On Security, Politics and Throat Lozenges

I am, I have discovered, a very cheap vote. A handful of throat lozenges will do it. Throw in some vitamin C and you are basically guaranteed my loyalty for life.

I discovered this yesterday, in the third to last day of negotiations. The situation has become increasingly intense as negotiations keep breaking down and as the heads of state start arriving. Over 100 heads of state are set to participate in this global conference, the largest number ever experienced in climate negotiations. The Danish security forces are becoming uneasy. Now they have to deal not only with over 20 000 NGO participants who massively outnumber the 8 000 government delegates, but also are preparing to have the likes of Ahmadinejad, Omaba and yes, even Stephen Harper underfoot.

Of course, from a security perspective it is not only the NGO participants inside the Bella Centre who are of concern. On both Saturday and Sunday large protests, one resulting in almost 1 000 arrests, were staged in the city and word has it that another is planned for this afternoon right outside the Bella Centre.

The morning is still dark when I and the train-full of other people heading to the centre are informed that the Bella Centre metro station has been closed for crowd control. We all get off at the stop before and start walking. Unwittingly we become our own protest march. We march purposefully and orderly, no banners or drums accompany us, no slogans announce our presence, no cars are asked to honk. Instead, wrapped in dark business jackets and leather gloves, lap top bags slung over hunched shoulders we stride through the sleet in silence. If Bay Street protested this is what it would look like.

Our march ends abruptly when we run into a police cordon. They look at our business attire and let us pass one by one through the gap between two police vans. Today they are wearing their characteristic yellow reflective vests on top of camouflage fatigues. The combination does nothing to enhance their ability to blend in with anything. With just the yellow they might have been able to pass as the yellow robed metro personnel. With just the camouflage they might have, if they really needed to and didn't mind getting excessively muddy, been able to slide through the marsh. I smile as I smoothly enter with the Bay Street crowd; my camouflage is far more effective than theirs although, to be fair,I assume that camouflage was not exactly their goal.

Where there is usually one gate into Bella Centre there are now 3 rows of fences and some protestors, ones who are protesting on purpose, are already set up. For some unfathomable reason the vegetarians have been the most steadfast and easily recognizable group here. Each day I am accosted by earnest women urging me to eat plants to save the planet. Today is no exception and I am offered a cloth bag with their slogan and some carrots printed on its side. I turn down the bag as the last thing I need is more stuff and add my mass to the long line of people waiting to get in.

In addition to the fences specially erected for the protest, a secondary badge system has also been set in place to regulate access of NGO observers. Each organization has been given a set number of secondary badges and only those representatives with both their UNFCCC badge and a secondary badge can enter. I have one just for today. This is my last chance to get in.

I spend much more time than usual waiting in the sleet because more of us have arrived early. In addition to the secondary badges a total cap on the number of NGO representatives has been implemented. Today only 7000 will be let in. Tomorrow this will be reduced to 1 000, and according to the rumours among the NGO community, only 90 NGO representatives (of the over 20 000 registered) are expected to be let in on the last day of negotiation. Between the cap and the expected protest this afternoon we are all aware that if we do not get in first thing today, we are unlikely to make it in at all.

They check both of our badges one by one and let us pass to security. Once through security they make us all line up to have our badges checked again. Along with our UNFCCC badges we have all been given a barcode. We are scanned into the system twice a day – once when we enter and again when we leave. Today when they scan me in they carefully compare me with the picture that emerges on the screen, “yes, it is you” the woman says and I, wet, cold and sick finally gain admittance.

I skip the coat check because I am so late and practically run to the Canadian briefing. I miss all of the official briefing and hear only the questions. Today the room is almost devoid of youth and is fuller of somber suits than usual. There are three crucial exceptions to this.

The first is a young man from the University of Victoria who has carried a globe covered in over 1000 signatures from fellow students to the event. He presents it to Canada's head delegate who assures him that this means a great deal to him as University of Victoria alumnus.

The second is a young woman from a First Nation in the western arctic. She does not have a question but tells him that although her nation spent thousands of dollars to bring both elders and youth to the conference security has not let them in. She also points out that Canada does not have a single person in its delegation from the Western arctic.

The usual time for the briefing is up but a woman with a racking cough stomps in late and marches to the microphone. The delegate looks at her and lets her talk. She first comments on the security situation which resulted in her standing outside for half an hour even though she has bronchitis. She then lambasts him for Canada's role in the negotiations and requests that he talk to Minister Prentice and Stephen Harper so they “stop looking like idiots in the face of the world.” Finally she presents him with an 8 inch stack of letters written by Canadians tied with a glossy green satin ribbon. Mission accomplished she then turns to leave the microphone. Expressionless the he almost lets her leave and then stops her, suggesting that she may want to introduce herself for anyone who does not know who she is. She is, of course, Elizabeth May, the leader of the Canadian Green Party.

