Copenhagen

On Thursday December 3rd, I arrive. It's 11:30 Copenhagen time, six hours ahead of Toronto time. Luckily, I slept on the plane, so I'm not jet-lagged. The transit system in Copenhagen is extensive and easy to use. I take the Metro directly from the airport to a stop a couple blocks from the place where I will be staying. Through a program called New Life Copenhagen, I have a host who will billet me in his apartment. For the next two weeks I will be sharing an apartment with Joel, Sidsel, and Jacob, none of whom have ever met me, but who have agreed to open their home to a complete stranger.

This is my first time in Europe. The cobblestone streets and streets which curve and intersect in all sorts of intersting ways make for more of an adventure getting from one place to another than in the uniform gridlock which I am used to walking around in. The buildings also seem to have a more stately air to them, but the most striking difference is of the two wheeled variety. As I walk up the street to Joel's apartment I am astounded by the number of bikes I see. Both on the street and parked along the buildings. And it's no wonder - on almost every major street there are bike lines not just wide enough for one, but two or three bikes. Between the transit system and the bikes it's hard to believe anyone would even bother with a car.

On Friday I go in to the Bella Centre to register at the conference. The fences are up and the police are here, but the line-ups are not too long and the process is quite easy. Less than an hour after I arrive I am officially registered as an NGO observer at COP15 with an official badge to prove it. While waiting in line I meet friends from the Canadian Youth Delegation who invite me to a RAN youth action training. There we discuss things the youth might do during the Conference.

Saturday is an interesting day. It follows from two developments which happened on Friday. One was seeing a lot of posters for actions happening around Copenhagen during the Conference, the other was meeting a representative from the group organizing them. Thus it was that I joined them for their meeting on Saturday. As I listened to what they had planned, my excitement grew and grew. It was in this moment I knew I had made the right choice to come to Copenhagen. After the meeting I went to where one of the squats were being set up and helped to install self-made fire doors.

On Sunday, I went to something called COY, otherwise known as the Conference of Youth. This was organized by YOUNGO, an umbrella group for the thousands of youth delegates attending COP. I went to an action group meeting met with a bunch of youth activists who were interested in doing actions at COP (for anyone confused by the acronym, COP is short for Conference of Parties, the official UN name for the climate conference). It seemed to me like things were headed in a real good direction.

Monday-Wednesday. Because it's nearly three in the morning and I have to be up again in four hours I am going to compress the next three days into one paragraph. Lots of meetings, lots of briefings, and a good deal of frustration. As of right now I don't feel the youth here inside the conference are on track to do anything with enough unity or enough scale to alter the direction of the negotiations. Most actions we do fall under the label of theatrics and we are more or less providing entertainment for the delegates. Meanwhile, Canada is insisting it will not budge from its weak targets and 2006 baseyear, Saudi Arabia is challanging established climate science, and many countries are saying they have no intention of signing a legally binding deal. At this moment I feel very bleak about anything productive coming out of this whole enterprise.

Still, there is a whole week of demonstrations to come by an amazingly committed group of activists, many of the European countries are pushing for targets of 30% reductions with 1990 as the baseyear, and the EPA has caused quite a stir by declaring carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant.

So grim as things may look, the game is not done yet.