Two weeks in Warsaw: Damage control

home made radio studio in the media centre
home made radio studio in the media centre

Another year, another climate COP, and a few more faltering baby steps toward trying to limit global climate change. But this time coal was in charge and it showed. I’ve been to enough of these meetings to know that there isn’t going to be One Big Event that will Suddenly Save the Climate, Just Like That. This was the problem with Copenhagen, a meeting that, frankly, was never going to do the job and where expectations were too high.

But every year, as emissions accumulate in the atmosphere and new, fossil-fuel-fired infrastructure is built, and new scientific discoveries are made, the more important these meetings get.

While Warsaw wasn’t going to get a Big Deal, it was an extremely important stepping stone toward the 2015 agreement which will be the closest thing to the One Big Event we’ll have seen in at least a decade, if not longer (since Kyoto?).

As one colleague said to me on the night the talks ended: “we got some things, and we lost less than we thought we would. But it wasn’t a major breakthrough, not with the amount of damage control we had to do.”

So what did we get at the end of those frenetic two weeks?

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Westward Ho: life inside the line

Imprisoned within one square kilometer of water, two hundred kilometers from land, our only point of reference in a black ocean the brightly lit deathship. Confined within an invisible line we must not cross. Missing our friends who must stay outside the same invisible line. We are never still – there is no parking out here and the tiller must be constantly active to keep us all here, the engine on idle. We do two hour watches overnight.

The other boats meet once a day to talk and socialise and we hear them on our radio talking about how good the scones, pancakes and coffee are. But we choose to stay in prison.

Huge inspiration to hear of seven thousand kiwis gathered on 48 beaches in support of the campaign. We decided we needed to relay that good news to our 200 neighbours, and not on the normal channel 16, which we think goes only to the bridge. So we used their working channel, which everyone on board should hear, and told them about the mobilization on the beaches and how our government has misled Anadarko. Then each boat in turn talked about why they are here and asked them to go home.

We have binoculars and camera and video trained on them and they on us. When we watch them they try to hide their cameras.

This morning: a safety drill preceded by an ear rupturing blast on their horn. We learned today that usually precedes drilling.

We take seriously our responsibility to entertain these poor blokes (well, we did see one woman), who are confined in an even smaller prison than ours, though with rather more mod cons. So today, we are putting on orange overalls and safety harnesses, and Niamh has practiced her climbing skills up the mast. Every camera was on us. I thought the Bob would overbalance as they all rushed for the side we were on.

Breaking News: Anadarko has just told TV3 they will begin drilling tomorrow morning. We’ll believe that when we see it – they were going to do that on Thursday and still haven’t. We think that’s because we are here.

Jeanette

Westward Ho: Who’s in Charge Here?

We’ve had lots of opportunities to observe operations on the drillship — often better at night when it’s all lit up. The difficulty is in interpreting what we are seeing. Support ships come in and out. Cranes transfer people in cages from one to the other. Other cages and pipes inside the derrick go up and down. Inflatables zoom around. Divers drop over the side of the NBD. I should have done oil drilling procedures 101 before coming out here. We understand they can’t while we’re so close but don’t know for sure. However, it is clear they are not drilling yet, despite saying they planned to start yesterday. Great statement yesterday from Labour leader David Cunliffe, about the huge risks of drilling — until you realise he hasn’t committed himself to anything. There is no policy to stop deep sea drilling. We need to keep working on Labour especially on the climate aspect.

Meanwhile the government is totally missing in action. Having rushed through draconian legislation to stop deep sea oil protests, they are taking no action to enforce it. We have heard nothing from the authorities. Anadarko has been hung out to die. Other oil companies interested in coming here will take note. They are missing in action on environmental protection. Simon Bridges says they are “putting the oil drilling industry through the wringer” yet their new EPA approved the emergency oil spill response plan without seeing it, let alone evaluating it. They are missing in action in their accountability to the public.

Having told the public deep sea drilling is no more dangerous than shallow drilling, though the consequences would be “significant”, Amy Adams has been caught out hiding a report showing it as seven times more dangerous and the consequences would “catastrophic”. It leaves one asking “who is in charge here?” Obviously, the US oil industry.

Westward Ho: Singing Jellyfish and Other Trivia

Day nine at sea, day seven on site, day four marking the ship. It would be mindlessly boring, day and night zigzagging alongside the ship, were it not for the excitement of updates from the campaign on land, the good company, and the occasional hilarious moment.

Last night, off the stern of the Noble Bob Douglas, Niamh yelled “Jellyfish, jellyfish!”

“That’s not a jellyfish, its rubbish.”

“No, it’s a bluebottle, Grab it with the boathook!”

So Bunny did. And as she hauled onboard a bubble some half metre across it started singing operatically to the tune of Handels Hallelujah chorus, complete with orchestra. “Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday!” Every time you poked it, the music began again. It seems they do birthday parties on the ship, and chuck their rubbish overboard.

Noble Bob Douglas looks like a cross between a battleship (massive grey hull, radars, bits and bobs) and one of my grandson’s intricate Lego projects (blue cranes, crates, derricks; yellow railings, drills stairways; white helicopter pad). The support boats look like giant malevolent tadpoles with fat squarish heads, and long wiggly tails.

We are also encouraged to hear of the mass mobilisation on so many oil free beaches tomorrow. The campaign is moving to land in a huge way. Watch out for simultaneous haka!

To find a beach near you, go to the oil free flotilla site or the Greenpeace Aotearoa site. This is enough for my patient scribe on the other boat. More serious stuff about the political situation later today.

Love you all,

Jeanette.

Protest, procrastination and #wtf?

When people just arriving in Warsaw over the last few days ask me how long I’ve been here, my general response has been “all my life.” That’s what it feels like.  You’d think I’d be used to this, it being my 11th COP. But there’s nothing like that special feeling of tiredness having been in a hideous, air-conditioned stadium for 15 hours a day. And I’m not even a negotiator.

We had a discussion today about whether a warm weather COP is better for achieving progress on the climate than a cold one, and it seemed this was so. Bali, Cancun and Durban did make better progress, on the whole, than Poznan, Copenhagen, and now Warsaw.

Today was the day that a bunch of civil society walked out of the Polish National Stadium. WWF, Greenpeace, Action Aid, 350 and Oxfam, along with unions and youth left the meeting, noisily, in big numbers and with the slogan “polluters talk, we walk,” in protest at the way the fossil fuel industry appears to be running progress, or lack thereof.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u054-8c_mKw&w=480]

I understand where they’re coming from.  Separate Oil and State and you’d get a lot further than where we are right now. Some NGO’s are staying inside to help steer the process through to the bitter end, which also seems understandable.

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