Stuck

Copenhagen, Denmark

December 15, 2009

Today is our first day of exile from the Bella Center, so we decided to return to the craze and spectacle of Klimaforum, on which I have written before.  I would write on it again, but I have run out of words.  I’m not in the Bella Center.  I don’t even have internet access to follow what is happening there.  I am in Copenhagen, in the middle of the most important environmental debate of my time, and my friends in Texas have better access to the things that are being decided.

I have been gone for almost two weeks now.  My goal in coming here is now moot.  So I feel stuck.  I have outstayed my purpose, but I am still here.  I am a decorative typewriter.  I am the Prince of Denmark.  As much as I love this place, as much as I love seeing new things and talking to new people, it is December 15^th.  It’s time to go home for Christmas, to sit in warm lamplight with the people I love, to hang ornaments on trees, to sleep in a quiet room under soft, clean-smelling covers.  But here I am instead at Klimaforum, the “people’s climate event,” pretending I am doing something important.  At least when I was at COP 15, it was easier to pretend.

I wish I could comment on what is going on in the talks, but I can’t.  I don’t know when I will be able to upload this post.  There are words to describe the speeches I’ve heard today.  Insipid, inane, banal come to mind fairly easily.  But I must say I am discouraged.  I cannot approach the level of writing I am used to.  Images and symbols choose not to reveal themselves to me  Nothing speaks today.  Things want to be written about, but they remain obstinately silent, glaring expectantly at me.  All I can do is shrug in return, and tell them I’m sorry.  Today is not the day.

Tomorrow will be better.  Tomorrow has to be better.  Tomorrow I’ll be going to Kronborg Castle, the one-time home of Prince Hamlet.  I’ll be going to the Louisiana, one of the finest modern art museums in Europe.  Maybe tomorrow, I’ll lose the sense of unfulfilled obligation, of unchannelable urgency.  The feeling that there is something important that I should be doing.  Maybe I’ll stop tapping my foot and glancing around, maybe I’ll be able to sit comfortably in my chair.  One can only hope.

I want to be philosophical but I’m out of thoughts.  I want to be literary but I’m out of words.  I want to do something important but I’m out of time.  If I were working at the conference, I wouldn’t miss home.  If I were at home, I wouldn’t miss the conference.  But stuck in between, I want everything and have nothing.  On Thursday, I go back to COP 15 for a few hours.  On Friday, I leave Copenhagen.  But until then, I’m stuck.  All I can do is think about tomorrow, Wednesday, and hope things will be easier.  That is the only option I have.

Announcement

Copenhagen, Denmark
December 14, 2009

Today I take a break from my general philosophic tone to make an announcement. I am now officially out of the loop.

Apparently, for reasons known only to the United Nations, several thousand more people were accepted as delegates than can actually fit inside Bella Center. So I will not be allowed to attend the conference tomorrow. Or the next day. I will be attending from 9 until 2:30 on Thursday. And then the conference will be over.

All delegations have suffered cuts, especially the bigger ones that are not directly influential. The groups of youth are the ones who have felt this the hardest. But, everyone, young and old, influential or not, has had their access limited. More than ten thousand people who came here to make their voices heard have been told that space is just too restrictive.

I’m not sure what will be going on over the next two days. I have been wishing for a chance to do some more sightseeing, and now I have my opportunity. I’m sure I’ll be doing some writing on whatever I see. It is hard not to be extremely disappointed in the way this conference is being conducted, but I’ll do my best to keep everyone informed.

-Josh

World Wide Views Presentation

A few days ago I attended the presentation of the World Wide Views project as sponsored by the Climate Consortium of Denmark. The one-and-a-half hour programme presented the research proposal, its results, a few individuals who had participated in the project, and a panel of experts for discussion. I was asked to observe the audience during the presentation in order to further the project’s research of assessing the public’s response to climate change information.

At 3 PM, we began with a welcome by Lars Kluver, director of the Danish Board of Technology, and jumped right into an introduction of the project by Bjorn Bedsted, the Project Manager at the DBT and head coordinator of World Wide Views. WWV held 44 meetings in 38 countries, with about 100 citizens at each meeting. The audience at the presentation seemed to be of comparable size, and included a wide range of attendees, from students, to nongovernmental observers, to media personnel with TV camera setups, to seemingly official delegates. There was a cafe located close behind the presentation space which also drew some onlookers, as well as a heavily trafficked walkway running alongside.

