Today was the fifth day of the COP. I have been constantly tired since Saturday, when I and Andreas arrived . Here every hour feels precious: there is so many things to do, so many things you want to say and so many people you want to talk to. We participated in two meetings with the Swedish delegation today. In the first we talked over the second period of the Kyoto Protocol with one of their expert negotiators, and then we met the head negotiatior Anna Lindstedt (Sweden’s Climate Amabassador) together with Swedish NGO participants, just like the day before yesterday.
Sunniva and Håvard had a meeting with the Norwegian delegation as well, and George met up with the Kenyan delegation for the evening. Today was also Young and Future Generations Day at the COP, which meant that youth had a private meeting with the President of the COP and also a “Intergenerational Inquiry” with Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres and Mary Robinson, former Irish President and High Commissioner for Human Rights. They told us youth needs to be more angry and more visible. Why were youth not creating a climate revolution all over the world? We were urged to utilise the full potential of social media. But my God, they should know we are trying. Yet Climate Change, unlike such issues as democratisation, women’s rights or the fight against poverty, is highly, highly complex – not easily put across in but a single tweet or status update. Actually, it tends to include and affect all of the above.
There were also a number of actions being put on during the day, as Håvard mentions in the video below and the pictures show. Youth really tried hard to be heard. Yet, while we can advertise the dangers of Climate Change and approach negotiators at the COP, the oil and coal lobby have the funds to do this all year round.
Being at the negotiations is a bit like being on Mars. You get up at 5.45 am, and then take the bus to the conference centre, where you spend the day in a giant bubble of glass, stone and high-tech architecture. You return to the hotel with the shuttle, completely exhausted, and do some blogging, upload videos and send a number of e-mails until your muscles achingly cry out for sleep and your eyes go crosswise. You never really see the outside world but through the bus window. This is our normal day, every day.
Nevertheless, on a final note, the content of those days are still fantastic. They form a process I could not be more grateful to be part of.
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1 kommentar:
Great job you guys are doing there. I agree with those two COP executives who say we need to be more angry! But truly its the little things we do that will make a difference. I believe you guys are making a difference by INFORMING. I feel like I am in Doha coz your blogs are good.
There is a quote by Wangari Maathai(the late), re-known environmentalist and Nobel Price leaureate from Kenya. She said "Her little thing is planting trees" ... and for sure through it she changed the lives of many women in Kenya and the mentality of many worldwide on how we perceive the environment.
So don't give up and keep going! One thing for sure you are creating an impact!
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