It’s magnificent but…

Posted on 06. Oct, 2010 by annac in United Kingdom

Today was a hard UNFCCC day. It may have in part been down to the rather extensive birthday celebrations the tracker team had last night for Andrea, our Italian tracker (imagine 10 of us, no Chinese, no clue where we are in this giant city, trying to ask people where we can go to dance…). But I digress, it was also hard because we seem to have got ourselves firmly stuck back in a UNFCCC quagmire, with no sign of an escape route.

Today we had a stock taking session in the LCA track (the one where they discuss everything else apart from developed country emission reductions). They always stock take in the middle of a session to check in on all the small groups that are taking place and work out how to continue working. In this session the UK head of negotiations was speaking on behalf of the EU. Now I’ve had my disagreements with this negotiator in the past, but today he did me a huge favour. As I was coming to the end of the day with still no idea what the theme of my blog was going to be he spoke up, providing me with a theme, metaphor and interesting anecdote all in one go! Thanks Pete.

In the EU intervention today he remarked that it was the anniversary of the death of Alfred Tennyson who wrote the poem the charge of the light brigade. Now I actually never knew much about the charge of the light brigade, but I learnt today that apparently it was a bit of a balls up on the British’s part, leaving many many dead. After the battle the sheer reckless bravery (some may say stupidness…) of the British army prompted one of the French Marshals to say,

“It’s magnificent, but it’s not war”

Today Pete in desperation at the endless discussions on process (how and when we will negotiate), when they should be discussing substance (what we are going to do), played with the phrase and came out with

“It’s magnificent, but it’s not negotiations”

It’s not just civil society who are getting frustrated here anymore. The UK team, along with many of the other delegations, are also starting to express their discontent at having to sit in endless ‘negotiations’ where they are not actually even negotiating. Discussing the mandate of the drafting group is not negotiating, it does not allow them to do what they came here to do and actually work towards a deal, work towards our future.

“It’s magnificent, but it’s not war” is a very quoted phrase, rarely quoted is what the marshal said next. He continued with,

“It’s magnificent but it’s not war. It is madness!”

Today I couldn’t agree more with Pierre Bosquet.

To sit in rooms discussing how and when we are going to meet as the waters rise, as the land burns. To sit and discuss whether we should be discussing something as thousands of people die.

It is madness!

If this continues the UNFCCC may very well be on the way to proving all those who don’t believe we can do this here right.

Tags: Cancún, charge of the light brigade, climate, COP16, Tianjin, UNFCCC