Stepping off the train at Kings Cross after what felt like a lifetime-okay well 22 hours of travelling if we’re going to get picky-it felt surreal saying goodbye to the Oxfam Activists who I had travelled to Copenhagen with. As we stood for one last photograph, it felt strange knowing that after a weekend of being in one another’s pockets, we were to leave the station as indviduals rather than the fifth part of a team we had been accustomed to making up.
Starting the position of ‘Copenhagen Activist’ back in September, the trip to Copenhagen seemed stretched out in the distant future. There was still a great deal of work to do, media training to be acquired, a variety of people to meet and many possibilities awaiting me within my local community. Standing, bleary eyed and sleep deprived on Platform 8 at Kings Cross, it suddenly hit me that all that was behind me.
Working as a Copenhagen Activist for the past few months I have become desperately focused on the UN climate change talks. Going to Copenhagen with the team of five who have been doing the same work as me within their local communities, I discovered that we all shared this passion for world leaders to do right by us and the rest of the world. While the position we have held is physically over, it would appear what we have been working for still has some way to go.
Being in Copenhagen, I met with so many amazing people who were all determined to convince world leaders of what they need to do. It is hard to believe that with 100,000 people turning up to march through the streets of Copenhagen that world leaders can ignore this. If so many people feel this way about the impact of climate change, how is it the world leaders do not want to do something drastic about it? With one loud voice shouting in their ear, it is hard to see why world leaders are becoming deaf to it.
With news today that the US has pledged $100bn dollars a year to developing countries it seems that negotiations may at last be pushing their way uphill. As Gordan Brown said yesterday; “In these few days in Copenhagen which we will be blessed or blamed for generations to come, we cannot permit the politics of narrow self-interest to prevent a policy for human survival.” With this mindset it seems more likely that negotiators may be able to make strong commitments to climate change policy. With Barack Obama flying in tomorrow, this may be the opportune time for developed countries to show their hand. As one member of the Copenhagen 5 expressed over the weekend; “Being at Kyoto I know that the final deal may not be made until the very last minute.”
Even for me as an individual the trip to Copenhagen has been one of excitement, anxiety and hope. I think this has been mirrored by everyone I have met during this process and with one solitary day left of the talks we have a huge amount of hope still hanging around the Danish capital. With so much in the press about the stalling of the talks and the fading hope of a binding deal, we must all wait just a little longer to see if our world leaders can deliver the result we have all be campaigning furiously for.
Tags: COP15, Copenhagen, Farnborough, Gordan Brown, obama, Oxfam Activists, south east
i doubt they will ever see a dime of that money. the us doesnt have it.
December 19th, 2009 at 3.02 pm