Cop-15 overview

Third day at Cop-15, it is enough to understand a little of its dynamics. Since yesterday, the entrance for representatives of NGOs has been restricted. After all, around 35 thousand people have registered yet there is room for only 15. At the manifestation that gathered 100 thousand people in the streets of Copenhagen last Saturday, 800 protesters were arrested – and it is said that 200 other people were deported. Since yesterday the Bella Center Metro Station has been closed a few times due to over the limit restrictions. In order to get here it is required to get off at the previous station and walk (when a colleague arrived at that station, the police was throwing tear gas on activists). What’s talked about on the hallways is that the waiting time on the line out there was between 5 and 8 hours – regardless of the people’s country of origin or age. Today I met Carlos Nobre, an INPE (National Institute on Space Researches) scientist and one of the Brazilian members in the IPCC. He said that he tried to get in Bella Center since Monday, and couldn’t because he got there late. Yesterday, after two hours on the line, he gave up. Today, then, it is his first day in here.

A day different from the others. Right away, it is possible to see that things got serious. Small groups of journalists, cameras and microphones on hands surround the authorities. More people wearing suits and ties and less wearing T-shirts saying things like “There is no Planet B”. Yes, the so called high-level meetings have started. I tried to enter in a room but they informed me that yesterday the delegations got a second identification badge to give to the few people authorized to go into those plenary sessions. The names Hugo Cháves and Evo Morales are on the schedule today. Yesterday, there was Prince Charles. And there must have been many more out there, who knows, at bay on the side. The way for most people to follow the discussions has actually come to be the TVs around the Bella Center, with live broadcast of what is being said indoors.

The Brazilian Chief of Staff, Dilma Roussef, and Ambassador Figueiredo (who was in charge of the Brazilian negotiations until Roussef arrived) in a press conference yesterday. Every day at 6:30 pm Brazil gives this press conference, in which not only the press, but also the entire Brazilian delegation can go in.

In short: the schedule opened to almost everyone got reduced. OK, let’s be fair: the side events still are there. But who wants to know about hyper-local projects as world leaders are deciding the future of humankind within the distance of a wall? Yesterday the side events were really exciting. There was in the same room, sharing the same time and table, the Governor of São Paulo José Serra and the Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I couldn’t get one of the tickets that had been delivered hours before. But I went to a debate promoted by CNN and YouTube with names like Yvo de Boer, executive-secretary of the United Nations Convention on Climate Changes and Bjorn Lomborg, author of the book Cool it and known as the king of skeptics, for being from the group which disagrees with the run against global warming. The former Vice-president of the USA and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore also spoke yesterday. The tickets had also run out (these two events popped up all of a sudden!). Luckily, a colleague got in and filmed the final speech of Gore, in which he talks “from heart to heart”, claiming for the leaders to consider who they are and to decide for the right thing. At the entrance of the Bella Center, a woman was yelling to passers-by showing the badge: “today, don’t be stupid, be smart”. It is what claims everyone who stayed out of the Bella Center. And it is what those staying out of the leaders’ decision rooms also hope for.

Video and picture kindly ceded by Marcelo Borja

How Cop-15 works

The Bella Center, the venue where the event takes place, is a huge exhibition hall, with many rooms and warehouses. Right at the entrance there is a huge room, Hall H, filled with stands of NGOs, universities and environmental projects and more than 200 exhibits. There it is possible to get to know from the Alliance for Rural Eletrification (Are), international association that works towards the access to renewable energy in developing countries, to even Tck Tck Tck, the international campaign for citizens to pressure governments in this Cop-15 (the campaign happened in the last few months, including in Brazil).

Leaving from there and following trough a hallway, we get to the stand where every morning the day schedule is delivered – as well as the drafts, the texts being generated in the negotiations.

As atividades na Cop-15 se dividem entre: plenárias (normalmente uma mesa redonda assistida por várias pessoas, são salas imensas, cheias de cadeiras), as reuniões (essas só são abertas para as delegações – observadores e ONGs não podem entrar), e os side events, ou eventos paralelos. Só de side event durante a Cop são mais de 250! São países apresentando seus projetos e ideias. Activities at Cop-15 are divided into: plenary meetings (usually a round table being watched by many people, in huge rooms filled with chairs), the meetings (these are open only for delegations – observers and NGOs can’t go in), and the side events. There are more than 250 side events alone at Cop, countries showing their projects and ideas.

As if that wasn’t enough, there are also the schedules inside the countries’ rooms – located at the delegations’ sector, after another hall where the plenary meetings and meeting rooms are located. Result: with so many things happening, a lot of schedules overlap and we need to choose. As the place is very big, the moving time from one hall to another can be great (like 15 minutes). Oh, and the schedule may change instantly. Suddenly, some people pass by delivering leaflets for a new event that has just popped up.