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.

......................

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.

...........................

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.

..............................

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.

.............................................

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.”

Team Sport

I felt some sympathy for the United States press officer. A colleague and I decided to attend the American stakeholder briefings, except that neither of us knew if such a thing existed. We descended into the parking garage and walked into the US press office. Unfortunately the press officer had absolutely no idea if there were stakeholder meetings, and asked why we didn't just come to the press conferences. “Uh, because we're not allowed”, my colleague answered, “only media can attend those”. The woman blushed, “Oh right, I'm so sorry, this is my first COP and I still don't understand how this all works, its so weird”.

A COP has spoken rules, unspoken rules, and whole families of rules that fall somewhere in between. Technically the COPs (Conference of the Parties) are formal negotiating sessions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the UNFCCC). In reality they are some combination of industrial lobbying, media scrums, reunions among friends, networking opportunities, training events, trade-shows and school room politics. Some negotiations do occur.

Navigating a COP is strictly a team sport. People stake out meeting places in every possible location. A youth group sits on the floor under the stairs, talking earnestly in a sea of backpacks. Four men in black suits and blue ties sit around a table covered in papers. A cluster of journalists balance coffee cups amidst a tangle of wires, a tripod and an enormous camera. As the youthful Swazi delegate I chat with over tea says, “its no fun being a lone ranger here at a COP. I was on my own for two hours and that was enough!”.

Even entire organizations find it impossible to go it alone at COP, so there are organizations of organizations. There are the ENGOs, the YOUNGOs, the TUNGOs, the BINGOs, the RINGOs. There are those who are too dignified for rhyming acronyms, the IPOs, LGMAs, COMIFAC. And then there are the most dignified of all who spurn acronyms altogether - the Farmers and the Women and Gender non-governmental organizations. But countries need friends too, and so there are the BRICs and BASIC, the Umbrella Group, the LDCs, AOSIS, OPEC, Africa Group, G77, ALBA, the Coalition of Rainforest Nations – should I go on?

The COP is complicated by the fact that negotiations for multiple inter-related issues occur simultaneously. When it became apparent that the Kyoto Protocol was nearing the end of its life, the UNFCCC decided to break negotiations in two. There are currently two official streams of negotiation – the Ad-hoc working group on the Kyoto Protocol (the AWG-KP in UN speak), and the Ad-Hoc working group on Long Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA). In theory the AWG-KP focuses on the Kyoto Protocol, while the AWG-LCA works on creating a framework that could continue after the Kyoto Protocol ends. In reality countries play with the boundaries between the two, and contentious issues get bounced from one, to the other, and back again.

But climate negotiations are not only about how many GHG emissions a country should emit, or how much money should move from one government to another. GHGs are hard to measure. Trading systems have to have rules. Governance structures for funding mechanisms have to be designed. All these topics have to be negotiated, and for this you end up with technical groups, working groups, informals, workshops and a plethora of “closed” strategic and technical meetings.

The negotiator for Tuvalu holds up his white laminated card about halfway through an intense discussion about the future of the UNFCCC. The president gives him the floor. He first points out that the survival of his country, like many other island states, depends on the prevention of significant sea-level rise. Compared to basic survival, the next issue appears trivial – meeting time. The timing of this session conflicts with the daily Least Developed Countries meeting.

Many countries do not have enough representatives even to have a presence in all simultaneous meetings, to say nothing about experience or expertise. Even the best negotiator cannot be an expert in every policy debate as it has evolved day to day for 17 years. Very few developing countries have the luxury of having a team of full-time, year-round staff to tackle the intricacies of climate policy. Meeting time conflicts are not trivial.

In theory the UNFCCC works by consensus amongst nations. One country, one voice. But in a system in which negotiations are this complicated, not all voices are created equal. COPs may be a team sport, but when it comes to team size anything goes.

