Monday evening Mangaliso invited everybody for diner at his hosts’ place. We were almost complete, only Roy and Jacomien couldn’t make it for dinner. It was really nice to see everyone together outside the Bella Center, in a comfortable Danish living room. We had discussions about what should happen at the conference and were trying to find out what cultural differences there are, but most of all had lots of fun.
Wednesday restrictions for the amount of NGO-representatives inside the Bella Center started and every day there are less NGO-representatives allowed in the Bella Center. Project Survival is not on top of the priority list, so yesterday was the last chance to get in for the ones with a NGO-badge. Fortunately most of the African youth delegates are an official part of their delegation and can get in.
Yesterday only four the Dutch students could get inside and ran around the whole Bella Center and left no journalist unaware of Project Survival. We still are trying to get as much media attention as possible. The base camp for the three outside the Bella Center was settled in a cozy living room of Suuz’ host and we spend the day behind our laptops drinking tea.
Today we were in a large, empty hall, not nearly as cozy as the living room from Suuz’ host. The Danish government arranged an alternative conference here. It only exists of a live video connection with the plenary meeting. The hall was nearly empty, just like all the beautiful promises on the screen made by the national leaders about how we all should save the planet.
Today we discussed what we can do after the climate conference, because we think our story has not finished yet. The under-representation of developing countries and the lack of youth representatives will still be important issues after this conference.
We would like to talk with the United Nations, to ask them what their point of view is on these issues. There a huge difference between the sizes of the delegations. For example the Brazilian delegation consists of 700 people, while the Guinean delegation only consist of 8 people, and some countries have even less delegates. At the conference a lot of meetings take place at the same time. With only a couple of delegates it is impossible to attend all meetings and be aware of what has been discussed. There are no rules for how big a delegation can or should be. So after Copenhagen, the Project will Survive.
Yesterday Copenhagen turned into a snow landscape. So after having diner in the city, Suuz and I could go home without playing in the snow, which resulted in a snowy Project Survival artwork.
Frank
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