminding us to take a photo at this prominent spot in Bella Center to Catherine!

Ban ki-Moon speaking

I’m sitting in Hans Christian Anderson room in the Bella Center in what is likely to be the last meeting I will attend at COP15. The United Nations Secretary General, Ban ki-Moon is speaking (I hope that’s spelt correctly…) the closing word of the most important meeting I have attended at this conference. A range of secretary generals and directors of UN departments have answered questions from the audience while at the same time our world leaders are discussing nearby in the Plenary… soon COP15 is gonna be over for us… what an experience!!

Corinne Mauch speaking

After all, this morning has been quite straightforward. The line in front of Bella Center was just 30 min (compared to a few hours the last couple of days, as stated before), so that we had the opportunity to join in a few side sessions. The discussion on nuclear power and sustainability was not too interesting, and looking through the leaflet listing the other side events we spotted Corinne Mauch, the mayor of Zurich, and decided to join the session on sustainable cities and local sustainability. After strolling around for nearly 20 min searching for the right place we finally got there. The location was pretty unfortunate, a kind of in-build pavilion in the main EU Pavilion near Hall 6, all voices from the main hall could be overheard, loud, small, only a few people. Corinne Mauch was the second speaker to hold her speech. Apart from talking about the implementation of the 2000W society in Zurich, she conveyed the message that for herself as a person and her party, she attributes utmost importance to what her citizens think about her politics. She reiterated the importance of referenda (direct democracy public votings) for her work and her happiness about the support of Zurich’s inhabitants in terms of sustainability. Although the concept of the 2000W society was anything but new to me, I got to know some important fact.

The 2000W society’s objectives are threefold:
- 2000W emitted by each citizen continuously, day and night
- 1.0 tons of CO2 emissions per citizen and year
- 75 percent of renewable energy involved in energy generation

Some interesting questions came up concerning how these values were calculated. Where to set the boundaries? It’s quite hard to calculate exact values if the CO2 involved in shipping apples from New Zealand are included, for example. I got to now that only the Endwerte were included, the final values. Whatever that means…

Folks, I’m off again, this time for lunch with Franziska who dashed off to another side session while I decided to give this blog a go. Well, kind of. Hope to speak to you soon… from tomorrow on, we won’t get in here because there will be a limitation for NGO badge holders to 1000, so that’ll be the time to update this page. Hopefully! So… stay tuned!

Sleepless in Bella Center

Bella Center, quite early in the morning. We’re sitting in a massive hall with an incredible amount of laptops for free use by the COP15 participants; although technically I could have updated the blog earlier, I didn’t quite have the time (believe it or not). COP15 is stressful, COP15 is intense, COP15 feels like I’ve been here for at least two weeks without sleeping. Just to calm you down: We actually DO sleep. But if feels like we don’t, as we rush from one event to the other, plenary sessions, official side events, NGO stands (all of them in Bella Center), the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) side events, “next door” at on metro stop from Bella Center, the Alternative Climate summit I already reported about in another blog entry (although I haven’t felt too eager to attend another event until now), a Yale-Copenhagen workshop on sustainability initiatives at universities where eaternity from ETH participated… Well… you see… there’s a lot to do. And as if to show that I’m not making it all up… I’m off now to just another side event! Gonna talk to you later!

P.S. Coffee is getting my best friend here. Seems to be a healthy diet, together with chocolate…

The alternative climate summit

My eyes are fixed on a lurid orange poster. White letters display the message which apparently conveys the key message of the whole event: System change not climate change. Climate justice now! Just in front of the poster, a heated discussion is going on. A representative from the World Bank, one of Brazil, and one of Columbia are discussing about money transfers, corruption, and selling of natural resources. The name ‘Honduras’ is mentioned plenty of times. Portuguese, Spanish and English speaking negotiators are speaking, switching randomly from one language to the other, translating rapidly. A representative criticizes the World Bank, the audience starts cheering, clapping, agreeing fervently. I’m part of it. At least physically. Then, the World Bank representative is hooted down, the crowd agrees that international institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are to be abolished as soon as possible. Revolution, revolution!

Where am I sitting? The Bella Center, attending one of the Plenary Sessions? Well… quite off the mark! Welcome to the Alternative Climate Summit! One of the hotels in Copenhagen which possesses a gym and giant indoor swimming pool (or is that just adjacent??) has become the center of attention for all those that didn’t get permission for entering the Bella Center or simply don’t approve of what’s going on in there. Numerous NGOs gather every day to hold the alternative climate summit – even today, Sunday. As official negotiations are paused on Sundays, Franziska and I decided to join in and see what’s going on there. I’m attending an event on Finance, Agriculture and Climate Change. Sitting among all these excited people, I realize that Tim was quite right: The Klimaforum events are rather left-wing oriented, one could say revoluzzer and quite hit the mark. I feel a bit lost in this crowd, I’m not so sure if to take everything they communicate serious or not. The ‘representatives’ are actors who convey the different interests of the stakeholders in a kind of role play, in ‘real life’, they’re all members of international NGOs. In the end of the session, I try to talk to one of the ‘representatives’ – after my first question, she dashes off. Am I weird, or are these people really a bit strange? I guess I’ll need to attend another event to verify and get an answer!

We got in!!!

Folks… WE MADE IT! After more than one hour in the line waiting to get access to the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Franziska and I finally were led into the “Holy Halls”. Just 10 min before the closure… now we’re strolling around in what is likely to be the most confusing place I’ve been in for a long time. People with all kinds of backgrounds are rushing around (although it’s getting more quiet now at 7 pm), and only the colors of our name badges reveal what nobody could know otherwise – our affiliations. It’s straightforward – pink and blue are for the big wigs, i.e. delegates and UNFCCC officials, respectively, while orange is reserved for the press. We belong to the seemingly biggest group, the yellow one – “non-governmentals”. I hope I’ll be able to post some pics later on, I’ll have to get an account on flickr for that. Wow… it’s just overwhelming… can’t imagine I’ve been up for so many hours now, with so little sleep. The train ride was a sheer nightmare, as the rattling of the coach really disturbed me, and somehow the tension didn’t allow me to get to sleep. We met up with the guys from eaternity, had a chat with them in the train and in Hamburg central station when waiting for our connection to Copenhagen… and already met the first ‘NGO’ fellow from Greenpeace. Everything is quick and intense since we’re in Copenhagen – one hour after arriving at the appartment in Soenderborg Blvd we stay at (it’s an amazing place, with retro stuff, old cameras, discs, a nearly “antique” parquet floor and white bed linen) we already had to dash off to come here to the Bella Center to grab our badges. Didn’t expect such a crowd in front… it’s simply uncredible, I’d have taken photos but the police men looked too frightening… Hope to speak to you again a bit later. Just wanted to share the good news with you!