I came ‘home’ early the other night – at 11.30 p.m.  I sidled to the bathroom for my nocturnal peripheral pass by her bedroom.  The light was on under her door.   I hesitated, and moved on.   This would have been our first ‘face-to-face’.  And there are limits.  I went to my bed.

We tried to meet.  We e-mailed each other.  I advanced a proposition.  Thursday and Friday, I said, would be marginally freer since the MPs, members of GLOBE, would not be at the conference site but meeting in town, following proceedings live-streamed.  Wonderful, she shot back.  How exciting!  It will be like Xmas, she will actually get to meet her house-guest.

The excitement was shared.

Friday morning came.  A tough one.  I had been following the plenary into Thursday night, waiting for speeches from the US and China, and later, New Zealand.  Proceedings were tracking 3 hours late and due to wind up at 5.00 a.m. Now it was heading for 1.00 a.m. and speakers were getting a bit turgid.  When the US and China inexplicably did not appear in the queue for their speeches, and New Zealand would not be till after 3.00, I call it quits and plunge outside into the cold, knowing that the metro for my last leg is already closed.  I would stay, but I have a 30-hour flight coming up soon.

So, Friday morning, I am downtown and meet up with Jeanette and Rick.  We meet with other Greens – from Ireland and also the Canadian leader.  That is 11.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.

I am to meet Therese at 1.15 p.m.  We are to meet in the foyer of the Plaza Hotel.  It is a splendidly elegant old hotel close to Kobenhavns H station.  The foyer has thick carpet and dark wood surroundings, with a hushed atmosphere and pleasant efficient reception staff.  It is not what I have become used to in my Copenhagen week, which has been considerably more austere.  But I know it because I had occasion to meet a colleague there and it was close to the station.  It would be an upbeat ambience to meet Therese.  And there is an elegant café that is adjacent to the foyer and part of the hotel.

It is important to be elegant for Therese.  I select my light blue tie for aging elegance, and plunge, yet again, into the cold.  It is, I learn, minus 9 Celsius.  Fine.

It is approaching midday and we Greens are ensconced in Green-talk.  My blackberry hums.  A new message, one of the hundred or so I get each day, has arrived.  It is wise to read them immediately.  It is from Therese.  Dear Ken, it says.  I have just gotten the news that a very close friend of mine has been fired.  Therefore I unfortunately have to cancel today’s lunch with you.  See you at home, hopefully before you leave.

I send a reply.  Therese, que sera, sera.

I doubt I shall see Therese.  Not this time.  Not at the Copenhagen Climate Conference of 2009.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Anyway, as she would say, ha, ha, ha.

Bye Therese.  Thanks for everything.

Even before the farce in Copenhagen began it was looking like it might be too late to prevent two or more degrees of global warming. The nation states, pursuing their own interests, have each been passing the parcel of responsibility since they decided to take action in 1992. We have now lost 17 precious years, possibly the only years in which climate breakdown could have been prevented. This has not happened by accident: it is the result of a systematic campaign of sabotage by certain states, driven and promoted by the energy industries. This idiocy has been aided and abetted by the nations characterised, until now, as the good guys: those that have made firm commitments, only to invalidate them with loopholes, false accounting and outsourcing. In all cases immediate self-interest has trumped the long-term welfare of humankind. Corporate profits and political expediency have proved more urgent considerations than either the natural world or human civilisation. Our political systems are incapable of discharging the main function of government: to protect us from each other.

Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared. The governments which moved so swiftly to save the banks have bickered and filibustered while the biosphere burns.

Enough said really, but you can read the rest here.

The purpose of the meeting was to agree on a second commitment period for the Kyoto  protocol. That has not been achieved.

We came here wanting an ambitious, fair and binding agreement. The talks have failed on all three counts. There are no country targets, only an appendix where countries offer non-binding reductions which collectively will not stop warming of two degrees. As it is not ambitious or binding, it cannot be fair to the developing countries that are already suffering from climate change.

There is not even an aspirational statement about reaching a stronger agreement next year.

It is a disgrace that New Zealand was the first country in this group of outlaws to accept the travesty and walk away from the post Kyoto UN process. They have dashed the hopes of millions of people around the world and let all New Zealanders down.

Thirteen million people signed a petition in the last few days calling for strong action. They will not be denied. Civil society has made its presence felt in Copenhagen and will not give up.

Signing off from Copenhagen.

Jeanette and Kennedy

They worked out at the start how fast they all had to run to make it. They set targets for how close they would be in five years. But people didn’t run that fast. Some walkied, some said “I will pay others to run faster so I don’t have to”. Others sat down for a rest. Still others wandered backwards because they didn’t believe the disaster was really coming.

At the end of the five years they discussed again how fast they had to run to catch the train which had  now disappeared over the horizon. If they had all run at the speed they agreed five years ago they would now be much closer to the train.They argued. “You sat down for a rest, so you have to run much faster now”. “No, I can only start from where I am. I will run a little faster than I have been and that should be good enough.”

