Lots of Waves, but No Wake

For once I think he has it right. Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada's chief negotiator, looks care-worn and weary this morning, although it could be the combination of the flourescent lights and his pale yellow shirt. He is leafing through pages of notes, mentally sorting through what he can tell us and what he can't. Each topic warrants one sentence started with an acronym, “LULUCF, some good progress made yesterday. SBSTA, this was one of the areas where our negotiators were working until 10:30 last night. REDD, they finished at 10, we see some movement there”. He barely glances up as he continues his list. Finally he gets to the end, “Shared vision, um”, he pauses and runs his blue fountain pen down the page, “zero energy in the room so no progress there”.

Its 11 pm and I am cutting across the University of KwaZulu Natal campus on my way to my residence room. As I enter the main gates I run into a man wearing rainbow pants, a colurful shirt with “the People's Power” emblazoned across his chest, and a purple pillbox hat. I recognize him from earlier in the day, when I had noticed him at the ICC. I ask him if he is coming from the “People's Space”, the alternative conference that is going to be hosted by UKZN but which has not yet started. “Absolutely” he beams. I tell him I am planning to attend the next morning, once it really gets going, and we talk about COP17. “I had to get out of there”, he tells me, “its just flat, there is no energy”.

These two men are unlikely to meet, and if they did I expect they would have little in common except for this observation – there is no energy at COP17. From the outside it appears a hub of activity. People are running around. Negotiators are meeting until 10:30 at night. Developing country representatives are making impassioned pleas for action. But there is no movement. People might be paddling but they are paddling in all directions. There are lots of waves, but no wake. It's exhausting.

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Stage presence is one thing, but stage presence in the absence of a stage is another thing entirely. White plastic lawn chairs have been pulled into a series of concentric ovals underneath a large white tent in the UKZN parking lot. Several hundred women have assembled here, and a short round woman standing in the centre dominates the group – she is the chair, if this is what you could call it, and she vibrates with energy. This is the Rural African Women's Assembly on Climate Change and it is an electric gathering. One by one women come up and speak on behalf of their delegation. They have come from Botswana, South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia ..... the list goes on.

“I have come today to tell you that climate change is affecting us. It is affecting us in Zambia because our gardens are not growing and we cannot feed our children”. Myriam from Zambia sits down and the room erupts into song before the next woman in line can get up to say her piece. The chair of the meeting calls into the microphone, “respect, sisters, respect”, but then gives up and joins in.

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I get there early to make sure I have a seat but I needn't have worried. It is quarter past the starting time but delegates are filtering in. Long tables equipped with microphones fill the room, but no seats are assigned. A woman with a cardboard box is sitting at the entrance of the room. As the delegates enters she rummages around and hands out white paper laminated country name plates. The meeting finally begins and the chair welcomes us. This is the first informal on long-term cooperative vision. A draft text has been circulated and the chair opens the floor for comments.

Nothing happens.

Argentina arrives late and casually wanders around until he finds a place to perch between China and Afghanistan.

We sit silently and nobody says a thing.

Finally, the US representative raises his white placard. “The United States has the floor”, the chair announces, relief running through her voice. “Thank you madame chair, the United States would like to say that this is a comprehensive document and will be difficult to discuss in the time allotted”

The chair thanks the representative and looks around the room expectantly.

But there is only more silence.

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A tall woman in a red shirt and white sunhat is given the microphone, but before she can speak a group of 15 women dressed in matching red T shirts rush to the centre of the room. They are met halfway by a close-cropped woman in a black T shirt and jeans who starts to sing. The tent explodes with sound. As she sings they respond, singing and dancing their way through the tent until they fill the oval in the middle of the chairs. I cannot understand the words, but America, Obama and climate change feature heavily.

The chair of the meeting is singing too but finally convinces them to stop, and sternly tells the woman that she can “only speak for 3 minutes, since your people took 5 minutes for dancing. We must do our work and then we will have time for singing and dancing”. The woman talks about the unpredictable rains her people have experienced and how this is making food production more difficult. At the end of her talk she yells into the microphone, “One Africa, One Voice, One Africa, One Voice”. Everyone jumps to their feet to join in and the chair loses the battle. The women have spoken and they will sing and dance now.

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The sign on the inside of the mini-bus taxi says “this vehicle is registered for a maximum of 13 people”. Squashed in the backseat between three university students and a woman doing her shopping, I count 17 people plus bags, a suitcase, and a wicker basket. The ticket is 6 rand and we hand the coins up to the driver, person to person as though we were passing notes in class. Thanks to the students I get off at the right stop and walk through a market on my way to the ICC.

I get through security, walk into the cool air conditioned space muffled by carpeted floors and head to the plenary. On my way I run into a former chief negotiator of a European country. He recognizes me from a previous meeting and we exchange pleasantries. “I'm about tired out, and I'm not sure what to go to next”, he admits, and then asks me the common greeting question within the COP culture, “what were you at this morning?”

I tell him about the alternative conference at UKZN and encourage him to go visit it. “So we should be doing more singing, is this what you are saying?” he asks slightly sarcastically. I nod emphatically. He looks at me strangely for a moment, then half-shrugs, “well, maybe you're right.”