Hello people,
Just thought I better give you all a quick update.
It's very cold. Snow starting falling on Tuesday, and it hasn't let up much since. It's -4 with a windchill of -11.
Went to Sweden today as we've been completely locked out of the conference. They accredited 45 000 people with entry for a venue with 15 000 capacity... Welcome to the UN. Long queues, chaotic, hard to figure out what's going on. They started limiting numbers on Tuesday, with our delegation of twelve being allowed to bring in 5 people. Then today NGO numbers were limited to 1000 (allocated through constituencies - my one being YOUNGO or Youth NGO, and I don't think NZYD got any. There are nine NGO constituencies) Tomorrow they are limiting NGOs numbers to just 90 people, with 10 going to each constituency, because of the shear number of world leaders (120 to 135ish, including Mugabe) and their entourages who are going to be at the venue. So many NGOs are very unhappy. There was also a protest going on yesterday, which was my last day at the venue, where they tried to storm the building (without hope - there were so many police, and Danish police are very brutal, so we've steered well clear of them, and kept our conference badges well visible. They did manage to arrest a French Green MP, who they released once they realised who he was.)
Anyway talks don't sound like they're going too well... We'll have to see what world leaders can do when they talk tomorrow. Did the march last Saturday with about 100 000 people at it. It was an incredibly uplifting experience, and we carried the massive NZYD sail (signed by young Kiwis about what they think about climate change) the whole 3 hour walk, which gave us a great reputation - see the photo.
Other things we've done is hijacked the NZers in Copenhagen party when we presented the NZYD sail to Ministers Tim Groser and Nick Smith, and then gave a long speech that really challenged their policies (not being cute youth as they were hoping we were). There we met Simon Upton and Major Kerry Prendergast too (though she didn't react much to the speech...). We got a really long applause at the end though, even though the crowd was a mix of Kiwi NGOs, business people and delegates.
Other famous people I've seen include Desmund Tutu, Senator John Kerry, Helen Clark and almost Ban Ki-Moon (but he couldn't make his side-event due to negotiations). Also went to a Global Greens talk and saw a bunch of cool people talk including Elizabeth May (Canadian Green Party Leader) who absolutely rubbished the Canadian Government (which as of yesterday had the most Fossils of the Day, slightly ahead of the US). The current Canadian Government - which does not have majority support at all but is in power due to First Past the Post - is absolutely abysmal. She also said "Things may be better now that the US has a new administration, but unfortunately they are still the United States," to rapturous applause. Good ol' Canadians...
For the last day we will continue to send love letters to John Key, and try and get a meeting with him. Let's hope he commits to stronger targets - a conditional 10-20% by 2020 is not good enough - especially considering the strong conditions will not be met (such as other developing countries committing to stronger targets...). Plus we're trying to get the message out that the new Emissions Trading Scheme is crap - contrary to what our Government is saying, given it has no cap on emissions and thus will allow them to increase...
Anyway, it's being a crazy ride, and can tell you other things later, but should probably go. Will have to see how the final day of the talks go - which are likely to continue into Saturday before they wrap up - for better or for worse.