Wayfinding

The humidity hits you the instant you walk into the underground parking garage. It is the rainy season in Durban and water is pooled on the exit ramps. The extensive carpeting doesn't help. Hundreds of 18 inch black and grey carpet squares have been laid side by side in every direction. Large concrete columns , conveniently colour coded to tell you where you left your car, are unconvincingly disguised by a sole potted plant leaning against each one. Cement curbs interrupt the chessboard carpet, and I find myself weaving around them, habitually following the rules of the road.

I turn left at a ficus-benjamina, and walk through the stop sign half hidden by a chifera, its five fingered leaves looking unhappy about the lack of natural light. I am looking for Canada. I pass England, Germany, the IPCC, Argentina, and the United States. No Canada. The entire parking garage has been transformed into a warren of wet offices. White plastic dividers have been erected and limp pieces of paper desultorily announce whose office is whose.

An incredibly bored security guard is standing against the far wall. I still haven't found Canada. She opens her map, looks around and points in exactly the direction I just came from. “There”, she says. I follow her advice, but still no Canada, just a copy centre where I can only imagine the headaches awaiting delegates tasked with endless late-night revisions of commas and sub-clauses, stymied by copiers jammed with mountains of damp paper.

I return to the security guard and we look again. Sure enough. The map was upside down, and she had assumed that the colours on the map matched the parking garage columns. But no. Canada is purple, but it is in the pink zone, hidden just around the corner from Indonesia.

I finally stumble across a white plastic room dominated by a white plastic oval table adorned with two tiny Canada flags. A lone woman sits working on a laptop. I ask her when the Canadian briefings are. She looks at me in confusion, “do you mean the stakeholder meetings?” I assume I mean yes, and if not I want to be there anyway, so I confidently reply in the affirmative. “8 am”, she says, “but don't worry, they are upstairs”.

Mission accomplished I turn around to find my way out of the parking garage. Half-way out I run into a flustered woman frantically looking for the IPCC. Feeling rather smug I direct her to turn at the pink columns, go straight past the WTO, and stop before she hits Finland.

Day One: Three Vignettes

The computer centre is so full it is humming with an electronic drone. At the far end of one row a young woman is intently – furiously – hunched over a keyboard. A colleague comes up and asks her how she is. She does not hear him. He tries again and lays a hand on her shoulder. She glares up, enraged by the interruption but relaxes when she sees it is him. “How's it going?” he asks. “Horrible” is the unsurprising response. “I have to finish this report on the plenary. I have a pass but they won't let me in”. He looks her up and down, “well, I guess you look more pro-bono than I do today”.

.....................................

Sixteen people, all but two of them women, are seated in a large semi-circle around a television screen. Most are cross-legged on the ground, except for a few older women who have stolen chairs from the nearby computer centre. Most are intent on the screen, but others are half listening. One young woman is checking facebook.

The opening plenary has been running all morning but NGOs were not allocated seats. Instead they were “advised to view the opening on the CCTV monitors located around the conference centre”. I join the group and tuck my feet under me. We listen as representative after representative from the global south makes their case for greater adaptation funding and deeper emission reductions from developed countries. It is unrelenting and genuine.

But no-one is expecting a deal in Durban.

..................................................

The city is whizzing by. Fences are topped by swirls of barbed wire. Everyone's windows are covered in bars. I am being read the riot act by Peter, a student at the university. Lacking any means of transportation, and emphatically forbidden by everyone I meet from riding what little public transit exists, I have hired him to drive me the six kilometers to the conference centre. “You must be careful. You must not go out alone”, he tells me. “Just last week a nurse was stabbed five times for her cellphone, that is what is so different from the crime at home in Zambia, here it is violent”.

I look longingly at the city as it passes us. It is alive. Warm, moist air pours in the windows. It is the perfect temperature to be outside. People are doing their shopping, lounging on stoops, leisurely walking inches away from flying vehicles.