And this is where throat lozenges start to come back into the story. Several hours later the final plenary begins. Security has been tightened even further and a third badge system has been added. Large constituency groups of NGOs and country delegations have been given limited numbers of tertiary badges for admittance to the plenary but many of those with both secondary and tertiary badges have been denied access (negotiations are halted at one point because the head of the Brazilian delegation cannot get in) . Instead, flat screen television sets have set up in the hallways and we crowd around them to watch webcasts of the meetings.

As we watch, standing there in the hallway, someone hears my cough and kindly offers me a chair in the front. I gratefully sit down only to realize that my neighbour is also coughing – my neighbour is Elizabeth May.

All of the sudden our attention, and that of all the media personnel idly standing around, is diverted by a First Nations man chanting and drumming. He is at the head of a large group of people surrounded by a bristling force field of microphones and TV cameras. They come closer. At first we cannot hear what they are saying but then it becomes clear, “Join the People's Assembly, Climate Justice Now!”. Soon we are in the midst of the protest and I look over, there is Elizabeth May, bronchitis and all, hoarsely shouting along with them, “climate justice now! Climate justice now!”.

The protesters walk on – I know from NGO press releases that they are headed out to join the protestors on the outside. An academic from Berlin asks me if I know what is going on. I tell her and she shrugs, “well”, she says, pointing to the plenary room insulated from us all with thick white curtains and two walls, “its not going to do any good because they are all in there”.

I sit back down and our little huddle continues to watch the plenary. We are a motley crew – two South African delegates, an Ethiopian delegate, two women from an Indian NGO, Elizabeth May and I with several dozen others standing behind us. I eventually had to go but as I said good bye she asked if I was taking anything for my cough. I admitted I was not and she immediately rummaged around in her extremely voluminous bag. She emerged with a handfull of throat lozenges and a packet of vitamin C and gave me strict instructions to use it all.

And with that, she may have made me a green party member for life. I can't see any of our other leaders rummaging around and giving strangers throat lozenges. If his climate policy is anything to go on Stephen Harper would probably tell me that he understood my situation but that it really was a joint responsibility and until we were all collectively and cooperatively engaged, and had negotiated a collaborative framework it just wouldn't be appropriate for him to help me. That is, of course, if I was able to get through security in order to ask him at all. I am fairly confident that I would have the support of AOSIS, the G77 and China if I firmly told him to keep his collaboration, I just want throat lozenges!

Notes on an informal meeting of the parties

As has now become my morning routine, I arrive by bicycle at precisely 7:45 am in order to be prompt for the cold dark wait until the UNFCCC, as represented by pleasant but firm Danish policemen in yellow reflective vests, deigns to let the NGOs in. This morning I am greeted by an enormous crowd lined up before the fence. I first panic, thinking I will never get in but relax upon discovering that these are the people who have not yet registered. My calm is temporary when I reflect for a moment – there must be hundreds of people in this jostling line. How can the conference centre, already stretched beyond capacity, manage to accommodate more people?

Perhaps because of the general confusion caused by the hundreds of people waiting to register we are let in early this morning and I slide through the security lines. I have become expert at slipping out of my coat, removing my watch and earrings, extricating my laptop and putting it all into the yellow bins for the X Ray machine in a single movement. I then walk double time to the far 'pink' lane for the coat check because the lines are always shorter there. I leave my coat, get my ticket so it can be relocated in the fray thirteen hours later, and dash to the document distribution booth where each morning the day's schedule is available. Due to the vagaries of the negotiation process these are updated daily in two 10-15 page documents that I and thousands of others pick up everyday. I try not to think about how much paper this is.

The programme announces that the informal meeting of the parties will start at 11:30am in the main plenary room. I have a meeting at 10 but cancel it and skip a talk I had been planning to attend. I know from experience that if you are not in the plenary room well in advance you will be unable to get in. If you manage to get into the plenary room if you leave for ANY reason you cannot get back in. For NGOs access to these meetings is determined by the opportunity costs you are willing to pay. I pay the price today because this may be the last time I can. As of tomorrow security tightens and only select individuals from select NGOs will be allowed access. I am not even sure I will be allowed into the building.

