Back to reality

Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by annac in United Kingdom

Today I am not at the UNFCCC in Bonn, today I am back in London. I have left the UNFCCC behind, left the rest of the trackers still tracking away and have returned back to my normal life.

Back to reality.

However yesterday while I was still in Bonn a different type of reality hit me.

The reality of what this is really all about.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat to an African negotiator in these talks. We talked about the African position here and what the outcomes of these talks really mean for Africa. While we were talking it reminded me of my Kenyan friends and of new friends I made in Bonn, from Nigeria and from Zambia. It reminded me of hearing them talk about the realities of climate change in their lives. It reminded me of being in Kenya last year, of seeing the wildebeest migration come so early, of talking to people about how the climate is changing everyday, and how much harder it is making their lives.

So often at the UNFCCC we end up in a bubble. A crazy bubble of acronyms, interventions and endless hunts for free food. But it is a bubble where even though we are at climate negotiations the reality of climate change doesn’t seem…well….real.

But yesterday the reality hit me hard again and it took me out for a while. I realised sitting on the Wednesday of the second week of talks, with only 2 more weeks of talks until the next cop in Cancun, that things were not looking great. One of the main things we hoped to see achieved in Bonn was a new text to work off…we do not have it. Yet again we are behind where we need to be if we want to achieve what we need to at the COP.

Talking to the African delegate, him talking of the need for us not to talk about what we think can be done, but to talk about what HAS to be done to stop us condemning millions to an uncertain future, made me think.

His story is the reality.

Droughts in Africa is the reality.

People dying is the reality.

Reality is not about politics, reality is about science.

We can’t change the science but we can change the politics.

And the reality of the situation we are in means we must!

It would seem I am not the only one trying to get back to reality though. Today following the talks from afar (it’s weird being on the other end of the social media!) I was watching the chaos that erupted in the SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice). The talks ground to a halt over AOSIS putting forward the proposal for a technical paper on the science of scenarios for going above 1.5 degrees temperature rise. The paper would collate what is known and what is not known about what happens to our planet as we go above 1.5 degrees.

They want the UNFCCC to confront the reality of this in the paper, THEN make their decisions about action to tackle climate change.

However for some this reality would not be welcomed. The proposal was strongly blocked by many of the oil producing countries. Because another reality is that these talks are dominated by oil. From the oil producing countries blocking concensus, to the oil lobbyists working behind the scenes at every step. Because for them a reality of this process is that if it really confronts climate change it will hit the way they make their money. So they are doing everything they can to stop this happening.

But this is another reality we can change.

We have to get these talks back on track to talking about the reality of the situation we are in.

As I sit back in my life in London the reality of the task in hand is starting to sink in again.

And with it the reality that this is it for us.

This is our fight. This is what we must do.

Being brought back to reality seems to have stoked my internal fire again.

Tags: Africa group, aosis, Bonn, climate change, cop15, COP16, SBSTA, UNFCCC