Depoimento de Adriana Guazzelli Charoux, pesquisadora do Idec e membro do Conselho Consultivo da Campanha TicTacTicTac/TckTckTck, com a colaboração de Morrow Gaines Campbell III, especialista em clima do Vitae Civilis

Eram 12h quando Tomaz Cavalieri (vídeo-repórter do Vitae Civilis) e eu saímos do Bella Center para ir ao local da grande marcha no centro de Copenhague. Logo quando desembarcamos do trem, já era possível ver pessoas vindo de todos os cantos rumo à concentração na frente do parlamento.

Depois de tantos dias confinada no local das negociações, poder ver a rua, de novo, foi um belo presente. Para completar, o sol deu as caras com força pela primeira vez desde que chegamos.

Quanto mais nos aproximávamos, mais pessoas: homens, mulheres, jovens, crianças, idosos, ciclistas, cadeirantes. Todos unidos em torno do grande desafio, um acordo para valer que garanta chão pra nós e para os que de nós virão.

Chegando perto do palco, relatos de raiva, de medo, de esperança de pessoas de muitos países que já sofrem os perversos efeitos das mudanças de clima. E mais pessoas chegavam e mais pessoas engrossavam cantos de paz, gritos de urgência reclamando do calor da terra, do excesso de carbono e do excesso de blá blá blá. Está na hora de agir aqui e agora.

Entre o número estimado pela polícia de 30 mil participantes e o número dos organizadores falando em 100 mil, o fato é que a sociedade civil se fez ouvir. A demanda por ações organizadas, recursos humanos e financeiros e um acordo justo, ambicioso e com força de lei tornou-se cada vez mais alta. E isso ficou bem claro naquela praça de Copenhague. Os negociadores já não podem nos ignorar. Aliás, estão atentos ao nosso grito, ao nosso pedido, a nossa urgência de mobilizar os “homens da decisão” de que não há planeta B, de que a atmosfera não tem esse tempo todo para esperar o consenso que tarda em sair.

Não existe Planeta B!

Por mais que sintam a pressão, por mais que a ciência tenha provado por A mais B que não há mais tempo para seguirmos com esse nível obsceno de emissões, por mais que se faça pressão, por mais vítimas climáticas que surjam, parece que os negociadores seguem surdos na esfera política. Fico aqui me perguntando quantas marchas mais teremos que fazer, quão mais alto teremos de gritar, quantas velas mais teremos que acender? Arcebispo Desmond Tutu responde: “Não esqueçamos que foi uma marcha como essa que libertou Nelson Mandela”.

Dezenas de milhares de pessoas marchavam pacificamente acreditando que, pelo menos, a opinião pública representada pelos jornalistas já estava convencida da urgência de mudança de atitude. Mas, foi com pesar e revolta que abri os jornais de hoje e vi que o enfoque preferido pelos jornalistas foi o número de manifestantes presos. Existe uma revolução lá fora e estes que têm a importante missão de traduzir assuntos complexos como esse resumem a marcha a um punhado de gente que se excedeu na forma de protestar.

No final da marcha, acendemos velas para iniciar a vigília que, assim como em Copenhague, aconteceu em diversas cidades ao redor do mundo. Em meio a tanta agitação e correria que essas semanas de negociação exigem, fiquei em abraço silencioso com alguns novos amigos de diferentes países, reforçando o intento para que os negociadores façam o necessário e não somente o possível. Parar e silenciar naquele momento com aquelas pessoas tão especiais, me deu uma sacudida sincera, devolveu-me a disposição necessária para continuarmos a continuarmos, até que eles nos ouçam.

Por fim, se colocássemos duas cenas na mesma tela sendo uma mostrando a chegada da marcha ao Bella Center e a outra focada no blá blá blá do plenário, há uma só conclusão: o mundo mudou e eles ainda não perceberam.

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Assista vídeo da marcha com a participação de Adriana Charoux, produzido por Tomaz Cavalieri (10:20 filmes), iniciativa do Vitae Civilis e TV Puc São Paulo.

It went a little like this…..

I woke up this morning to a new email in my inbox.

“Re: Meeting in Barcelona with Phil Ireland from Adopt a Negotiator and Climate Trackers.”

I was in!
A meeting with Louise Hand, our lead negotiator on climate change. The plan was to meet at the exit of the ‘closed’ umbrella group meeting at 10am and wait for our Ambassador to emerge (‘how romantic’ I hear you say).

In case you are not up on UNFCCC lingo (as I was not a few months ago):
-a ‘closed’ meeting means that only certain people can go (being an NGO representative, that didn’t include me… as much as I would have liked to listen to the conversation)
-the Umbrella Group is a collection of nations that includes the United States, Russia, Japan, Norway, Canada, New Zealand and Australia that exchange views and positions.