I sit in my seat. The room is enormous, designed to hold between two and three thousand people, and is divided in half. The front half is reserved for the official parties and has long tables with a country name plate a microphone for each set. The back half is for observers. This area is divided by white ropes into three zones. Today NGOs get one of these zones, while press and non-negotiating delegation members get the others. As we wait images of blue sky scroll over the two enormous screens dominating the front of the room.

And we wait. And wait. And wait.

At 12:30, one hour after the meeting is supposed to start an announcement tell us that the “informal meeting will continue to be postponed”. Nervous laughter skitters through the crowd. What does this mean? Is this all the information we will receive? I cringe at thoughts of my missed meeting and skipped talk....by this time I could have gone to both of them.

We wait some more.

At 12:45 some people get out of their seats. The loudspeaker booms again, “ladies and gentlemen, distinguished delegates, please keep your seats”. I feel like I am in an airplane. I would like to get some lunch but it is obvious that something is going on, and if I leave now I will never get back in.

We wait some more.

At 1pm I hear a quiet humming. Soon it builds. Several rows in front of me I see Robin Hood, easily distinguished by his green felt hat with the jaunty red feather. He is singing and one by one the young people seated around him start to sing too. They are grouped around an iPod and are all singing along to a Four Non-Blond song, “hey hey hey what's going on....every single day I pray for a revolution”. A security guard comes over and stand over the group and asks them to stop. They ignore him and sing on. A second security guard joins him and they loom over the group until the singing dies. Robin looks down and smirks. The humming does not completely die but the security guards turn their backs and ignore it, unwilling to escalate the situation in front of hundreds of NGO observers.

As 1:15 I eavesdrop on the man skypeing behind me. “The talks have broken down” he says, “no-one was expecting this”. He sounds confident but not panicked so I take him seriously. This is how you get information if you are a bottom rung NGO representative. No information is officially provided. Your ears must tune into the frequencies of those who seem to have been around this block before. The trick is to decipher who not to believe. I generally don't listen to anyone who sounds too excited – chances are they know as little as I and are not yet used to the ebb and flow of negotiations.

We wait some more.

At 1:30 three security guards start telling the people in the front rows they will have to leave. I hear a quiet murmur that they are making all NGO representatives leave. I stay seated, discretely flip my badge over and hunker down with my computer to look as important and occupied as possible. It doesn't work. More security guards have arrived and are examining our badges one by one. All observers and all press are escorted out of the room.

By 1:45 I am outside the plenary hall. All I have to show for my morning is a cancelled meeting, a missed talk, and four hours of waiting. An older NGO delegate is angry we have been excluded but then shrugs, “Oh well, if they don't want us there it is because they are arguing, and if they are arguing at least they are talking”. I decide he is worth listening and reflect that even if I didn't accomplish anything today, hopefully some negotiator in there did.

If I Had a Camera

If I had a camera I would take a picture of...

..the floor of the meeting area in Hall B at 9 o'clock at night. Perhaps 200 white chairs are haphazardly scattered amidst small round tables. The floor is littered with papers – magazines, advertisements for session talks, negotiation bulletins, pamphlettes – and garbage, paper cups, plastic cups, a browning apple core, used paper napkins stained with something red, a half eaten plate of food. It is deserted except for a few stragglers glued to their computers, exhausted but doggedly focused. Apparently we are here to save the planet.

...the fake bamboo forest in the centre of the main atrium. The din is incredible. An interview about the involvement of girl scouts in the fight against climate change is being conducted and played over the loudspeaker. Throngs of people with cell phones and blackberries hurry past as they leave one plenary to get to the other. They do not seem to notice the trees. A camera crew have sprawled their equipment across the two tables behind it and have wired themselves into their computers to plan their next scrum. Massive projections of deserts, coral reefs and tundra, perhaps 30 feet across and 20 feet high, move across the back wall while a crowd of people chatter as they wait to buy coffee and chocolate at the cafe. A lone man, a delegate from Thailand, is sitting with his back to it all, facing the bamboo, his socked feet resting on the small enclosure protecting the plastic foliage, his head resting on the back of his plastic chair.

...central Copenhagen at 7:30 am. The sky is bruised black and blue with thin streaky clouds that make it appear lighter than it is. A sickle moon hangs sharply in the cold haze. In front of me are several dozen people on bicycles. From behind all I see are their backs shrouded in grey and black wool, hair peeking out of wool hats. When the bike light turns green they become a constellation of twinkling red lights. Their rear lights are all powered by their pedals and flicker as they glide off down the street in front of me.

