Bursting the bubble
Posted on 02. Dec, 2010 by annac in United Kingdom
'You have been negotiating all my life, you cannot tell me you need more time'
My unfccc bubble has burst.
Usually when I’m at a un conference I’m in the zone, my language is acronyms my mindset tracking. Here in Cancun something has happened, I can’t seem to hit the zone, the outside world is seeping in, my bubble has burst.
Maybe it’s because my bubble was getting old, this is my 9th unfccc negotiation, that’s a lot of time to spend in a bubble, however big. Or maybe it’s because there was just too much pressure on the bubble. The outside world, the real world, was pushing pretty hard, maybe the bubble just couldn’t cope.
Either way it’s gone and when the bubble is gone it seems it’s pretty hard to concentrate on these negotiations. It’s pretty hard to think that document 6 slash 9 slash gobbledygoop slash 2010 is really that important. It’s pretty hard to care that the comma got moved two words back.
It stumped me for a while, I didn’t know what to write, what to say about being here at the un.
But then today it wasn’t just MY unfccc bubble that burst. Today finally the unfccc bubble that is the Moon Palace also burst. The Moon Palace is the venue where the actual negotiations are taking place, up until now that is all that has happened there, civil society, our stalls, our actions, our voices have all been confined to another venue.
Today for the first time we saw some humanity brought into the negotiating venue. It wasn’t much, the restrictions are fierce, the spaces small. But today for the first time we had the youth out in force, we saw the faces of the future. Today the indigenous people make their voices heard, we saw those people who these negotiations are really about. Today the real world made the negotiations seem real again too.
Because document 6 slash 9 slash gobbledygoop sash 2010 is about young people. Document 6 slash 9 slash gobbledygoop sash 2010 is about indigenous people. Document 6 slash 9 slash gobbledygoop sash 2010 is about the real world.
It’s time we saw that here.
And to see that we don’t just need to burst the bubble, we need to blow it apart.
So unfccc watch out, the real world is coming.
The indigenous caucus
Negotiator Tracker - Anna Collins
Anna Collins Born and bred in Warrington in the *sunny* North of England, Anna was brought up by parents with a deep sense of justice and taught to always fight for what she believed is right. "I guess you could say it was in the blood, my gran went to Greenham Common in the 80s"... read more»
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