Teenage Angst at the COP: At the Hinge
14/12/09 00:02
A week of prelude is over. The real work has begun in Copenhagen.
Last week was intense, fast paced, and frantic. Most people here are profoundly exhausted. But we’re at the hinge now. Negotiation teams are shifting from delaying and positioning to taking firm and often oppositional stands. More senior level staff are engaging in the government delegations — and more loudly. The hinge of the week has turned.
Last week was intense, fast paced, and frantic. Most people here are profoundly exhausted. But we’re at the hinge now. Negotiation teams are shifting from delaying and positioning to taking firm and often oppositional stands. More senior level staff are engaging in the government delegations — and more loudly. The hinge of the week has turned.
Yesterday I visited Hamlet’s castle. It’s really named Kronborg Solt, not Elsinore Castle. And I was pleased to see that there weren’t any murdered uncles or histrionic young men laying about. Poor Yorick and his skull seem to have been put out of the way (and hopefully back in the ground). There was no sign at all of Ophelia, Rosenkrantz, or Guildenstern. Overall, it just looks like a beautiful old castle perched on the shore. It’s a bit cold, but Kronborg is more suitable for tourists than for a distraught teenager suffering angst over complex family problems.
And yet… if Hamlet were a water manager and alive in Denmark today, perhaps he would be suffering a different kind of stress. I kept wondering: if Hamlet was involved in the process of negotiating the climate adaptation policy language at the COP, he’d find a lot to distract him from worrying about his mother and uncle conspiring to murder his father and then getting hitched immediately afterwards. I’m guessing he’d be concerned about the lack of substantive, clear language about what good adaptation looks like to help humans prepare for our emerging climate and the low sense of concern about getting money to the most vulnerable nations quickly. Frankly, if Hamlet were around today, I think he’d have water-stress.
I was at Kronborg listening to several important groups talk about the importance of water to climate adaptation for humans. Senior executives from major global businesses were there, as well as internationally famous climate scientists (such as Rajenda Pachauri, head of the IPCC) and major academic and research institutions like TERI and Yale. Several United Nations divisions, intergovernmental groups and non-profits were there as well. Our cold, damp meeting room was small, built in 1420. Holding about 50 people, I was quite aware that the cut of my clothes put me in a class closer to the janitorial staff than most of the audience. There was significant institutional firepower focused on the issues of climate adaptation and freshwater management.
But as Chaucer wrote, If gold rusts, what then will iron do? Most of the speakers clearly viewed economic development as a task in competition with sustainable resource management, much less the unrecognized ethics of “conservation” and “biodiversity.” The first mention of ecosystems and threatened species came 20 minutes into a 40-minute event (from an environmental NGO). And the word “sustainability” was mentioned only twice — by a speaker from Africa and another from Sweden.
If you were to ask most urban four year olds from the US or Europe where milk came from, they’d say … the refrigerator. Or perhaps grocery stores. They wouldn’t say cows. And to gauge by the actions of most delegates, they believe water comes from the tap, not from lakes, rivers, wetlands, or snowpack. Much less that climate adaptation is actually a viable practice, awaiting funding and institutional recognition from groups like the UNFCCC and the COP process to really become large scale and widespread. Funding and recognition that must begin with strong text here at the COP.
And this brings us back to the warm, crowded halls of Copenhagen. I cannot see or participate in the direct negotiations — I’m not a government delegate. I support a team that tries to work with those who have complementary views and who can make strong arguments. These final days, the negotiations around climate adaptation have the threat of rigid positions that lead to continued lack of progress and ultimately failure, or they lead to rapid progress and success with people who are prepared to make progress. Hopefully, “success” means recognition that people and ecosystems need each other.
These last few days, we’re seeing the shift from mid level negotiations to ministers, and from ministers to executives. The people who could potentially broker big deals. On Saturday while I was at Kronborg, the real stress and angst was in Ian Fry, delegate from the small Pacific island nation of Tuvalu. In heart-wrending desperation, he spoke to his peers — “The fate of my country rests in your hands.” This is the kind of urgency we need to all feel, and we need to feel it now. Perhaps Hamlet really did have something serious to worry about.
And yet… if Hamlet were a water manager and alive in Denmark today, perhaps he would be suffering a different kind of stress. I kept wondering: if Hamlet was involved in the process of negotiating the climate adaptation policy language at the COP, he’d find a lot to distract him from worrying about his mother and uncle conspiring to murder his father and then getting hitched immediately afterwards. I’m guessing he’d be concerned about the lack of substantive, clear language about what good adaptation looks like to help humans prepare for our emerging climate and the low sense of concern about getting money to the most vulnerable nations quickly. Frankly, if Hamlet were around today, I think he’d have water-stress.
I was at Kronborg listening to several important groups talk about the importance of water to climate adaptation for humans. Senior executives from major global businesses were there, as well as internationally famous climate scientists (such as Rajenda Pachauri, head of the IPCC) and major academic and research institutions like TERI and Yale. Several United Nations divisions, intergovernmental groups and non-profits were there as well. Our cold, damp meeting room was small, built in 1420. Holding about 50 people, I was quite aware that the cut of my clothes put me in a class closer to the janitorial staff than most of the audience. There was significant institutional firepower focused on the issues of climate adaptation and freshwater management.
But as Chaucer wrote, If gold rusts, what then will iron do? Most of the speakers clearly viewed economic development as a task in competition with sustainable resource management, much less the unrecognized ethics of “conservation” and “biodiversity.” The first mention of ecosystems and threatened species came 20 minutes into a 40-minute event (from an environmental NGO). And the word “sustainability” was mentioned only twice — by a speaker from Africa and another from Sweden.
If you were to ask most urban four year olds from the US or Europe where milk came from, they’d say … the refrigerator. Or perhaps grocery stores. They wouldn’t say cows. And to gauge by the actions of most delegates, they believe water comes from the tap, not from lakes, rivers, wetlands, or snowpack. Much less that climate adaptation is actually a viable practice, awaiting funding and institutional recognition from groups like the UNFCCC and the COP process to really become large scale and widespread. Funding and recognition that must begin with strong text here at the COP.
And this brings us back to the warm, crowded halls of Copenhagen. I cannot see or participate in the direct negotiations — I’m not a government delegate. I support a team that tries to work with those who have complementary views and who can make strong arguments. These final days, the negotiations around climate adaptation have the threat of rigid positions that lead to continued lack of progress and ultimately failure, or they lead to rapid progress and success with people who are prepared to make progress. Hopefully, “success” means recognition that people and ecosystems need each other.
These last few days, we’re seeing the shift from mid level negotiations to ministers, and from ministers to executives. The people who could potentially broker big deals. On Saturday while I was at Kronborg, the real stress and angst was in Ian Fry, delegate from the small Pacific island nation of Tuvalu. In heart-wrending desperation, he spoke to his peers — “The fate of my country rests in your hands.” This is the kind of urgency we need to all feel, and we need to feel it now. Perhaps Hamlet really did have something serious to worry about.
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