Day 15 OksneHallen 16 Copenhagen Accord 17 Sleep

The youth space at Oksnehallen, right by the People's Climate summit, Klima Forum is open. From there we plan events, but mostly sit around, talk, blog, and watch the happenings in the Bella Center on a live feed on two giant screens.

What happened in the political world you ask? Nothing that we could watch. All of the actual things are now occuring behind closed doors. The spirit in hear is very disheartened as most of us are just waiting for something intersting.

The U.S. top people, like Nancy Pulosi, Waxman, etc. gave a press conference. It was pretty good and actually quite funny. Although they keep Green Washing their 14 - 17% commitments, based on 2005 levels rather than 1990 levels as the rest of the world. So in fact their contribution is only 4% below 1990 levels by 2020. Canada's commitments are equally fals, 20% below 2006 levels, aka, 3% below 1990 levels by 2020.

Next day, begins in the same way, nothing really happens until 1030 at night. During the day I saw some intersting things, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda.

BUT HERE IS THE BIG NEWS! At 1030 Obama gave his press conference, then promptly left before the signing of the actual document. He gave nothing important that we didn't know. His 3 main points were Mitigation, Finance, and Adaptation. As well, they promised to keep the warming below 2 degrees Celsius. One of Obama's most interesting points is that essentially this deal was made in a backroom by the U.S. China, India, Brazil, EU, South Africa, and Bangladesh. 2 of the biggest powers in the world, 4 of the most emerging developing nations, and one nation that would be hard hit by the effects of the global climate crisis first. No representation from Africa, or small island nations.

30 frantic minutes later we got a copy of the most recent draft text (the text changes constantly, the one we had before was from December 16th, and there were many differences). The new draft texts biggest and newest number was that Japan had promised 11 billion dollars (US Figures) to an adaptation fund, meanwhile the EU promised 10.6 billion, and the US a measely 3.6 billion. All other numbers and interesting text changes that we were able to see were exactly what was expected. No 2010 deadline for binding targets to be set, a new 2020 baseline will be used in 2020 (according to what I understood), and many other smaller changes most of which benefited the emerging developing economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa). Some which were good for the Least Developed Countries, and Small Island Nations. But the agreement, called the Copenhagen Accord was definetly not legally binding. Definetly a tiny, baby step forward though.

Then we saw the Non-Governmental Orginizations (NGOs) press conference. The Christian Aid Foundation, Oxfam, Greenpeace International, and CAN International were represented by their heads. The most important point that I took out of this was their outrage but also Kumi Naidoo (Greenpeace Internationals Head) called for peaceful, civil protests, where large numbers of people may be arrested as the only way that leaders will see that they need to change, similar to the Vietnam War protests, and many other social movements in the past, like the anti-apartheid movement.

As soon as this finished I got an email saying 200+ youth had come to the Bella Center entrance to shout our views, chant, and show the world leaders we are still here, and still listening. Eventually it got up to about 500 youth (oh and by the way this is from 1230 am - 230 am outside in the cold). Eventually due to the cold it dwindled to 100 people, and that is when I was to cold to stay. Afterwards I headed home to sleep.

Now today, nothing has happened, been touring around Copenhagen, but politically no large movement against signing the deal has broken. I am still reading through and understanding the 10 page document.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/science/earth/20091218_CLIMATE_TEXT.pdf

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6961367.ece

The first is what I think is the latest draft text version.

The second is kind of a quick summary of what most of the points mean.

Thanks for reading, Zack Bernholtz