At 3:10 PM, we watched a documentary about the WWV project. Most audience members were very attentive during the documentary, even putting away their laptops to pay more close attention. Passersby on the walkway slowed down, but few stopped. However, as the documentary progressed, audience members began to get restless, and started to talk amongst themselves and read their information booklets. At the conclusion of the documentary, there was widespread appreciative clapping.

Mr. Bjorn Bedsted continued with a presentation about the results of the WWV project at 3:25. The audience perked up once more, and began taking notes and pictures. They enjoyed watching the citizens in the videos presenting the results, and seemed more disinterested when Mr. Bedsted resumed speaking. Many people are joining to watch the presentation from the cafe or the walkway, but they are standing in the back rather than seeking a seat near the front. Once the results presentation had dragged on awhile, people began reading the official results booklet again as well as talking amongst themselves and on their cell phones.

The panel debate began at 3:45 pm, and many of the standing audience members had dwindled away by this time. The audience is no longer reading the results booklet for a diversion but consulting the daily programme, perhaps to find another activity to attend later. This disinterest may be due to the malfunctioning of the microphones of several members of the panel, which is making it difficult to understand them and pay attention. The passersby from the walkway are no longer slowing down to watch the presentation– which is understandable, as a documentary may be more momentarily interesting than  a seated panel.

I have inserted this gallery of pictures from the event to provide a visual extension of the notes I took on audience reactions.

Sunshine

Copenhagen, Denmark

December 13, 2009

Today when I woke up, the sun was shining. This is the first time I have seen sunshine since Paris over a week ago. Walking outside, the morning is fresh and crisp and pure as a Christmas apple, with spiderwebs of frost veining the parked cars along the street. My breath steams and rises in front of me as I walk, rises straight up undisturbed by wind until I can’t see where I’m going. So I breathe from my nose instead, the mist now falling behind me in twin streams on each side of my face, like the wake from the bow of a ship. The city is still and silent at 9:30 on Sunday morning. I tie my scarf around my neck as I wait for the bus to arrive.

Nobody else is waiting at this stop – there is no reason to. The temperature is precisely freezing. There are no meetings on Sunday, no work to be done. COP 15 resumes tomorrow morning. In the distance, church bells ring. This is a morning to enjoy from a chair behind a big window, with a newspaper and a cup of hot coffee. This is a morning like art – much nicer to observe than to be a part of. All is quiet, all is rest.

Four hours later, I find myself in line stretching for blocks and blocks outside the largest cathedral in Copenhagen. The Ecumenical Celebration for Creation has announced that there will be a few hundred seats open for this afternoon’s service, presided over by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Slowly, the line enters the church. I am seated in the very, very back of the very, very top of the highest balcony. From there, I can see nothing without standing on my tiptoes. I can only hear, but hearing was enough. Prayers were made as bleached coral from a dying reef the Pacific Ocean, shriveled corn from a failed crop in Africa, and smooth rocks from under a retreating glacier in Greenland were sanctified and placed upon the altar. Scriptures were read about creation, about oneness, about healing. Hymns were lifted up in English, Danish, Zulu, and Greenlandic. And the Archbishop of Canterbury stood up to deliver the sermon.

Fear, he said, is not what is needed today. Even though there is much to be afraid of. Even though, sometimes, we harshly say to ourselves that people are not yet afraid enough. Our actions in this process of deliberation must not be driven by fear. Instead, he said, in each action we take, we must be motivated by love. Everything we do, everything we say, everything we buy, everything we consume, we must ask ourselves – does this express the love I have for creation? Does this express the love I have for my fellow man?

And his words are true. This entire conference has been steeped in fear for our planet and fear for our future. A vague and unmentionable dread walks the halls of the Bella Center. What if nothing is decided? What if it is too late? But this morning, I didn’t go to the Center. No one did. We rested. We walked in the sunshine. We drank coffee. Today is a breath after coming up from dark waters. Today is a gap in grey clouds. Today is about love, and warmth, and peace. And maybe tomorrow will be more of the same.