We get to the conference centre and I don my badge, go through the first set of gates, then the second, then the security clearance, and finally into the convention centre complex. Open courtyards fluttering with purple flowers spill out of the corridors. Cafes splay open to reveal cast iron chairs and round tables under palm trees. It could almost trick us into believing we are free, except for the urban hum the fences cannot exclude.

On Refusing to Rollover

Lead me from death to life,

from falsehood to truth;

lead me from despair to hope,

from fear to trust;

lead me from hate to love,

from war to peace.

Let peace fill our hearts,

our world, our universe.

Peace.

…………………………………………...................................

“I’m not going, what’s the point?"

We are standing in a room decorated by pictures of solar panels, hydrogen cars and a flamboyant Amazonian lizard I expect is endangered. As is usual these days, the topic of conversation is COP17. I have just told a colleague that I am heading to Durban. He used to attend the UNFCCC meetings but does not see the point in doing so anymore. Afterall, we all know nothing productive will come from it anyway.

Japan has washed its hands of the Kyoto Protocol. So too have Canada and Russia. The United States never was on board. The European Union is frantically plugging leaks in its dyke, trying to avoid the tidal wave of Euro failure. Emissions might soon drop in Europe, but it certainly won’t be due to climate policy.

Meanwhile, it’s estimated that at least two new coal-powered plants are built each week in China. The International Energy Association, an institute instigated by Henry Kissinger, recently released its latest energy outlook. According to the first line of this document, “rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change” if deep changes in global policy are not forthcoming.

My colleague isn’t alone in his sentiments. The climate change policy community has many disputes, but it appears the single thing it agrees on is that no positive agreements are likely in Durban. What do we do now?

……………………

The room is silent. Ugly blue-upholstered chairs are positioned in a circle around a wooden table holding several books, and a few stems of flowers in a glass vase. A furtive beam of light bounces off the plain white walls. The room is full of people and utterly still. The woman next to me has a cold. I can hear the slight catch in her breathe as she inhales.

A grey-haired man in front of me suddenly stands up. His voice reverberates through the silence. He has been watching the news. Climate change is getting worse. Economic reforms are needed but have not been forthcoming. We have been abandoned by our leaders. He knows this.

He knows this, and his daughter knows it too. However, his daughter is going to Durban anyway. She is going to Durban with an environmental organization because something has to be done.

“I am terribly proud of these young people. I am proud of these young people who are refusing to rollover and play dead”

Silence returns when he sits down.

………………………

Another day. Another room. A research group is seated around a long oval table.

A senior researcher is speaking. He has been circling the climate change problem for almost 20 years from every conceivable angle.

He starts from a simple premise. Whatever policy efforts we have made to address climate change so far haven’t worked. 20 years of effort, little positive change. It’s a depressing equation.

At the end of his talk he stops, leans back in his chair, and says, “so, now let me tell you what I think about Durban”.

His first thought isn’t terribly surprising, “nothing is going to come out of Durban”.

The next thought is more interesting. His view is that the entire conversation has to change, we’ve been approaching it the wrong way. For too long we have been waiting for action from big countries like the US. These countries can’t and won’t move. Their economies are in shambles. The oil industry is too powerful.

His suggestion is simple, and would make Margaret Mead proud. Starting big didn’t work, so lets try starting small. Lets start with a committed coalition of the willing and build change from there.

Riding my bike home in the dark I think of colleagues, friends and family who are working everyday to do just this. Starting small. Making changes. Trying new ways of imagining what could be. They are refusing to rollover and play dead. And I am terribly proud of them.

(Note: I did not write the prayer at the beginning of this post. This is the Prayer for Peace.)

It's Started, Be What May

Well, it’s started. It is November and there is something undefinable but unmistakable in the air. A collective breathlessness. The edge of anticipation. As I enter the large doors and go up the escalators I recognize the slightly frantic glaze in everybody’s eyes because I have it too. Its almost here and there is still so much to do.

