Orbits and Expertise

Protected by heavy wooden double doors, the conference room is tucked away on the second floor of the beach front hotel. An assistant asks for my business card to register me, locates my name badge, and offers me a heavy black plastic binder. I pull one of the brass door handles and the door silently swings open. 8 pendulous chandeliers hang from a curved cream ceiling geometrically patterned with tasteful cream molding. Long dark tables are set up with water glasses, candy dishes and pre-cut lemon slices which I presume are for our water.

A young man in a black suit-jacket and striped tie is at the podium. His blond hair is clipped just so, and he has the air of one who is entirely comfortable speaking in front of a well-heeled audience. He is telling us how to protect Africa from climate change, and is outlining the major barriers to doing so. Information is a problem, “but this ignorance can be addressed”. Lower crop yields are expected due to changes in rainfall, but this can be fixed “by reducing Africa's reliance on agriculture”.

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The rural women's assembly is in full swing. The white tent in the parking lot is a little more worn, and the paper schedule taped to the tent-wall is rumpled from falling off repeatedly. These women travelled from across Africa to be together. They have discussed climate change, the problems of large-scale agriculture and the challenges of access to land. The fundamental assumption on which their assembly rests is that women provide much of Africa's food and are the centre of their communities. As one woman from Botswana simply states, “No women, no food. No food, no future”.

All of these rural women are involved in food production in some way, and are not unaware of the difficulties facing the agricultural sector. They are now tackling strategies to deal with climate change. The woman in the centre of the tent has full control of the microphone. “Stand up”, she yells, “stand up and say, 'I am an expertise', I have knowledge that nobody else has, not the government, not the corporations, say it, say 'I am an expertise'”. Tentatively at first, but then vibrantly and full of direction the women join in, each pointing to themselves and affirming their expertise.

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The official COP17 mini-bus is late, so the delegate from Swaziland and I jump into one of the regular mini-van taxis. Our conversation is interrupted regularly as the van repeatedly backfires, sending us lurching across the seats. We are talking about the difficulties of trying to reach an agreement in Durban. The differences among developed and developing countries seem monumental, and the ideas about what is possible or desirable are in no way converging.

As we come to the end of our journey she tells me a story. She comes from a mixed heritage, “and when I was growing up I used to ask my father, 'how can these people think like this, how can some people treat others like this'? And my father used tot ell me, 'we are all like planets, we cannot ever truly understand the world from someone else's eyes. We each have our own centre and orbit. However, as we move we are pushed and pulled by the forces of others, and this changes how we move through life'”.

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The young man at the front has moved on from agriculture, and is now discussing the need for industrialization across Africa. The economy needs to be diversified, and heavy industry is the way to do it. More mineral development is needed, and by reducing trade barriers and using a regional liberalized approach, “South Africa could spread dirty industries to other countries to spread development around a little bit”. I sit there and think that the Rural Women's Assembly might have something to say about this, as would anyone who has read a critical development text written since 1970.

There are indeed many planets floating through COP17. Some of them have direct collisions, and some can co-ordinate their orbits for a little while. Others collide directly but don't even realize it, so intent on their final goal that they are unaware that their own fate, their own course, has been altered as they bounced off the others they did not see.