John Bowler is the Project Manager for our Countdown to Copenhagen work and will be updating on what is going on in and around the Bella Center in Copenhagen over the next two weeks. In this repost from the climate rescue weblog John shares his thoughts on the opening day's events at the conference.
"There ain't no power like the power of the people 'cause the power of the people don't stop" will undoubtedly be my memory of the opening of the Climate Summit in Copenhagen this morning. This chant, or more precisely rap, was pounded out by the Solar Generation drummers and rappers. Their performance captivated all who entered the negotiations via the 'metro' gate. Almost as captivating was the free hot coffee given out by Greenpeace activists beside a 16m2 video screen which beamed the "save the climate" message with stories of climate voices from around the world to the 1,000s who joined the queue to gain access to the meeting.
So, the talks have begun. We are now looking at 192 countries and 105 government leaders participating. Let the games begin. But these are no ordinary multilateral negotiations. This is a survival issue. Greenpeace and a host of other NGOs are in Copenhagen in full force. We will work both inside and outside of the meeting venue to obtain a fair, ambitious and binding agreement.
The world deserves nothing less.
Just like the morning, the afternoon belonged to the Youth. With great emotion and dignity Solar Generation's Leah Wickham, from the South Pacific delivered a speech during the process of handing over the 10 million-plus tcktcktck signatures to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer and the Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen. Rather than sheets and sheets of paper (what a waste) the handover was done with a couple of Denmark's famous Lego bricks - symbolising, I imagine, the building block for a FAB outcome.
Not long afterwards, Kumi Naidoo, our new Executive Director, presented the 10,000,000+ names in similar fashion to Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen. He also rather cheekily gave him a TckTckTck pen so that he could sign a FAB deal. Kumi's presentation followed a panel style presentation by different stakeholders – political, economic, science and civil society. I think its fair to say that while Kumi upstaged almost all others on the panel he himself ended up in second place when a young man from the Maldives (sorry I do not remember his name) spoke of the despair of his country, and at knowing that they had no future as they would soon have no homeland.
Let's see if the negotiators and world leaders listen to the voices of reason, the voices from the heart. Only time will tell. And that time is 12 days.
