Day 12: … and then Copenhagen froze

Sunday, December 20th, 2009 | uncategorized

18 Dec 2009

Leonie Joubert is a science writer, reporting for Independent Newspapers from the United Nations climate negotiations taking place in Copenhagen from 7 to 18 December. This is her blog-on-the-side.

My ed wanted two things out of today: a colour piece to show what the activists and green folk were up to, and a wrap of the conference since it should finish tonight (midnight’s the deadline by when they’re supposed to have signed this thing into law).

I’d heard, from snooping about the NGO hall last night, that a small group of “Climate Pirates” were going to shave their heads in protest against the lack of action during the climate summit. So I dashed out through security to the entrance of the Bella centre, gasped at the big freeze waiting outside, and caught up with protesters.

Definitely the nicest story to write this week. It was a terrific set of interviews – freezing cold, so cold that my pen stopped working, and I had to borrow a pencil from the guy I was interviewing! – but should be in Sunday’s papers. Was so cold by the end of it that I couldn’t write.

Dashed back inside, wrote that up and have spent the rest of the day trying to keep up with all the behind-the-scenes stuff. All the environment ministers and negotiators are still at it in the formal plenary, but sounds like there are a lot of meetings going on behind closed doors between heads of state. That’s where the real deal making happens. But it doesn’t look as though any of the gridlock issues have been resolved (emissions cuts, finance, tech transfer, capacity building, shared common vision – but it’s the first two that are the deal breaker issues).

Only a few hours ’til the midnight deadline… then we’ll know whether we’ve got a deal or not. Looks like it’s going to be a long one…

Scorched

Rational Writing by Leonie Joubert