Monday, December 28, 2009

Hannah's initial impressions

On Saturday December 19th after 14 hours of post finals traveling, deprived of adequate sleep or food I was remarkably full of energy flying into the Denmark airport. I was going to witness one of the most historic conferences of our generation. For the past several weeks the majority of my thoughts were consumed with visions of COP15—a global delegation with 119 heads of state discussing various solutions to the current climate crisis. Finally I was here—extremely energetic and a tad overly optimistic. As an accredited observer I had the privilege to sit in plenary, debriefing, and side events all concerning climate change policies. After finding our bags in the airport three other peers and I went to get accredited at the Bella center where the conference was being held. With windmills as the backdrop, illuminated with climate activists and environmental delegates, to me, the Bella center represented a Mecca for change in the current systems disturbing our climate. We bustled through vegetarian advocates and security personal to find our place in the line to get accredited. Standing in line, there was a distinct fervor in the air; people from all over the world were brought together because of this global crisis. The energy inside me accelerated with the energy vibrating from the Bella center.

Embarking on this trip, I was specifically interested in the policies being formed in the food and agriculture sector. My interest in this field was fueled Professor David Cleveland’s World Agriculture class. This class taught me the skills to critically analyze differing viewpoints on any issue. This method allowed me to think critically about my own values and especially the assumptions I make about the world on a day-to-day basis. It was gratifying to be able to apply these skills to how I viewed the climate conference. While sitting in on debriefings and panel discussions I attempted to understand the assumptions, methods, and speculations of various parties in order to unravel the validity of an argument. For example the first day I attended a debriefing session about the role agriculture and the forestry sector plays in the climate crisis. In this session, delegates stated that food security, a growing global concern, must be taken into consideration when forming policies for the climate crisis. The panelists continually referred to the world food crisis as a problem of food insecurity rather than food sovereignty and inequiaty over the power distribution of food systems. This distinction is extremely important to people who feel that they have no power or voice in how or where their food is grown. In class we referred to these differing perspectives as mainstream versus alternative. When one talks about the “mainstream” viewpoint of the World Food crisis it is largely the stance that we must increase food security by producing more food—a top-down approach. The alternative viewpoint, on the other hand, describes the solution to the World Food Crisis by granting food sovereignty to those countries that deserve to control their own food system and have equal power to resources to produce more food.

This divide, between mainstream and alternative approaches, was more evident to me as the conference continued. Probably the most extreme distinction between these two perspectives was between the two venues for COP15; the Bella Center, the official conference center where 119 heads of states (consisting of the G8 and G77) met in order to draft up a climate change agreement versus the KlimaForum which was more of an alternative viewpoint recognizing the importance of bottom up approach to this crisis. After attending conferences and lectures at many different venues I ended up frustrated by this evident divide that inhibited any real policies to be formed. In my opinion, these divisions are the roots of our failure to form a binding agreement at Copenhagen. Definition of the climate problem differs greatly between these different perspectives. It is imperative that these differing perspectives find some common ground in defining the problem. Without attempting to see eye-to-eye—these different perspectives are unable to work together to define the problem and thus it is impossible to implement a solution for this present climate crisis. Although my optimism for a binding agreement quickly dwindled after the first few days of the conference, my hope for some (perhaps minor) change in how we approached climate change as a global community did not. The discourse both within the Bella center and around Copenhagen during the conference between people from all over the world is what provided me with hope that change is possible.

For me the conference encapsulated many different feelings. At times I was so thrilled to be sitting in a room with leaders from Uganda, Canada, India, and Australia. Other times I was frustrated at the inefficiencies of the system where I felt like little was being accomplished due to the clear disagreements between various groups. As a student, I have little voice in the global policies being drafted but I do have the ability to act sustainably on an individual level and encourage others around me to do the same. The Copenhagen Accord, while not a binding agreement, is a step in the right direction. Hopefully it will cause a snowball affect in mitigation and adaptation policies being implemented to reduce the effects of climate change, globally. I feel so lucky to have been able to witness this worldwide delegation and remain hopeful that if we are environmentally conscious individually and locally, our efforts will have some effect globally.

--Hannah Wright

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