-Josh

NGO Party

Climate activists know how to get down, that is all I have to say. I did not bring my camera so there is no recording of the event… and perhaps that is for the best. Off to 4 more hours of sleep!

Action and Contemplation

Copenhagen, Denmark

December 11, 2009

Wednesday I spent the morning at Klimaforum.  It presents itself as “the people’s climate event,” and it is open for anyone to attend.

Klimaforum is to COP 15 as the Island of Misfit Toys is to Santa’s workshop.  Held in a sports center downtown, it is a collection of people who are here for COP 15 wandering around uncomfortably in a crowd of people they wouldn’t let into COP 15.  Everywhere you look there are yarmulkes, monk’s robes, headdresses, and burqas, attending lectures like “Indigenous Voices on Climate Change” and “Capitalism and the Climate Crisis: Radical Leftist Alternatives.”  It is an experience, certainly, just walking in the door.  But the people here are just as sincere and honest and vaguely frightened as those with UN badges.

My badge is on, but it continually disappears in my three-piece suit.  Only the UNFCCC lanyard shows, and my ensemble (the lanyard and the suit) causes people to frequently mistake me for an actual negotiator.  “Where is our deal?” they ask me.  They tell me all about their pet projects and panacean plans.  I listen attentively and patiently, not wanting to be rude and interrupt.  They plea with various degrees of passion in varying degrees of English, yet all of them want basically the same thing.  They want me to get things moving, they want me to get my nation to offer more ambitious reductions, they want me to understand the urgency of the situation.  But I’m just a nineteen year old kid dressed up for the big city.  How was I supposed to know that youth delegates here wear blue jeans and Converse?

Sometimes, I don’t even tell them, I just say I’ll bring it up with my delegation for discussion at next morning’s plenary.  That way they feel like the process still works.  It is dishonest, perhaps.  But I can’t stand to watch people’s faces fall when you explain to them that, not only do they have no real power, but they are so far away from the people who do that they actually cannot even recognize them as they walk down the hallway.  So I say that I respect what they have to say.  That’s true.  I say we will debate on the issue soon.  And that’s true.  And I say that our negotiators are working as hard as they can.  All I can do is hope that one’s true, too.  Then I shake their hands and bustle off as if I were on my way to some important meeting.  How do they not know?  How can they not tell?

At Klimaforum, I went to a presentation called  “Sacred Activism: mobilizing spiritual communities to fight climate change.”  On the panel of distinguished lecturers to address us that morning were representatives of every major world religion.  Each had ten minutes to speak.  Some said there is time to mobilize.  Some said we must be ready to deal with the crisis when it inevitably hits.  But the greatest speaker of the day by far was a frail and ancient Hindu holy man named Sant Balbir Singh Ji.  He spoke from a wheelchair with a stand to hold his microphone.  He was fasting until a just international agreement could be reached.  His face was gentle behind thick, black rimmed glasses and a grey-white moustache, framed by a perfectly bald head, an immensely fragile neck, and coarse orange robes.  His words came softly and slowly, rhythmically like the breathing of an immense ocean or the heartbeat of a mountain.  I wrote some of them down.  “Sacred activism,” he said, “is not loud.  Sacred activism does not include shouting slogans in the street.  Sacred activism does not involve confrontation, because confrontation leads to conflict, and conflict leads to the loss of all we fight for.  Sacred activism is like the martial arts.  One’s whole being must be silent and still.  And from that stillness, all proceeds.”  Stillness and quiet.  Contemplation.  “Contemplation is not the enemy of action.  Contemplation is action, and action is contemplation.”

It has been perhaps a week since I have sat in silent contemplation.  During that week, I have shouted slogans, I have instigated confrontations, I have filled my days completely.  And where has it gotten me?  Burned out, sitting in my hostel at 10:30 on a Friday night, writing, forcing myself into the contemplation which I have been fleeing.

Tonight I didn’t take the train straight back to bed.  I took a bus to Burger King and had my first bite of American food in more than a week.  And on the bus from the Bella center, an old Indian man came to sit next to me.  He looked a lot like Sant Balbir Singh Ji, and the two of them both looked like Mohandas Gandhi.  Same glasses, same moustache, but different people.  This man sitting next to me was a real power in COP15, one of India’s climate negotiators.  He and his colleagues sat unpresupposingly in the back of the bus to town hall.  “We don’t know what happened to the cars,” he told me quietly, so quietly I could barely hear him over the growl of the tires.  “This is an adventure.”

