What I think about Copenhagen.

It took me until late Tuesday afternoon to figure it out. After a morning walk on snowy Copenhagen cobblestones, flight to Heathrow, train to South Kensington (and back), and the heavenly purple clouds outside my plane window, I checked in to the last leg of my journey, a Westjet flight from Calgary to Vernon-home. When the fact I was en route from Copenhagen came up with the check-in agent, she asked me how it went.

As you may know, the UNFCCC 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) came to a close in the morning hours of December 19th, with the inking of the “Copenhagen Accord”. Many consider the accord to be a failure, as it is neither legally binding, nor particularly ambitious, and leaves pretty much all major decisions until some time in the future. It certainly does not live up the the promise that was “Copenhagen”.

Like everyone who attended the conference at Bella Center in fair Copenhagen, as well as much of the rest of the world, I had been trying to decide if the conference was a failure or not. And in that moment of clarity at the Westjet counter, I realized that my answer was “Changing the world is hard, what were you expecting?”

For all of those who’s lives revolve around solving climate change, we’ve been fighting for a good long time, and will surely find the imperative to fight for a good long time more. There were thousands of people at the COP that have been dedicated to this work for over a decade. I myself have been living and breathing the work for the last five years, first with Brinkman, and then with CPS Carbon Project Solutions Inc. If there is a single thing that one learns in this space, and within the greater environmental realm, it is that though the solutions may be obvious, that path to achieving them is damn hard.

Science and logic tell us that climate change is happening, it is being accelerated in the direction of a global warming by our actions, and that we really don’t want to feel its effects. The meeting in Copenhagen was seized upon as the solution by a world grown more aware and alarmed by this imperative. As the polar icecaps melt, and weather extremes become compellingly different, it is clear to many people that the game is up, and we need to make a change. What was the fifteenth annual roundup for the ongoing negotiations of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, a Conference of the Parties titled “COP15” became known as “Copenhagen” and subsequently synonymous with “hope”.

A lot of hopes were crushed that day, Saturday Dec. 19th, as news spread that a small, unfinished accord was replacing the hundreds of pages and thousands of hours of negotiations, and the dream of a global binding agreement signed this decade. The thought comes rather quickly: Climate change is a clear and present danger; if we can’t agree on tackling it now, with 120+ heads of state and the publicity juggernaut, when can we?

I as well share that profound concern. But all of this does not dim the beauty that did shine in Copenhagen. For all the setbacks, I know the people working in the trenches of climate change endeavour will be immeasurably bouyed by the groundswell of public support coming out the last year. After (hopefully) a lil holiday’s rest, “Copenhagen” will light a fire in the hearts, and under the bums, of those crafting positive policy, mobilizing the people, developing the carbon market, pioneering new technologies and commercializing the existing solutions that need but scale to achieve our task.

lilcarbon is going to talk a lot more about the nitty gritty, the nuts and bolts of how these solutions come into play, and the kinds of actions that must be driven by the building framework Copenhagen set out to create. But for today, the clear success of Copenhagen was a mobilization of people, from all parts of society, calling for change. This is the only force, applied within the machinations of democracy as well as the overarching spirit of human determination, with which we can meet the challenge of halting climate change.

Copenhagen is not the end-game, but rather a vigorous skirmish. So rest a little this Christmas day. Laugh and smile with your loved ones, dust off your boots. Bolster yourself for another year’s efforts in a fight we can win together.

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The Climate Rally

In Copenhagen alone, between 30,000 and 100,000 people came together on Saturday to rally for strong, brave action on climate change. From all corners of the earth they came, representing faith groups, businesses, NGOs, families and causes galore, marching 6km in the bracing cold to say “hey, let’s get it done in Copenhagen”.

There are many ways to tell the story of Saturday’s climate change rally. “Getting it done” means many things to many people. lilcarbon walked with Paulina and Jenny from a Swedish church group for 3 hours of the march on the Bella Centre.

They came here on an old, slow, 1960’s train to walk together with an assembled humanity united in its desire to preserve “God’s green earth” (lilcarbon’s words.) Their signs were emblazoned with a ticking clock, and as night fell, their candles shone brightly in the dark December gloom.

Despite what discouraging word one might hear on the news, of deniers, of uncertainty, of “tough negotiation” at the UNFCCC climate conference here in Copenhagen, smiling faces on a cold Scandinavian night certainly give one pause for hope.

This speech from Archbishop Desmond Tutu that lays gentle warm fire under the “rightness” of the cause.

Climate change is on the agenda now. More than half the world leaders arrive over the next couple days to weigh in, hopefully on the “side of right”, to push a deal forward. The week will end with one outcome or another, and the fight will move on. No one said it would be easy, but marching along with Paulina and Jenny, one get’s the feeling that we’re going to get it all sorted out.

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