Copenhagen is a beautiful city. It’s the best place I’ve ever ridden a bicycle. The lanes are massive and there is a city-sponsored bike share program. It’s home to the famous Christiania Bike, a three-wheeler for the whole family. And there’s a city policy that every citizen must be able to reach a park or beach in 15 minutes on foot.
As cities go, they don’t come much greener, which makes Copenhagen (Hopenhagen, as the branding goes) a good choice for the UN’s 15th annual Climate Change Conference. Over the next two weeks, as many as 10,000 people a day will hop planes and fly to Copenhagen to argue about who has to give up the most carbon.
After months of dithering Stephen Harper is going, having grabbed Obama’s coattails at the last second. I hear Harper’s bringing his own bag of monkey wrenches, handy for derailing proceedings, or if necessary clubbing Greenpeace protestors.
But before the politicians get to their treatying, treatising and general mucking about, the people shall have their say. Today is the people’s climate summit. Canada’s own Naomi Klein kicked things off by pointing out that the official meetings will be an exercise in branding—-literally, with Coca Cola and Siemens sponsoring. “The death of this planet brought to you by…”
Klein concluded by urging industrialized countries to behave like good little children and clean up after themselves. But even before the adult activists took the stage, four high school students from Quebec attended the Copenhagen Children’s Climate Forum and delivered the same message as Klein.
The students were the winners of a climate change video contest. Dina Desveaux of Halifax, an education manager at UNICEF, was one of the judges, and trained the youth on international conference protocol. ““I asked them to imagine themselves far into the future,” Desveaux tells me, “perhaps talking to their grandchildren. If they could leave only one legacy behind on the topic of climate change, what would that be?”
She was amazed by the creative solutions the youth came up with, including an “Internet of Sustainable Energy,” a mapping of where renewable energy surpluses can be shared or drawn from in times of shortage elsewhere. In a post-carbon world, such a resource would help Halifax draw solar energy from the valley on fog days, for example.
In Copenhagen youth from around the world presented ideas to the president of the adult conference, in the form of a declaration. It reminds me of those old insurance ads, where people meet their future selves and seem surprised they turned out okay. But the key there was listening to the good advice of a future generation.
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This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
This conference is producing 60,000 tonnes of C02 (or more)……. what is wrong with video conferencing and online chat ? Oh wait……no cocktail parties, no glad handing and after conference partying and deal making for one’s own benefit. Oh and no end result will come out of this waste of time.
Try again please……
Splat… you don’t seem to have a good idea of what these summits are actually like. What you say makes sense in principle but you have to be more conscientious of the complexity of the work that is done at these sorts of things.
I have been to a number of these international and UN conferences and they are definitely huge productions and the actually work that you do is extremely intense, non-stop and its progress and outcomes depends on relationship building and trust between people you are working with (often having just met and from different parts of the globe). There are ad hoc, self-organized all-and-late-night policy sessions to do work and we always take advantage of cafes, coffee breaks, restaurants and hotel rooms to do the party-like activities of checking semantics, revising wording and drafting and redrafting documents. The process can be lame but the people and the colleagues (who you retain and learn from) that you meet are important contacts to move your issue forward on even after you come home.
Also at this point it would be logistically impossible to get anything done (and be inclusive as many places in the world who do have experts don’t have the type of computer infrastructure to do video conferencing and online chatting) except by meeting in person.
I would also venture to say that there are more activists there than official delegates at COP15. Who honestly do little to actually influence what is going on in the heads of decision makers (Foreign Policy goals, issues of hegemony and domestic issues dominate strategy at these things and strategy and stances are formulated in the months and weeks before: not changed by people singing in the streets with flowers, placards or masks). So on your scale it might be best that all the activists stay home rather than coming to these things and treating them like PHISH concerts… But should they stay home? I would venture you would say no…(and I agree).
Also the cocktail parties wear off quick. I end up catching up on sleep or heading out into the town to experience the culture that exists in the locales. We are not kids at this looking to get wrecked we are usually there doing our jobs.
Cynicism, like yours, can be a real barrier to progress. If something useful comes out of COP15 (and I wouldn’t hold my breath) then what is 60,000 tonnes of C02? Sustainability is largely about trade-offs and using resources in efficient and effective manners to maximize benefit and minimize risk… this is conference could be seen as a good example of this provided the outcomes are significant and inline with necessary action.
Here is one suggestion for metro.
Stop bussing kids in Halifax & Dartmouth to French Immersion classes and send them to their local schools and an improvement in French language instruction. This would immediately take buses off the roads, reduce pollution, save energy and improve the opportunities to learn our second language for all students.
A very simple idea and one where children quickly learn of the cost of their parents actions.
Any more simple ideas out there ?
How much are we paying for Lil MacPherson’s hotel room?
I’m hearing the hotel rooms are going for 650 pounds.
The local ladies are offering free sex for the delegates.
No room for all the private jets so some are parked over in Sweden.
Also, a severe shortage of limousines.
Humble pie is not on the menu.
I watched HRM council last night and Ms Watts gave a very good presentation but was a little late in telling council about the 25% GST in Sweden and gas at $2.50 a litre.
She seemed keen on neighbourhood incinerators to provide district heating and greater housing density.
This gabfest in fairyland will be hot air followed with flushing cash down the drain in 3rd world countries. We all know we need to cut back, pay more, use less but try selling a serious effort to Canadians who think collecting glass bottles, tin cans, and the odd rant at drive thrus makes a difference. Tell a Canadian how much they have to sacrifice and watch the eyes glaze over.
When you give Ms May the letter for PM Harper make sure you tell him how much cash you are willing to forgo for the next 10 years, anything less than is just a waste of time.
It is not about the tar sands, it is about you.
OOPS … should say ‘…anything less than $30,000 is a waste of time’
Lil Macpherson is paying for the whole trip herself your asshole. She’s over there with no other agenda but to help and to keep the decision makers accountable. Somebody always needs to complain.