So we talked about Texas and we talked about India, we talked about University and we talked about Government.  But mostly we talked about the treaty.  He said it was going slowly.  But he said it was going.  I told him my hopes, told him my generation was counting on this, told him the urgency of the situation.  He sat quietly and nodded.  “Yes,” he said.  “We are doing as best we can.”

And he got off the bus in front of a nice hotel and I stayed on in quiet contemplation all the way to the restaurant.  Because I recognized the look he had given me in response to my concerns.  It was the look of a nineteen year old kid in a three piece suit, wondering how he got mistaken for someone with the power to make change.

Butterflies

Copenhagen, Denmark
December 11, 2009

Yesterday was “Youth and Future Generations Day” here at COP 15. The vast majority of side events were dedicated to student action, education issues, justice for children, and so forth. I, along with hundreds of other youth delegates from all over the world, wore a bright orange t-shirt which asked all passers-by “How old will you be in 2050?”

I’ll allow you a moment for the mental math.

For those at the conference who would be older than, say, 75 in 2050, bright orange scarves were given out to show solidarity with the needs and desires of the youth movement. For one day, the whole conference underwent a metamorphosis from shades of formal black to brilliant orange. Everything looked young and new.

The highlight of this event, which I was lucky enough to find a seat for, was a discussion between key climate negotiators and 3 youth leaders chosen by their international peers. Speaking were several UN officials, the climate ministers of Mexico and Maldives, and Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In other words, the President of COP 15.

There were at least 200 people in a room meant to seat maybe seventy five. Cameras rolled over every angle. Men and women in business attire sat on the floor watching, listening. The pure density of orange-clad onlookers made the room swelter. The speeches began, and they were astounding. A young woman from India told us her road to environmental activism through the flooded streets of her city. She waded through waist-high water in Mumbai for five days before she found her family, and in those five days made the solemn decision to give up her new career in advertising to fight global climate change. Thunderous standing applause met her impassioned plea for help to Mr. De Boer. “I put my trust in you. We all put our trust in you. Please do not let us down.”

The minister of the environment in the Republic of Maldives talked about his small nation – a disparate collection of 1,000 islands and 300,000 people in the Indian Ocean. The average island there is the size of a football field, and sea levels are rising. If current trends continue, his homeland will be no more in less than a century. “We are a people with 2,000 years of history,” he said. “There is where I was born. There is where I want to die. There is where our children our born. There is where we want our children to be buried.” The room wept.

But somewhere in the midst of these speeches, perhaps born from the live trees reaching to the top of the atrium indoors in the Bella Center, a single black and orange butterfly began gliding around the room. Some were startled as it landed on their laptops, others smiled as it orbited their heads. Photographers, knowing that this butterfly is itself as much a story as anything else in the conference, followed it with their camera lenses until it seemed like they were sure to fall over, but none managed to capture it. It was far too fleeting, too elusive in its spontaneity. From whence this poor, lost creature came is still a matter of speculation. The day outside was cold and bitten with teeth of rain, no day for a butterfly to live. A UN administrator jokingly suggested in his speech that it was, finally, the incontrovertible evidence for climate change, but I like to imagine that it is a refugee, an immigrant. It stumbled into someone’s bag or briefcase in the summer of the southern hemisphere, chilled by the travel, waking up groggily in a strange land. But whatever the origin of the poor, beautiful insect, it fluttered throughout the ensuing speeches, tracing lazy curves and leafy spirals through the air charged with emotion and lit for cameras. It listened, I am sure, to all the speakers as they all called in their own ways for help, for action. Each speech was a cry for help. Each was a statement of trust and hope.

It was Mr. De Boer’s turn to respond. The Executive Secretary of UNFCCC. The person leading and moderating the negotiations at this conference. With great reluctance, he turned on the microphone in front of him. He stared wearily at the cameras, at the audience, at the youth seated at the table beside him. Absentmindedly, he fiddled with his bright orange scarf. Slowly, haltingly, he spoke. I will paraphrase as exactly as I can.

