Blog 1

(Leonard Joy)
The past two days have delivered both good news and bad news. Sara has told you of yesterday’s impressive 100,000 turnout for a demonstration in front of the Danish parliament and a 6km march (i.e. shuffle) to the conference center. The bad, but entirely expected, news is that the impact on negotiations of this massive rally seems to be nil. That, at least, was the observation of the Nepalese negotiator we spoke to.
I carried a QUAKER banner for part of the march and the personal impact on me is that I am feeling the effects of this unusual exercise. Happily, we were in the middle of the procession. The police apparently arrested nearly 1,000 tailenders and charged 3 of them. (It seems that recent legislation allows the police to arrest without cause and find cause later.)
Today, I was heartened by one of the side events that I went to. But I was frankly bored by others where I learned little new (and had difficulty in fighting jetlag). But there was a splendid paper detailing standards and monitoring procedures for accountability and management of emissions. It essentially proposed what I was advocating way back in the early days of the Global Environmental Facility—i.e. the fund for supporting poor countries to do what they should do environmentally. That was the good news. But I asked how they were going to support countries to set up effective processes that met the political and administrative challenges that this would present. The response was that there would be training programs on the ISO standards and measurement protocols. When I argued that the matter was rather more complex and that this simple technical training was not going to cut it, and that there was need to build support competence that was broader than this, the response was sober agreement but essentially "that's not our business".
This is a rather critical piece of the global accountability system that seems not yet to have been understood It seems that the best we might do to defaulters is to verify the default and shame them. It is also clear that the one thing that there is consensus on is that there should be no penalty for non-compliance. Compliance with self-set targets is to be on the honors system--or breach thereof. We might be shamed but we wont otherwise be accountable.
Today, we learned that the overall NGO assessment of progress on negotiations is that there is deadlock (no targets and no accountability) and no progress, and that the prospect of progress is slight.
Back to the apartment around 10p.m. I watched a TV panel with 2 scientists, two politicians, and 2 professed scientist skeptics. It is quite infuriating that it is still possible to have nutcases given equal airtime in the name of objectivity. There seemed to be no way to convince the politicians that there was a massive scientific consensus without room for doubt about the broad prospect before us. There is no obligation to accept consensus data. Unbelievably mad and maddening.
It is cold, but there is a great warmth of generosity and a seeming public awareness in Copenhagen not only of the COP but of the climate change issues. Public advertisements and displays, and a massive globe in a busy square, speak of an active civic presence. Certainly, in moving around Copenhagen, we get the feeling that we have come a good way in the past five years. Ideas that were leading edge 5 years ago are now on the public agenda.
Our Quaker presence is all but unnoticeable. Almost certainly there are Quakers involved in organizations that are speaking out. We need to get ahead of ourselves and be registered and ready to make presentations if we are to have a voice. Otherwise, the voice is reactive rather than proactive.
We are hoping that tomorrow we will attend the negotiations. However, only 20% of each delegation is now to be admitted and we have no arrangement for determining who these will be. We are hoping, too, to meet up with more QEWs tomorrow.
I trust that we shall find good news as well as less good news to tell you. What is becoming clear is that the early expectation of COP, and best hope for it—that it would be simply the beginning of a process—is likely to be validated. Let us hope that we will have at least that. Certainly, as things seem now, what will matter most is that provision for that process is made. Stay tuned.