The organised chaos and its legitimacy: the second week of negotiations begin

It’s officially week two of the climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa. Yesterday was also my first day as an official delegate, and as I joined the throngs of people heading through security I felt a tangible excitement (or nervous energy perhaps?) at the prospect of the week.

Having spent the previous week at Howard college in the Civil society space, which was particularly disorganised,  the chaotic atmosphere seemed similar in COP – amongst the masses of people, sessions, side events, negotiations, the atmosphere was overwhelming.

However, unlike Civil society, COP has an aura of being “the real deal”. The ritual around attending COP gives its delegates legitimacy, a kind of importance and agenda which makes it differ from the happenings at Howard College; the delegates differentiate themselves from the public, both physically and symbolically. To enter the conference, delegates get on a conference shuttle, walk through the CCR into a restricted area, go through security and into sectioned and partitioned hallways; they all wear the UNFCCC lanyards. Joining business men in suits, African women in traditional dress, press wielding cameras in their morning ritual gave me a sense of importance and excitement; I too was entering the world of the “official”.

How scary it is that, despite being as chaotic in nature as the civil society events, COP itself has real legitimacy and power. Is the power arbitrary? Is it simply created by an unequal amount of political and economic agency?

It certainly appears so. Despite wearing the right uniform and legitimising lanyard, I was restricted from attending the high level negotiations of the Parties, who differentiated themselves even from the other delegates. Despite being in the conference, we were restricted by layers of exclusivity; hierarchy.

But over the course of the day, unlike our experience in Civil society, we did come to find some general awareness about what was happening in the negotiations. There were whispers of the Green Climate Fund’s controversial move from the COP proceedings into the G20; the EU’s alternative proposal to Kyoto and surrounding support or decline; the ALBA countries’ and youth support of a Kyoto second term. Nothing was very clear, but there were general feelings, issues which were tangible in the general “delegate psyche”. More then that, however, was difficult to grasp amongst the complexity and sheer amount of events happening throughout the day.

Overall, from speaking to people who have been to many other COP’s, it is clear that everyone finds the first COP experience rather overwhelming and chaotic, which is encouraging. However, what is rather underwhelming is the fact that the chaos is something which is legitimising or enabling high-level decisions about the future of the world to be made in an environment of unequally-shared power. It is our job to remain aware of this - and in turn hold leaders to account on their amount of power.

Who speaks and who listens? Experiences from the first day of COY7 in Durban

COY7 stands for “Conference of Youth”, which happens as a gathering of youth organisations before the start of COP in order to give different youth organisations a chance to network and learn from each other, as well as about the COP process.

So, appropriately, our COP17 experience begins here: with the youth. And youth there were – 300 or so, packed into a lecture theatre at UKZN’s Howard College, bustling and waiting for the day to begin. Our team – about 6 of us – were feeling equally inspired after helping with registration and meeting a ridiculous number of delegates from around the world.

Diversity seems key – we learn from each other, share experiences and difference. But at the same time, unity forms an important underlying theme of the “global international youth climate movement”. It’s necessary for lobbying governments, for advocating change and forming a coherent force. But whose unity?

Conference of Youth plenery session, UKZN Durban

Treating the conference as an anthropological exercise raises many interesting questions about what I’d like to call (albeit rather snobbishly) the “politics of articulation”, or, the way in which stuff gets said, who says it, and who listens to it.

Impressingly there are lots of COY delegates from Africa – about half the delegation – with representatives from South Africa, Kenya, Malawi and many other countries. I was proud at this fact and felt a sort of entitled solidarity with the “African movement”, if it can be reified as such. Even though the people running COY sessions were mostly Austrailian or international, at least a lot of the delegates were local, I thought to myself.

But what does locality mean in the face of a global movement? Who speaks, and who gets listened to? In a lot of senses, “Africa” (the continent is sadly still not being diversified, even by myself) is being represented in global talks and movements around the world, just as it is at COY. But does this mean that “African” voice gets listened to in the same way in which other organisations from the global north get listened to?

I think that in a lot of ways, our ways of knowing and expression are listened to but not fully acknowledged or comprehended at these kind of gatherings. There are lots of African voices speaking out, but there is something very uncomfortable about the way in which we are ‘facilitated’ to speak by others, and the way in which they in turn listen to what we have to say.

Of course, the “global north”, in their experience and monetary advantage, do have a lot to teach us and “build capacity”, especially at the kind of political gatherings such as COP which require a specific kind of articulation to be taken even remotely seriously. And that’s what we need.

So perhaps, the “politics of articulation” debate is one to engage with at a deeper level, and not just the immediate proceedings over the next few days. In the long run, we need to be aiming to get African voice actually listened to, and not just heard, and we may need to put that on pause for the upcoming COP. But I’ll certainly be looking at how these ideas play out in the official delegation and civil society meetings next week.