“Your speeches were excellent. Thank you so very much. But there is one problem.” Here he paused for a long time, not dramatically, not rhetorically. He was truly overcome. “You speak of trust, and putting your trust in this process. But be careful with your trust. It should not be given. It must be earned.” And then, as if in afterthought, he added “and this process has yet to earn mine.”

The audience was stunned. Some clapped reluctantly. Some quietly nodded agreement. A camera flashed and whirred. The room was dead.

What does one say to that? The head of climate change negotiations, a tireless worker and great figure, a man who we all depend on, who future generations depend on. How does one respond when he looks you in the eye and admits he no longer believes that the job can be done? There is no response but silence.

Awkwardly, strangled, the meeting continued with the next speaker. Mr. De Boer was called to another meeting. The cameras packed up and left. The crowd thinned. I retained my seat until the end, when the last panelist had spoken with bravado that fell hollow on the room. As I left, I looked around for one more glimpse of the butterfly. But it was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it found its way out into the cold and rain, to be chilled. Perhaps it was crushed accidently, a reflex from some negotiator seeing it in the corner of his eye. Or perhaps it never truly existed in the first place. All seem just as likely. But there is also the chance that it is still here in the Bella Center, hidden and fragile, waiting to show up again. That is my sincerest hope.

-Josh

China/US Youth Party

So whenever Josh and I hear “free food!” at this party… we come running, like any good college student in Copenhagen on a food budget. Last night, this led us to the China/US youth delegations mixer/press conference planning party someplace in downtown Copenhagen, which was a TON of fun.

The Chinese delegation kids are amazing. They actually have a similar story to us– a month ago, the Chinese government said that it wanted to up Chinese youth representation at COP15 by a factor of 50– okay, that’s just my dramatic way of saying that they were ticked off that they only had 1 youth delegate at COP14 and wanted to match some of the other developed nations who brought dozens of kids. So, China, in some sort of mad rush crazy awesome powerness, manages to pull everything together at the last minute and take these 50 kids from their national youth climate action network all the way to Copenhagen. They have done some incredible things in their country, and I have the utmost respect for their work.

And their food! We were served delicious Chinese food and then broke into discussion groups and talked about our own roads to COP15 and how we got involved in the environmental movement. I met a Fullbright Scholar, a reporter from the Washington Post who interviewed us, a guy studying at the Nicholson School of Enviromental Studies at Duke, and a guy who founded his own huge nonprofit to help young people pressure Congress more successfully. Lots of business card trading, understand. We also talked about the differences in Chineseand American approaches to climate legislation, made a ton of new friends, and generally had a fantastic time. And I got this amazing set of personal eco-friendly chopsticks that y’all are going to be so jealous of…

These COP15 youth delegates are always at work…

The Chinese delegation gave the US this gorgeous “good fortune for climate change” scroll at the end of the night.

My exciting chopsticks!

How COP15 Watched Obama’s Peace Prize Acceptance

Since I’m sure a lot of you watched this on YouTube or something at home, I thought I’d share what I saw when I walked past the EU pavilion yesterday afternoon… this is how the crazy intense negotiators of COP15 take a “TV break”:

Alien Transformation

So I had to compete with Josh’s amazing protest story from yesterday, and I found the perfect way to do it: Wednesday night I went with a small group of random COP15 peeps to visit Christiania, and they started talking about their work with Avaaz, which is a grassroots climate activist organization for youth. They’ve been walking around the conference trying to talk to delegates and pressure them to sign a binding, fair, and ambitious treaty– and they’re drawing attention by dressing up as aliens. I was asked to participate in this venture, and gracefully accepted the offer.

So, this is what happened this morning. We were focusing on getting a meeting with the Japanese delegation, because they haven’t presented their development aid proposal yet and if it’s good enough, it can push the overall total to $200 billion by 2020 which would be a huge asset to combating climate change in developing countries and really speed up the momentum of these negotiations. So, after getting dressed up, I spent the next 3 hours walking around the Climate Conference saying  “Japan can break the negotiations deadlock with an ambitious development aid package! Where is Japanese climate leadership in Copenhagen?” and “Take me to your climate leader!”