15 December 2009

News from the inside

A mood of urgency at the Climate Conference

This week the atmosphere is much more serious at the Climate Conference than last week. Yesterday there was an air of unrest and desperation. This morning there is a mood of urgency.

It is getting hard to get in to the COP15. Yesterday as we arrived at the Bella Centre demonstrators were chanting for Climate Justice and the queue ran all the way back to the metro station. Greg Searle, Director of BioRegional North America queued for six hours to register and gave up in the end. We had passes and it took an hour and a half to go through security. This morning we got here at eight am and managed to get through in forty minutes.

As we suspected from our observations of the plenaries (see last weeks blogs) the talks are not going well, even UK Climate Minister Ed Miliband says so.  Apparently the negotiations continued through the night. It feels like the organisers are preparing for a bad result. At 7pm yesterday we received an e-mail from the UNFCC to say that the numbers of observers coming in to the COP15 will be restricted from now on. Today and Wednesday observer numbers will be cut from 15,000 to 7,000. On Thursday just 1,500 will be allowed in and on Friday only 90!  It feels like they are trying to get us out of the way and keep us quiet.

Our friends at the Skoll Foundation held a gathering last night.  Some people with the US delegation were there, they said the mood and the expectations here in Copenhagen had taken the US team by surprise.

As we stood around chatting I noticed a burly man with one of those small curly wires behind his ear checking out the back of the venue. It was a US secret service man just like in the movies. Al Gore had arrived. He is always so charming. We talked about solutions, the one planet living approach and the communities. He said he was often in London and would be interested to have a tour around BedZED. It would be great if he came. If it looks like I adore Al Gore in the photo, it’s because I do! Everyone said his presence brought an air of hope to the room. It’s a bit like the white knights are arriving. I can’t quite believe I am saying this but I am proud that Gordon Brown is coming here early to try and help move things forward. It's great that on the international stage our government seem to be the good guys.

Sue Riddlestone
Executive Director and co-founder