Today, on my way into Dubai’s Expo Center, the day when the action starts to happen, the parties begin to convene and the massive machine of the UN is fully in place, I had a mini-”aha” moment as I sought to reconcile my impressions as a first time COP attendee: awesome and heartbreaking. The metaphor that struck me was quite simply a visceral image of being in a space where all of the systems we say we would like to change are eerily mirrored back at all of us.
Entering the Blue Zone–the space where the parties are supposed to meet, negotiate and come to a consensus on the future of our planet is a mirror of a world order that continues to perpetuate the problems of iniquity we face, and why it is so very difficult to come to a clear path forward. While the Blue Zone is the place where it all happens, the reality is that so many of the negotiations and decisions are conducted behind closed doors, and observers from civil society are left speaking to a choir of like minds. Wealthy nations are shielded from the rest of us as they are escorted from one place to another for photo ops and what are essentially superficial, nano-second, carefully orchestrated moments that reflect the facade that is created that we are all in this together working towards just, equitable solutions.
And yet, each day, I leave with a sense that the process is an accomplishment in and of itself.
In my climate story, I related that I am choosing to lean into us. Part of doing that is accepting the fits and starts, the steps forward and the steps back that are part of building consensus; part of doing that means feeling anger and still showing up knowing that there will be important outcomes that will eventually lead us toward a clear and just transition away from fossil fuels. Another part of leaning in and living in the possibility that we can actually fund and implement very large, critical changes is making myself vulnerable: approaching people with whom I would rather not, showing up and being present because as an observer I will represent to these leaders that the world that is watching with high expectations.
As Day 2 ends and folds into Day 3, the relationships that I have started with Indigenous leaders who enjoy conversations and engagement with observers, people with NGOs that are doing the same thing that I am doing, and the tens of thousands who pour in from all over the world are a force to be reckoned with. We will not go away and we will not silence ourselves; rather, our growing rapport and understanding of how we are so similar is building strength as we continue to hold world leadership accountable by our visibility and voice.
Denise is the Senior Director of Development and Marketing at Climate Generation. Denise leads fundraising and marketing efforts, supporting Climate Generation’s team in growing resources to amplify our mission and vision. Denise has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of St. Catherine, and has worked in fundraising and development for 17 years. She has served as the founding chair of the Saint Paul Almanac, as director for the Lex/Ham Community Council, and on the Central Corridor Community Advisory Committee. Denise’s passion is fueling transformative work through collaborative processes, and has worked in early childhood development, employment and health and human services. While new to working directly on environmental issues, Denise has seen the first hand effect of environmental disparity in communities where she has lived and believes that radical, lasting change in who we are as a people will come from uniting around practical and expedient action to restore and nourish the environment.
Denise is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP28. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
The post City of Mirrors appeared first on Climate Generation.
Climate Change
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Picture an American farm in your mind.
I fell flat on my backside one afternoon this January and, weirdly, it made me think of you. Okay, I know that takes a bit of unpacking—so let me go back and start at the beginning.
For the last six years, our family has joined with half a dozen others to spend a week or so up at Wangat Lodge, located on a 50-acre subtropical rainforest property around three hours north of Sydney. The accommodation is pretty basic, with no wifi coverage—so time in Wangat really revolves around the bush. You live by the rhythm of the sun and the rain, with the days punctuated by swimming in the river and walking through the forest.
An intrinsic part of Wangat is Dan, the owner and custodian of the place, and the guide on our walks. He talks about time, place, and care with great enthusiasm, but always tenderly and never with sanctimony. “There is no such thing as ‘the same walk’”, is one of Dan’s refrains, because the way he sees it “every day, there is change in the world around you” of plants, animals, water and weather. Dan speaks of Wangat with such evident love, but not covetousness; it is a lightness which includes gentle consciousness that his own obligations arise only because of the historic dispossession of others. He inspires because of how he is.
One of the highlights this year was a river walk with Dan, during which we paddled or waded through most of the route, with only occasional scrambles up the bank. Sometimes the only sensible option is to swim. Among the life around us, we notice large numbers of tadpoles in the water, which is clean enough to drink. Our own tadpoles, the kids in the group, delight in the expedition. I overhear one of the youngest children declaring that she’s having ‘one of the best days ever’. Dan looks content. Part of his mission is to reintroduce children to nature, so that the soles of their feet may learn from the uneven ground, and their muscles from the cool of the water.
These moments are for thankfulness in the life that lives.
It is at the very end of the walk when I overbalance and fall on my arse—and am reminded of the eternal truth that rocks are hard. As I gingerly get up, my youngest daughter looks at me, caught between amusement and concern, and asks me if I’m okay.
I have to think before answering, because yes, physically I’m fine. But I feel too, an underlying sense of discomfort; it is that omnipresent pressure of existential awareness about the scale of suffering and ecological damage now at large in the world, made so much more immediately acute after Bondi; the dissonance that such horrors can somehow exist simultaneously with this small group being alive and happy in this place, on this earth-kissed afternoon.
How is it okay, to be “okay”? What is it to live with conscience in Wangat? Those of us who still have access to time, space, safety and high levels of volition on this planet carry this duality all the time, as our gift and obligation. It is not an easy thing to make sense of; but for me, it speaks to the question of ‘why Greenpeace’? Because the moral and strategic mission-focus of campaigning provides a principled basis for how each of us can bridge that interminable gulf.
The essence of campaigning is to make the world’s state of crisis legible and actionable, by isolating systemic threats to which we can rise and respond credibly, with resources allocated to activity in accordance with strategy. To be part of Greenpeace, whether as an activist, volunteer supporter or staff member, is to find a home for your worries for the world in confidence and faith that together we have the power to do something about it. Together we meet the confusion of the moment with the light of shared purpose and the confidence of direction.
So, it was as I was getting back up again from my tumble and considering my daughter’s question that I thought of you—with gratitude, and with love–-because we cross this bridge all the time, together, everyday; to face the present and the future.
‘Yes, my love’, I say to my daughter, smiling as I get to my feet, “I’m okay”. And I close my eyes and think of a world in which the fires are out, and everywhere, all tadpoles have the conditions of flourishing to be able to grow peacefully into frogs.
Thank you for being a part of Greenpeace.
With love,
David
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