What’s COP-ing in Durban?

COP17 kicked off with a humid, busy daze of mixed emotions and expectations. Day1 in a word was, overwhelming.

If you’re as confused as I was about what exactly goes down at these Conference of Parties (COP), OneClimate (www.oneclimate.net) has put together a short, concise and easy to understand video here. Confusion aside, I quickly learned I was but 1 of roughly 16, 000 ants trying to maneuver my way through an uncharted anthill, the International Convention Centre (ICC) Durban to spend the next two weeks delivering my climate change contribution to the mother climate colony…no small task! Nonetheless, we had arrived, spirit in our hearts and hope in our minds and while Day1 mayhem persisted, reassuring bursts of sanity and sunshine popped in along the way. Here are my personal picks for a high-light and low-light of the beginning of the COP17.

Should I trust or should I lead?

Posted by Aurelia Annino, part of IofC Team in Cancun and co-founder of SiKanda, a non-profit organization. http://www.si-kanda.org

My perception of the COP16 conference changed every single day.

I arrived 2 weeks ago at the conference and as my first experience with COP, I didn’t know what to expect from the organization of the conference nor from seeing all of the different governments together.

At the beginning I remember I was impressed with the quantity of youth attending the COP. It looked as if about 70% of the attendees were no older than 35. I was a little concerned, wondering if the COP had sufficient facility space, but at the same time was happy to see how many young people were interested in climate change, society, sustainable development and politics.  This awoke a feeling of hope for this new generation that I had lost some years ago.  It was refreshing seeing youth interested in societal issues, where I had previously observed this generation as more self-absorbed.

COP-16 Turtles and hopes

 

It has been already a week since the COP-16 started. Many people, including myself have been struggling to commute between the different venues that make it difficult to network.

A couple of days ago I attended the Agriculture and Rural Development day held at the resort area of Cancun. During one of the long breaks of the conference I put on my tennis shoes and decided to go for a run on the beach that is fully covered by five-star hotels and tourist infrastructure.

COP16 – Where are the people?

I came to COP16 to learn and to convince myself whether the solution to such a complex problem could come from this sort of conferences and negotiations, and how they happen.

Also with basic questions such as how do people interact? And how can NGO’s participate? And most specially, how the people, all of us, can have a part in the conversations?