Many voices, many positions from COP-15

A HaltonDoesCopenhagen Blog Entry

As the talks begin to wind down here at COP-15 and we hear news breaking of a 5-country deal to at least bring some substance out of this event, we are beginning to reflect on our two weeks here. We will blog extensively with our thoughts on the agreement and more to come once we have time to digest it. In the meantime, one of the things that helped push towards a climate deal on the inside were the demonstrations going on in the Bella Center.

No doubt many of you have heard about the ugly protests that went on outside the Bella Center, but there was an enormous amount of smaller scale demonstrations taking place inside as hundreds of NGOs with various interests strategized about how best to get their point across and their voices heard.

Two of particular interest to us were a sit in that took place on the final day that NGOs were allowed inside the building. While the UNFCCC never told any NGOs in advance that they would be removed from the Bella Centre as the world leaders congregated, many NGOs decided to make the most of their final moments in the Bella Center. They took seats with signs stating that they would not leave until a meaningful, legally binding agreement was reached. These types of protests leave us with mixed feelings – awareness of issues often requires extreme measures, and peaceful protest has its place in any function. However, much of these types of demonstrations just seemed to slow down progress of the conference. The mass protest on Wednesday essentially temporarily shut down the conference – with transit being halted, pepper spray in the air, and mass amounts of chaos and confusion. It is difficult to imagine a less effective way to push for progress in a conference than to halt the conference altogether. Still, this sit in is an excellent example of the ways in which voices of dissent were heard on a daily basis in the Bella Center.

The other side of the demonstration coin came from approved demonstrations where particular groups got permission from the UNFCCC to participate in organized and creative acts to get their message across. We would come across these many times daily at the conference and they often drew us in with their peaceful but hard hitting messages. For example, one group used the slogan “Africa: One Voice, One Position” to illustrate the unity in Africa in calling for a fair deal for the developing world. A large crowd gathered around and called out names of African nations followed by a chorus response of “One Voice, One Position”. It hit home the point of how unified the continent is and how determined they are not to be taken advantage of. In the videos that follow you can see a clip of the protest, followed by a short interview with one of the organizers who details some of what Africa is looking to achieve through climate negotiations.