I am, of course, talking about COP17 of the UNFCCC. COP17 is the seventeenth ‘Conference of the Parties’ of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A small band of negotiators work on developing some semblance of international climate policy year-round, but this is the crucial annual event designed to formalize and implement the global political response to climate change. Within days thousands of people will board airplanes destined for Durban, South Africa where two weeks of networking and negotiation in sprawling convention centres and non-descript hotel boardrooms await them. For bureaucrats, politicians, lawyers, academics, journalists, heads of state, and civil society leaders the pace of life is rapidly accelerating. There are strategies to clarify. Predictions to be made. Reports to be released.

There are only two remotely notable features about the meeting room I walk into on this November afternoon. The first is the assortment of people balancing gummy white bread sandwiches on paper plates. There are 15 wooden chairs around the table. I count representatives from the embassies of three powerful countries, four internationally recognized academics, and several senior negotiators from the wealthy developed country that is hosting the meeting. An assistant discreetly stands at the ready between the door and the coffee.

The second notable thing is me. My gender, my youth and my unimportance prevent me from blending in. I am one of only two women; the other is the wife of the chair of the meeting. In my green wool dress, I am the only person not wearing a grey or black power suit. There appears to be only one other person under the age of 40, and I am the only one whom everyone else does not already know. The chair mentions that he and several others in the room have been attending COPs since COP3. This represents 14 years of climate change negotiating at the highest level.

We have gathered today to hear what opening stance this specific wealthy developed country has decided it will take. I imagine identical meetings are happening in equally bland meeting rooms around the globe. This is the chance for negotiators to test their arguments, fish for support and delineate areas of mutual interest with other players that might emerge.

The stage is carefully set to allow us to see the logic, indeed the natural evolution, of their central stance. It starts with a consideration of what I expect is the single-most referenced piece of the UNFCCC, Article 3. This crucial text begins thus:

"The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities."

The initial Kyoto Protocol, birthed in the fateful COP3 of the UNFCCC, used this text to draw a razor-sharp line in the sand between developed and developing countries. Developed countries made legally binding promises to reduce greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. Developing countries faced no obligations. It was felt that developed countries could charge ahead, bear the initial costs for the GHGs they had historically emitted, and that developing countries could eventually contribute as they were able, buoyed by unceasing economic growth and steadily decreasing costs of emission reductions through technological innovation.

Fast-forward 14 years and the landscape has changed. Emissions have skyrocketed worldwide. Developed countries found it far harder than expected to reduce emissions for a variety of political, economic and technical reasons and few have met their obligations. Meanwhile several developing countries, most notably China, have experienced explosions of growth and emissions.

Like developed countries around the world, our host developed country is not particularly keen to commit itself to deep reductions of GHGs unless countries like India and China do as well. The negotiators meticulously point us to the last two words of the article, respective capabilities. The argument is neither complicated nor new. It could be paraphrased like this; “In the UNFCCC we all agreed to do our part based on what we could do. Many developing countries are now able to carry part of the burden, so we, as a developed country, are not willing to move forward on any further emission reductions until they do too”. Paraphrase it a little further and you get something like, “I won’t go until you go first”.

A number of those in the room shift uncomfortably at this aggressive play. The argument we have just been presented is deeply contentious because it suggests a complete overhaul of long-standing global obligations and their associated costs. India and several other developing countries are completely committed to maintaining the Kyoto divisions. Several academics and an embassy representative suggest softening the stance to minimize the alienation it will necessarily cause in India, China and other developing countries.

Another academic, one who has never attended a COP but who is an internationally recognized energy economist, attacks it more directly, stressing that this line of argument could unravel the already threadbare global commitment to reduce emissions. Surely, he argues, some cooperation would reap maximum emission reductions at a minimum cost.

The lead negotiator, a kindly looking gentleman who has clearly thought this through and seen it all in his years of service, leans forward and gives the academic a bemused smile. “But this is political reality”, he says, “this is how the game is played”.