...the blond haired pleasant-faced middle-aged woman who sits beside me one morning and offers to buy me a cup of coffee. She works for a major multi-national corporation but used to be a lobbyist. She shows me pictures of her daughter – the one studying massage who emailed this morning to warn her that climate change might be a hoax and was worried her mother might be getting herself into something that was against her principles. We both wish her daughter was here. Apparently she needs to practice massage and we both could use one.

....the canal from the Frederiksborough crossing at night. A ring of blinking red lights encircles the the canal in both directions. They are too low to warn off airplanes, and too high to be traffic signals. If you followed the lights you would discover that they have been wound through the entire city. Copenhagen is tied together with a necklace of small independent blinking red lights at a height of 7 metres. 7 metres is the projected sealevel rise under some of the climate change projections. 7 metres towers over most of the city infrastructure. I stand below a light and feel the weight of 7 metres of water pressing down on me.

....a girl consoling a boy. Her hand is on his shoulder as they walk down the hall. His head is facing down. “It doesn't matter”, she says, “it won't do any good because he doesn't care anyway”. After awhile she adds, “I am realizing he isn't here to represent Canada, just industry”. The two of them are part of Canada's youth delegation and are leaving the morning briefing. The boy has just asked the representative of the Canadian delegation what kind of a world he thinks we would have in 2050 if all countries did what Canada is doing. He has been told that Canada is working co-operatively on a collaborative global effort and that it takes climate change seriously.

....three tall women standing in the wind on the flat marsh just outside Copenhagen. Their thin frames slice the horizon as they soar above me. Each woman is many times my height but is a bare suggestion of substance. They are made of thin metal wrapped in fabric and wind. I see behind them the red glow of a power plant in the distance. Lonely and strong, graceful and intimidatingly vulnerable they stride across the land. They are the dispossessed, ghosts of now, ghosts of the future.

But of course I don't have a camera. And even if I did I would lack the courage and the skill to take these pictures anyway.

Notes on a Canadian Briefing

Dec 10, 2009 – the anniversary of the signing of the declaration of human rights

It isn't easy to find the Canadian Delegation briefing. It is not advertised but news of its existence creeps word of mouth through the NGO lines. It starts at 8 but the UN has decided to prevent observers from entering the premises until 8, which means we are all bound to be late as we have to go through security first. Clearly marked as observers by our yellow badges we huddle in the rain by the entrance, watching as the official parties glide by in an orderly line, each delegate flashing a pink striped badge to gain admittance.

When finally allowed in we surge through the entrance and are herded into a series of lanes. We jostle along, three and four to a lane, more sheep than humans, carefully contained within neat rope barriers. Once through the X Ray machines the mass disperses, each person in a mad rush to get to whatever meeting awaits them. To get to the Canadian briefing you must wind through the entire conference centre – past the displays, document distribution points, three cafes, the main atrium, and both plenary rooms. You finally find yourself in a portable rabbit warren of small, white walled rooms. The map tells you to go past Mexico, take a left at Switzerland, pass Australia and turn just after Poland. However, be warned! It is oriented the wrong way, and following it can easily send you on a wild goose chase past the entire continent of Asia. The only indication that you have successfully reached your destination is a small sign that says 'Canada' in nondescript letters (Mexico has decorated their name plate with many colours, ours is plain black lettering). A security guard stands to one side and examines everyone's badges briefly. You do not have to demonstrate your citizenship to be here.

Six Canadian flags decorate the wall behind two male bureaucrats sitting rigidly and expressionless in the glare of the TV spotlights. They are either personality-less, intimidated or exhausted – or perhaps some combination of the three. Thirty chairs are arranged facing them and are filled primarily with two groups. First, men in suits. Second, youth, mostly young women, wearing brilliant orange T-shirts with “Don't bracket our Future” scrawled across the back and, “How old will you be in 2050” emblazoned on the front. Today the international youth coalition is focussing on intergenerational equity and they are determined to be noticed. Almost 1000 youth are scattered throughout the conference centre, unmissable in their brilliant outfits. I am one of the few women in the room not part of the youth delegation. Another female researcher sits beside me, and two other activist-academics lean against the back wall.

The session starts with an official briefing. The older, tenser bureaucrat outlines the agenda for the day's negotiations and lists the items that will be discussed in each meeting. We all have this information already as it is distributed to all delegates but we all politely listen. We all know that this reading of the agenda is not why we are here. We are here for the questions.

He knows this too – the tense bureaucrat at the front of the room in the glare of the lights. His briefing is short and then he opens the floor, tiredly, to the audience. The men in the suits are first to ask questions. They use acronyms to ask technical questions about the details of negotiations. They ask about rumours that Russia will forgo its surplus from the first commitment period of the KP. They suggest improved mechanisms for the control of HCFC22, they inquire about the status of the AWG-LCA. They know the bureaucrat and address him by name. He addresses them by name. They do not agree but do speak the same language and wear the same suits.

