COP17 - a travelling circus?
Photo: UNFCCC / www.unfccc.int
I have to say from the onset that I am not an activist as such. In fact, I don’t have the grace, power and consistency to be one, but I am a social noisemaker. Social evils that affect the masses really bother me.
So I am in Durban to attend this year’s COP 17 meeting and today marks the fifth day of the summit. There is no clear breakthrough in sight. So much despondency is hitting people that the majority of those I speak with are already pouring cold water on any possibility of a positive outcome, which some commentators say represents a critical moment in international negotiations about the future of our earth.
But where is the united voice? With no consolidated front from the developed and the developing countries, and the limited involvement space for the civil society during this COP meeting, how many of these COPs will we need before a decision can be made? People have already started talking about next year’s COP meeting, as if they are convinced that there will be no substantial conclusions this year.
How many of these COPs will we need before a decision can be made?
I am left with no other option but to wonder if these conferences have become a travelling circus. I wonder what the problem is. Are the national governments or even the prominent international bodies captive to corporate interests? Is this what’s making negotiations difficult? Is there a battle of supremacy between a few countries?
The conversations about climate change have been the same every day and we have heard the same words repeatedly during the past decade. My mind wants to scream out loud so that I am able to cut through the repetitive jargon and indifference.
It’s no longer about the 1.5 or 2 degree changes, it’s no longer about the percent of emissions reduction, it’s also no longer just about the Kyoto protocol and whether we have another period or not.
I think it’s about time we got angry about what this bloated negotiation is all about - nothing essentially - so let’s move on. I feel as if, even before these climate change talks began here in Durban, their epitaph was already written.
As standoffs, mistrusts and differences in opinion continue to mar the climate summit, I am wondering if anyone of these officials is able to imagine the vivid images of people starving, their ears glued to perhaps the only radio in the village, tying their hopes for a breakthrough.
I can imagine the sufferings. I don’t even need to close my eyes to imagine the pain and the suffering. I can see images of children clutching empty plates, and looking thin and emaciated. I can see sullen faces of mothers struggling to live to the next day listening to news hoping that there will be a solution to the hunger.
But here in Durban all that comes up every day is no clear breakthroughs but rich nations holding people to ransom by threatening to pull out of the only hope for them; the peoples-Kyoto protocol. They speak for the 1% without sparing a thought for the 99% of us.
Even with the vivid images before my eyes, I am not able to comprehend the grief the starving ones must be struck with, but a sharp pain engulfs me every day. I feel insulted, ridiculed and forgotten. And with them I weep.
The people responsible for slowing down the negotiations, the elite, sit at the International Conference center, completely removed from climate change realities and utterly removed from the grassroots people who face the realities of climate change each and every day. I wish the negotiators would listen to these people. I wish they were able to witness for themselves, what I have witnessed.
I wish they were able to witness the plight of the 33-year-old Patricia Kamogo, from Masulana village in Kenya. She wakes up at 5am every morning, to walk 20 kilometers to work on her farm and keep it fertile. The farm and her work on it is the only source of food for her four children.
Perhaps, Patricia’s struggle would soften their hearts. Out of the three rivers that used to surround Patricia’s land, two of them – Kagugu and Ntakisha have dried up. With four mouths to feed, hardly any food and no resources that she can sell, Patricia stares into uncertainty. With the climate so erratic, she is unsure if and when she will have her next meal. She has no option but to depend on begging for her survival.
Even though I am not travelling to Durban, please tell the world leaders that we are suffering and climate change is real and it is here with us. It is the reality of our lives.
Patricia left me with those words, binding her trust in me to portray the bitter realities of climate change to the decision makers; the living stories of devastation and the unheard voices of the victims of our collective responsibility.
There is need for an expression of solidarity by the delegations of the countries that are most affected by climate change, rather than going from one meeting to the next without getting responses on the issues that need to be dealt with.
Many of the developing nations, are rumored to be getting angry and some are planning to join the civil society in “Occupy COP 17’’ in response to a call by the former president of Costa Rica for all vulnerable countries to “Occupy Durban.”
Refusing to leave the talks until “substantial progress is made”, as the countries are threatening, may not accomplish what is needed, at least not immediately. But...
... like the Occupy demonstrations all over the world, many of which are getting dismantled, success at this point lies in changing the frame of discussion. It’s a ridiculous fallacy to continue as we are. We have to push and fight for a serious alternative. The only way forward is a complete change of the norms. Otherwise, it’s just business as usual.