We break for tea and biscuits and the room swells with muted chatter. I find myself in a small cluster with two of the academics discussing Durban and its possible outcomes. The younger but more experienced one sagely dips his stale shortbread into his tea. “I’m worried”, he states, “I think Durban could be a very dangerous COP. Sometimes it is better not to talk than to talk. Maybe we need to stop talking”.

Riding the tube on my way home I reflect on what he has said. He is not the first person I have heard expressing deep ambivalence about the utility of continuing to meet for the UNFCCC. If I am correct, and meetings like the one I just attended are being held around the world, and if negotiating stances elsewhere are crystallizing in fundamentally irresolvable ways, then he might be right. Durban could simply dig a deeper hole for a global stalemate.

I check my email when I get home. My e-ticket has arrived. I leave for Durban in a few days. Whether the UNFCCC should meet or not is moot. We are committed now, be what may.

Dear World Leaders

It's over. Or at least my part is. Negotiators continue to sweat behind closed doors, and world leaders are still trying to finish the job, but I am going home.

And I'm tired.

Ten days of intense interactions with thousands of people, the constant flow of adrenalin as the negotiations ebb and flow, the mountains of information to process and a seriously awful cold and cough have left me depleted.

And so I'm sitting here thinking.

Or at least I would be thinking if I wasn't stuck in the middle of Heathrow airport. All week I have been listening to messages 'for our world leaders'. Five flat screen TVs decorated the back wall of the 'hallway' cafeteria – the long shallow one with the fake pine trees in it. Each of these screens played a loop of hundreds, if not thousands of letters to the world leaders. “Dear World Leaders”, one reads, “Please save the earth for my children”, signed Jenny, age 5.

Biking home in the dark one evening I saw an eerie blue nimbus enveloping a large cubical building. I veered off the path to explore. Perhaps eight stories high it sat squat and square on the edge of the marsh just outside the city. Threads of blue light were twisting and entangling across its surface. The writhing filaments did not cease. It reminded me of videos of the first frantic hours of life as cells divide upon cells in a pulsing mass. I stood there in the dark, a small cloud of my breath hanging about me in the still air and watched until messages begin to resolve out of the fragile blue chaos. “Dear World Leaders, Do not think of your own nations but of us the world citizens”, signed Kelly Ann Bauman of the United States. Her message slowly dissolved into another, “Dear World Leaders, The people of the world have entrusted you with our future”.

I stood there, entranced by the blue light until a metro, ultra modern and full of people leaving Bella Centre, streaked by and I realized I could no longer feel my fingers. I got on my bicycle. As I rode away I looked back. Gerald Jacquenort from Spain had written, “Dear World Leaders, Western luxury standards are obsolete and are not appropriate in the name of my child and of future generations”.

And now I am here. In the epicentre of the storm – the shopping extravaganza more commonly known as Heathrow airport. I sit in a relatively quiet lounge and am immediately barraged by Emergency exit Caffe Italia Starbucks Coffee lounge A Tie Rack London Samsonite Mountain Equipment Co-op Longchamp only £4.99 Christmas gift sets Please pay here WHSmith Eat Next stop is Istanbul Ballentines Bridge bar and eating house Rolling luggage sold here Giorgio Now Open Sunglasses Hut Dixons Travel Breakfast Bureau de change More than sushi Samsung American Express Duty Free Cigarettes Hamleys Toys Don't Forget Your Batteries HMVBoots Pharmacy Grab a Meal Deal FREE free FREE Yo to go. Ropes of silver icicle lights hang blinking from the ceiling. The screen in the diner across from me scrolls “Time to Relax? In a Hurry? Dine in our café”.

And I think.

And I eat a single orange very slowly, taking care to appreciate its nubbly spicy skin and sweet tart juice.

Perhaps I should have written my own message. “Dear World” it would have said, “please stop waiting for your leaders”.