Catching Up

As we somewhat anticipated, the pace of activities here is really picking up and I think it will only continue after the day of action on Saturday. We've been dividing our time between the Klimaforum, where we are both working as volunteers and attending events, and working with various people associated with a coalition group called the Climate Action Network! This has made for extremely busy days and late nights. As I find myself with an hour or so between events and with internet access, it seems the ideal opportunity to catch up on what's been happening.

Klimaforum: I must admit that I was a bit sceptical of what I would find at this totally free, totally open to the public "people's climate summit", fearing that it would fall victim to a lack of organization that sometimes plagues volunteer based groups, or that the events would be alienatingly extreme or disillusioningly status quo. It has, however, been excellent. Our experience as volunteers has been great. At times it has been a bit disorganized (as one would expect for such a large event managing so many volunteers) but I ultimately leave everyday feeling as though we were able to help in some way, be it through running errands, making and putting up posters guiding people around the multi-site conference area, or handing out schedules at the city centre square and talking to passersby about the conference. Admittedly, these are not glamorous tasks, but they need to be done and create many phenomenal opportunities to talk with other people from all over the world about both climate change issues as well as many other aspects of their lives. As a participant in the events, I have been very impressed by the quality of the panelists (both in terms of their expertise on their issue and their commitment to real climate solutions) and the knowledge and thoughtfulness of the attendees. I'm quite looking forward to a number of 'klima' events over the next week, including a film and discussion this evening, How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.

Climate Action Now!: Our work with this group has been haphazard. It was through them that we found ourselves making posters and handbills on Monday night and distributing them around the city throughout Tuesday. We've also started helping a post doctorate student from Dartmouth College on a research project looking at the role civil society groups (particularly business lobby groups) are playing in the negotiations. What this means is, we go to panels and other open events that are targeted at the business community and take notes on the discussion and then walk around afterwards introducing ourselves to complete strangers and asking if they'd be willing to provide contact info for this project. While this might not sound so exciting, it has actually proved very interesting. Today we attended "The Business of Climate Change Post-Copenhagen", a panel discussion put on by The Corporate Leaders' Group on Climate Change. The panel included the Executive VP (Future Fuels & CO2) of Shell and Chairman of the Zero Emissions Platform, the VP of Global Energy & Sustainability at Johnson Controls, and The Director of Oxfam International, among others. I must admit that I was not expecting the extreme progressiveness of this group of individuals, nor the challenging questions posed by the audience, who were largely businesspeople or those who represent business interests in some way. In response to a question from the audience about what they considered to be single most important change needed to combat climate change, the entire panel spoke of the need to a multi-dimensional approach that did NOT rely exclusively on market mechanisms like cap and trade, but also incorporated straight-up regulations that required change. One panelist (not from Oxfam) also said outright that there needed to be a high tax on carbon. Even knowing that many businesses see huge opportunities in the shift to a low carbon world, and that there are many truly dedicated individuals within industry, I was very surprised by their bluntness and willingness to acknowledge the dramatic amount of change needed.

City Happenings: Keeping up with all the news around COP is it's own activity. We've subscribed to the IISD's daily email summary of the prior day's highlights within the actual summit. We've also discovered that Copenhagen's English language paper is publishing daily special editions on all the COP15 related happenings in the city (The COP15 Post) - this has proved a great source of info about what 'alternative' events are going on; it's also were we read about the police raid that happened last night on the headquarters of one of the largest coalition groups here, Climate Justice Action. This is pretty scary stuff considering that there has been no reported violent or aggressive action to date, and while the group is open about their plans to attempt to get into the Bella Center next Wednesday, they are equally adamant about their non-violent position. It will definitely be interesting to see how that plays out. In the meantime, most people involved in any of the climate change-orient events in any way are looking forward to Saturday, which will be an excellent and exciting day of action with a big march across the city to the Bella Center (One of the speakers at the rally preceding the march will be Vandana Shiva, who I've loved forever. She's also a member of a number of panels at Klimaforum!). Speaking of the Bella Center, we were at this site for the first time today and I was really surprised at the groups that had set up camp at the metro station immediately outside the main entrance to the building. There were basically two discernable groups (neither of whom had more than a handful of people): 1) Supporters of the Supreme Master Ching Hai (don't even ask me); 2) People who claim climate change is not happening and is in fact a western science conspiracy designed to further marginalize the people of the global south (they also claim this somehow links up with accusations of genocide. I'm going to be honest, I did ask the guy about the sign he was wearing that made this claim - it was actually that "Climate Lies = Genocide", but about 1 minute was all I could handle talking to him and we never got to the part where he explained exactly how genocide fit in. These people seem to be related to the LaRouche movement, as you can tell in the photo below). Needless to say, as discouraging as it was that this was the most articulate and well presented message "we" could produce to present to all the delegates as they enter the building, it was nice to know that the climate change deniers seem just as crazy as the supreme master people who were urging everyone to go vegan and holding signs of animals with word bubbles saying "thanks" (I say this as a long-time vegetarian who maintains this lifestyle in large part due to my environmental beliefs). There was also a large screen playing videos and testimonials of a number of what I will choose to call more legitimate environmental groups, such as Greenpeace. We have also been attempting to make the rounds to the many public events happening around the city. There are several interesting exhibits, including "Hopenhagen City", which is set up in the city's centre square, a WWF exhibit on climate change in the arctic, complete with a melting ice sculpture of a polar bear, and some large inflated balloons showing just what one tonne of CO2 looks like. I'll leave you with some pictures below.