COP17 opening ceremony

Just to give everyone a bit of background to set the scene of what happens at a COP. After being body searched and sent through a scanner upon arrival I walked around for a while trying to get my bearings. The amount of people is overwhelming, everyone is there for buisness and has a definate goal they are trying to acheive. Is amazing how insignificant you can feel walking amongst all the international delegates and representatives. Nick and myself watched the opening ceremony from the room next to the offical delegation room (which no NGOs were allowed into)- in our 'non-offical room' there must have been around 3000 people- the scale of this conference and volume of people is mind-blowing. App, 40 000 people have flown into durbs for this.

Every person gets a set of air phones so they can hear any translations so mis-understandings are not a factor. We heard Jacob Zuma, President of Chad and Vice-president of Zambia speak which was fascinating. Jacob Zuma spoke exceptionally well I thought and kept reitterating how SA should be aiming for a Green Economy. He also spoke about projects which are in the works for SA such as hydrological schemes and wind energy capture. The most interesting thing he said which I didnt know is that one small island state, Grapati, has already started being evaculated due to sea-level rise. So we have already began losing countries of the world due to human action :(

The hardest thing for myself and Nick to get used to was the formalities and protocol which goes into the whole process. Each speaker takes 5 min to welcome everyone correctly before he/she can even begin speaking...it seems crazy that time is wasted on formalities when there are so many issues that have to be tackled the next two weeks. The conference could probably be one week if there were not so many protocols. Also the countries which oppose a point which arises on the agenda also do so in such a polite, correct way. It is amazing to see such benign interaction among states with such different interests. Maybe the next few days will heat up with developing countries trying to make their voices heard.

And so it nearly begins...

Nick and myself registered for COP17 today and boy oh boy are we in for a treat. There are two massive exhibition halls- the AFRICA section where all the African countries have their stalls I assume is amazing. They have split the section into the different ecosystems found in Africa. For example, there is a Rainforest area, Desert area (i think) and other ecosystems- will check properly tomorrow when we are actually allowed in.

Today at COY was great. Hearing Kumi Naidoo speak was wonderful- he is the executive director of GreenPeace international so it was amazing hearing such an inspirational man speak. The video who Bill McKibben (founder of 350.org) recorded for us was great. What an amazing man- he has spent more days in jail this year then in his own bed because he has been campaigning for environmental issues. Go Bill- you are my hero. I also went to a wonderful, informative workshop on the Green Climate Fund which am so glad I did. I feel like I knew of the Green Climate Fund but it was great hearing all the details about it and hearing people talk about it who have been studying it since inception. I very long story short- the Green Climate Fund was started to raise funding ($100 billion) which will be used in adaptation and mitigation measures for developing countries. It is one attempt at climate justice but unfort it is still in draft form because at the last Tranfer Committee meeting in October the USA and Saudi Arabia would not sign off on the report and it therefore won't be finalized this COP, as was hoped :( Dam! is a pity considering the other 38 countries agreed on the report and because of 2 countries yet another attempt to combat climate change and empower vulnerable countries won't happen :(

COY is over but there is so much to come. Between COP and the civil proceedings (C17) I think the next 2 weeks are going to be JAM PACKED. Well done to all the COY people who partied til 3am and still made it today...very impressive!