Please mind the gap
Posted on 03. Oct, 2009 by annac in United Kingdom
Erratic rains have made rice farming near impossible in some areas
UNFCCC negotiations happen in a bubble. They are SO far removed from the realities of life. But when you’re here they become all consuming, you start to feel like this is the only thing that matters, the only thing that can save the world.
Yesterday some of the tracker team had the amazing opportunity to take a day off from the negotiations, and instead we went on a field visit to speak with Thai rice farmers.
Here the realities of life, the realities of climate change couldn’t have been clearer.
Listening to farmers talk about the changing climate and the dire impacts of erratic rains on their livelihoods really shines a stark light on the UN process.
There is a huge gap between the people who are already dealing with a changing climate, their need for action right now and the long, drawn out, soulless process of the negotiations.
This can be seen if we look at how things have changed over the last 10 years.
For the Thai farmers things couldn’t be more different. In the last ten years they have seen the weather become more and more unpredictable. Farming rice has become harder and harder and they are now struggling to grow enough just to eat, let alone have any to sell.
And in the negotiations?
Well….
Yesterday we had a stock taking session, a sort of summing up of where we have got to in this process. The feelings from those who have been following these negotiations for a lot longer than me were overwhelmingly of deja vu. Of complete and utter stagnation of the process. The same speeches were made yesterday that have been being made for the last decade! Countries all stated their positions and referred to the same broad rhetoric, without offering any practical solutions to how we are actually going to make this happen.
We seem to have got nowhere in ten years.
The gap between what is happening here, and the Thai farmers lives, couldn’t be larger at this moment in time.
The question is, what are we going to do about it?
How do we narrow the gap?
Today I had the honour of spending a couple of hours at 350.orgs Asian Youth Climate Summit. 50 young people have come from all over South-East Asian to learn, to share and to build the movement. Many of these young people know and live with the realities of climate change. Listening to their stories was inspirational.
These young people need to be listened to in this process.
If the negotiators won’t come to us, we will come to them.
We have big things planned for the next week, and the next few months.
We will make them listen.
We will burst the bubble, we will narrow the gap.
These negotiatiors are not going to save the world.
It’s up to us now!
So true Anna! Our task here in UK has to be to inspire more people to take ownership of the task rather then give it passing support at no cost to themselves. We have to spread a positive message of the power we ALL have to bring about change not just assume others will sort it out.