Louise Hand and Phil Ireland

So I went to the meeting place and met with our chaperone (a.k.a. the Australian NGO liaison officer), Inga Davis. The meeting was running late so I had a chance to catch up with some of the other negotiating team lingering in the hallway waiting for Louise. They are a friendly group, who clearly work quite hard. On the tough questions though, they were quite tight lipped, and encouraged me to ask the Ambassador.

So that’s what I did.

After all the other delegates left, I entered the room. The smell of debate was fresh in the air.

The good news is that Louise met with me for much longer that was planned.
25 minutes of lively conversation. (perhaps it was my attractive red t-shirt that lured her?…. perhaps not).

Ok. ok. I’ll be serious now (I actually respect Louise a lot as she works really hard and has a tough gig at times).

The bad news is that there was no new news. I got no indication that Australia was planning to evolve their position on the crucial issues that are blocking the negotiations. In terms of financing for adaptation and mitigation, Louise assured me this is under consideration within the Australian Government. However, we have been waiting for a long time for an announcement (and a significant financial commitment) and it is time for the Prime Minister to break his silence!

In terms of a mitigation target, the Ambassador told me not to expect anything more. That is, Australia’s proposed range of 4%-24% on 1990 levels by 2020, which in the perspective of many non-profit NGO’s (and in my opinion good science) is too low and needs to be at least 40%. On the up-side (or perhaps just the middle), Louise reiterated that the negotiating team is trying to create the conditions in the negotiation in which Australia will be able to commit to the higher end of its negotiating range. She said Australia is “committed” to action that would keep carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at “450ppm or lower”.

Lower.

Well, lower would be great because as I identified in my blog on the weekend, 450ppm is by no means a safe level and should be avoided.
But how much lower?
What more is the Government willing to put on the table to move the world in that direction?

I can’t help getting the impression that the negotiating team is bound tightly within the parameters set by our political leaders, namely, Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong and Wayne Swan.  If the negotiating team’s position is to evolve for the better, they must receive a directive from our political leaders.

Have you reminded your leaders recently about what you think they should be doing on behalf of you, their voting constituency?

I would like to thank the Australian delegation for their willingness to meet with me during their conference so far.

Tracking for you in Barcelona,

Phil.

p.s. I am also blogging on our Australian sister site A Climate For Change where you can take action to remind the Australian Government they must do better

Barcelonan’s gathered with concerned citizens from around the world, holding up 1000 ringing alarm clocks to help ‘Wake Up’ their negotiators as they entered the first day of Climate Talks in Barcelona.

Negotiators have only 5 working days of talks in Barcelona before the beginning of global treaty negotiations in this December… Let’s hope they’re alert.

We finally got the hourglass loaded into the hotel van since it was a bit more of a risk to take it on a tuk tuk.

Once we arrived outside of the UNFCCC meeting there was some delays with being able to enter with the hourglass so we joined in with the youth morning action outside and waited for the okay from the UNFCCC secetariat and for the United Nations security guards to look everything over for safety.

Once it was cleared with security we ventured inside with the hourglass but did receive some attention from delegates wondering what we would be up to with this large hourglass. The plenary room was on the top floor so we had to take the elevator all the way up to have the hourglass in the perfect location for a reminder for delegates.

With us reaching the final location and it taking much longer than expected it would be straight off to attending meetings and sessions but not yet before some additional checking from a United Nations security guard outside of the plenary room.

Watch The Video Of Canada's Prime Minister Engaged In Song 

Instead Of The UNFCCC Negotiations in Bangkok.

The selected cover song could not have been a better selection to showcase the lack of action from Canada as well as some of the countries “Friends” throughout the first week of the very important process to address the impacts that climate change is having globally. While I understand that supporting the arts is very important I do think that with some of the past actions on cutting funding to many of the major arts programs in Canada the actions of the Prime Minister are making a total mockery of the United Nations process since there has been such a hands off approach on working along with the other 191 member states to address one of the largest barriers in the world to ensuring the safety of all living things. No matter which way you sing it Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol and has to stand behind the key principals and the process of the UNFCCC no matter how important the current Prime Minister thinks our domestic oil sands industry is to our countries relationship with our “Friends.”

“Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Kyoto Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

Say hello to Andrea Cinquina from Italy, Anna Collins from the United Kingdom, Ole Seidenberg from Germany, Reed Schuler from the United States of America, Zoë Caron from Canada, and Jonathan Sundqvist from Sweden.

You can read more about them in the Trackers section and found out more about the Adopt A Negotiator project in the About Us section.

More trackers will be announced in the next few days, in the meantime you can follow us on twitter at twitter.com/adoptnegotiator