Wow. What an insane couple of weeks. What was supposed to go into history books as a unique opportunity to tackle dangerous climate change, has resulted in a ‘half-baked text’ of 3 pages – the result of 2 years of preparation and 300 pages negotiating text, and a last-minute non-democratic process between a hand-full of countries, behind closed doors, surpassing the UN system and democracy. Founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, declared the UN system dead, illustrating that yesterday’s diplomatic institutions are not prepared for tomorrow’s complex challenges.
What we have seen is typical old-school economics and status-quo diplomacy, a form of international negotiations not fit to tackle the huge complexity of climate change in society, and not respecting the historical responsibility of industrialised countries to finance mitigation and to provide proper adaptation support, in order to bridge the gap in capacities to mitigate emissions, accelerate the growth towards a clean economy, and to cope with the consequences of climate change, especially in developing countries.
Looking at the buzz on the ground at Bella Center, it was an insane circus: the most complex and biggest conference ever, accompanied by the biggest demonstration on climate change ever, 40,000 representatives from civil society, hundreds of side events, more than 1,500 young people attending, organised within the YOUNGOs constituency.
It also has been two weeks of battling on the ground: the COP15 clearly showed that climate governance and diplomacy often comes down to a matter of justice and trust. This became clear from the G77 that walked out from the plenary on Monday in the second week of the negotiations, and Tuvalu led two of the suspensions of the plenary session with its demands for greater emissions reductions from the large emitting countries.
The slogan of many major civil society organisations during COP15 echoed ‘climate justice’, often without explaining the often complex theoretical background behind the rationale, but clearly showing the urgent need of a debate on the moral rationale behind climate governance.
Access restrictions
In the second week of COP15, thousands of delegates and observers, having the right to access to the Bella Center, had to wait for at least 6 hours or more (some even 10 hours) outside in the cold, before getting in. They had to squeeze through the security checks, the queues in front of the registration and the cloakroom. Even the plenary room, where the official negotiations and speeches were goong on, was a no go area for most observers, showing the fear for any interventions and demonstrations initiated by civil society. Many people even came to Copenhagen with high expectations, finding themselves locked out entirely from the Bella Center due to access restrictions on the last days, showing how the logistical side of COP15 has failed.
Fortunately, the many side events in town, outside Bella Center, among those were Klimaforum, Bright Green and the Development & Climate Days, were well-visited.
‘There will be no decisions about us, without us’
COP15 saw the première of the YOUNGOs consituency, an unprecendented, though somewhat bureaucratic coalition of youth organisations, converging their voice in the official negotiations. This was a movement build upon Article 6 of the Convention of the UNFCCC, aiming for an increase in participation, education and awareness on climate change issues.
The hope of young people
WSC-SD co-organised a side event on this day together with 350.org and other NGOs, launching its eBook ‘RE:SOLUTIONS – 21 young leaders on climate change’ and debating the role of youth in increasing public leverage for effect policies, as well as the role of youth in inspiring thought-leaders with new solutions and innovations.
The day after, four young people presented their solutions for a sustainable future during a PlanetCall side event, and WSC-SD’s board member Christopher Baan handed over the first digital copy of the eBook ‘Re:solutions’ to Tim Flannery, chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council. The voice of youth was echoed in many side events, as well as in the official delegations.
As a round-up on COP15, the WSC-SD organised a side event on the 18th of December on Youth & student collaboration beyond Copenhagen, just before Obama’s (infamous) speech. The side event brought together around 30 youth NGOs and entrepreneurs, in total 60 participants sharing their ideas and concrete next steps for the youth movement to converge, to create synergies between organisations from different sectors, and to move beyond politics alone in the run-up to next COP meetings.
To here and much further
The general disappointment among NGOs and scientists over the official outcome of COP15, has not only led to public disapproval of the UN system and the effort of world leaders. It has also led to a new wave of focus on solutions and innovations, on new sources of hope. The Dutch Minister for Environment even declared the UN system not the appriopriate arena anymore, to discuss climate change measures. More and more initiatives are born out of the wish and urge to provide solutions based on entrepreneurial actitivies.
Youth initiatives that forge entrepreneurship, such as GlobalFocus, Rework, the GHF Youth Forum, and the Youth Initiative Program, are evolving rapidly and attracting increasing amounts of young people.
Besides that, scientists are trying to draw the contours of climate governance beyond 2012, acknowledging that the world has become fundamentally more complex and more multi-layered, calling for new models of negotiation and new platforms to represent necessary voices.
All these initiatives should give us the much-needed hope, inspiration and tools to go forward and collaborate on projects that have a real impact.
It’s clear that we can’t afford to wait for politics to fail – the young generation will have to take up the challenge and responsibility to collaboratively design a bright green future. We have to do it together, and fast.
As William Gibson said: ‘The future is already here. It’s only unevenly distributed.’
Other interesting reads
- Thomas Friedman: Off to the Races. NY Times
- George Monbiot, the Guardian: This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity
- Kieran Battles, The wrong quote
- Ode: the solutions we need now
- Bellona: 101 solutions
- Intergenerational Inquiry on Climate Solutions calls Yvo de Boer, Youth, Negotiators to testify
(cross-posted from WSC-SD at COP15)