Soon the young women in the orange T-shirts stand up. The first asks the older bureaucrat how old he will be in 2050 and what he thinks about intergenerational equity. He tells her that her question is politically incorrect but that he is 48 and so will be about 90 in 2050. He is less obliging with her second question and suggests that he can only really respond if she has a policy relevant point. Not a timid young woman, one gets the impression that most of them in the orange T-shirts are not timid, she persists and asks him again. This time he has had more time to anticipate her question and assures her that the very goal of the negotiations is to ensure the longevity and wellbeing of the future generations, but also cautions her that we must “carefully consider the appropriate discount rate to be used in the cost benefit analyses that will guide our policy options”.

Hot on the heels of the first youth delegate is the second. She is 18 and this is her second COP. She informs him that she would like to tell him a story; she would like to tell him a story about yesterday. It was not a very good day. She cried twice yesterday. She cried because of her discussions with youth from Fiji and Uganda. She cried because she was embarrassed and ashamed of Canada. She cried because she was sorry, but sorry wasn't good enough. She cried because it isn't fair. She stands there and tells him this story, and as she explains why she cried yesterday she starts to cry again and sits down. The bureaucrat thanks her, taking care to use her name. The orange-shirted members of the audience clap, the men in suits shift uncomfortably, and the next question is asked. The two activist-academic women present a report outlining their findings that Canadians want an ambitious and legally binding deal to come out of Copenhagen. The young woman who cried leaves.

And the meeting goes on. The men in suits have several more questions about policy details which the older, tenser bureaucrat handily addresses. Exactly one half hour from the time it began the meeting draws to a close and we all disperse into the rabbit warren. All Canadians. All sharers of the 'fossil of the day award' for two of the three previous days of the conference. All off to participate in our own ways in this diverse effort to grapple with this creature of many faces and many names.

Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

First Lessons from the Copenhagen COP15

I told a few people I would keep them posted on what I am up to in

this strange meeting. Hopefully I will learn other things later on but

in the meantime...here is what I learned on days one and two.

First Lessons From the COP15

1) If you really want to understand what is going on in a meeting of
35 000 people you need to have cloned yourself at least 5 times, and
have a personal assistant for each one. This is a sobering thought
when you think, for example, of the situation of the single (as in
one) delegate here from Cameroun.

2) It is probably not a good idea to try to meet someone you have
never met for whom you have only the description that he 'has a silver Mac and

a blue suit'. If this was a TV show, Mac and the makers of men's blue
suits would have paid a lot of money for their product placement bc
this description fits approximately 25% of the entire 35 000 people.
50% more wear black suits and carry Macs, or wear blue suits but have
PCs. The remaining 25% are composed primarily of women (wearing
various female versions of the blue and black suits with roughly the
same rations of Macs and PCs), NGO teenagers in jeans and logo
emblazoned T shirts and the small army of staff wearing blue, white or
red depending on their job. There have also been quite a few costumed

people - including some fake magicians, a mermaid, and several alarm clocks.

3) Compared to the hordes of NGO kids running around I am old and
crotchety but probably not as old and crotchety as the negotiating
parties which appear to be utterly and completely unmoved and
unobservant of all NGO lobbying efforts. I at least acknowledge their
existence.

4) Commuting in Copenhagen is essentially a daily non-confrontational

critical mass ride composed entirely of extremely polite and law
abiding cyclists.

5) Danish is hard. Unless you have a natural penchant for weird and
wonderfully nuanced vowel combinations you are unlikely to be
understood by anyone, no matter how hard you try. I have been advised
to stop trying.

6) There is infinitely more going on than meets the eye.
Frustratingly, it also seems to evade all my other senses, other than
my intuition which is loudly insisting that I am missing the point
entirely.

7) Are we sure that the idea of global governance was not just a
conspiracy by a confederation of law schools as a way to employ all
graduates in perpetuity? Does anyone have any evidence that this is
not the case?

8) Airport security systems could learn something from the UN. 35 000
people get funneled through 21 X-Ray machines and three badge
inspection checkpoints daily. It takes less than 10 minutes to get
through security.

9) Avoid smiling at anyone with a TV camera. You are far too likely
to end up getting interviewed. They have lights and microphones and
you probably have NO idea what you are getting into.

Perhaps I'll learn some other things soon.....or maybe not.....in any
case, the biking is lovely, the city is sane, and I am late for
another session.

S