And so their running targets all changed, to reflect the fact that they had only walked or sat down. A few caught up with the train but they couldn’t get on because the others were far behind.

If parties had met the targets in the Kyoto Protocol the reduction we need now for developed countries wouldn’t be 25-40%, but 20-35%. Instead, countries like NZ have to undo the 23% emissions increase since 1990 before they can count any reduction. Canada, the most recalcitrant of the developed countries had a bright idea – let’s measure our next targets against 2006 emissions. That gave the US the chance to say “We will reduce by 17%”- which is only 3% below 1990. But the climate doesn’t reset the clock at each COP. And the train has disappeared over the horizon.

Plenary has broken for lunch.  The ALBA group is holding a press conference.  The leaders of the Latin American ‘radicals’ – Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador – are speaking.  They mix a global cry of despair with traditional anti-gringo rhetoric.  I am able to discount the latter – I had two decades of Cold War experience in doing it.  The global socialist state is not the answer to climate change, any more than the global Caliphate or the global boardroom

The cry of despair, however, is new, and compellingly authentic.  I do not regard the US as imperial the way ALBA might, but I do concur that the US-led North disproportionately shares responsibility for the ‘failure’ that is Copenhagen.  If we in the North refuse to acknowledge historical responsibility for emissions, if we refuse to meet the UN’s prescribed targets, if we insist, perversely, that the South put their numbers on the table with vice-like ‘measurement, reporting and verification’ before we move further, and if we display an incomprehensibly callous indifference to the plight of our Polynesian cousins – how in God’s name can we expect to lead in a legitimate global bargain?  I just do not believe it.

This is not the moment for negative partisan politics.  What I have to say is more underlying, more fundamental.  In addressing the challenge that is climate change, and the temporary ‘failure’ that is Copenhagen, I declare greater political support to the leaders of ALBA than to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.  I remain loyal to New Zealand – to the constitutional apparatus that is the Crown.  But I believe that the ALBA leaders are correct in what they say, and that the Government of New Zealand is wrong, profoundly wrong, in what it says and does.  ALBA is the voice of the Earth, the voice of humanity.  New Zealand, in its current official form, is the voice of indifference, of vested interest, of fatal procrastination.  I am less ashamed than incensed.

The ‘blame-game’ industry will get a new lease-on-life in the New Year.  The Danish leadership has been trenchantly criticised – both for its organizational shortcomings and, far more importantly, for its hapless strategic misjudgements in the negotiations.  But those shortcomings could have been overcome.  Failure derives from the underlying faults in the structural and political configuration of the international community.  Too many nations.  Too much national self-interest.  Too much political obduracy.

Forgive us, Lord, for we knew not what we were doing.

It is not the end of the world – yet.  We have six to twelve months to achieve what we have failed to achieve here this week.  Copenhagen is the shrill wake-up call to humanity.  To squeeze through the eye of the needle, we shall need to mobilise a global chorus of political demand straight from the citizens everywhere.  Fragments of that – intermittent snatches of the haunting hymn that can be humanity’s single harmonious voice – have been heard already.  But it is nothing compared to the swelling chorus that will be heard over the coming months – before, through and after Xmas.

And we need extraordinary global leadership.  From whom is it to come?  To whom are we to turn, in our time of need?  The national leaders have come.  They have dined, and talked off the record.  That has proven insufficient to the task. The UN Secretary-General has just requested them to stay overnight.  We trust they are all up to such extraordinary self-sacrifice.  But they seem more in personal national defensive mode than in proactive global leadership mode.  One of them needs to break out.  Is it Obama?  What of the UN Secretary-General himself?  He says the right things, pretty much.  But will they follow him?  Unlikely.  He lacks the constitutional empowerment.

At the Law School in Canterbury University, I teach a course entitled ‘Global Constitutionalism’.  Ban Ki-moon lacks the constitutional empowerment to lead humanity.  Read Hammarskjöld’s remarkably prescient philosophy back in the mid-20^th century.  History, now, yet speaking to us today – 18 December 2009, in Copenhagen.

As I sign off on this, we have returned to the High-Level Segment in plenary.  It is the turn of the International Youth delegation.  They are on stage.  The young man says to the leaders – “You should be ashamed”.  His voice breaks.  “Please, please, do it now”.   The 17-year-old young woman from the Solomon Islands had earlier said – “I was born in 1992.  You have been negotiating all my life.  Finish your work.”

This is the voice of the young – echoing around the planet, out into space, following in the wake of Voyagers I and II – carrying the tremulous sounds of a species at risk

Our “home base” at the Bella centre – until, like other NGOs and parliamentarians and research organisations we were kicked out, has been a small white table with associated power points  for computers and phones, in the main hall.  Our near neighbours were the Rainforest Coalition, groups who have been working on  REDD, the initiative to fund developing countries to preserve  their rainforests from the logging and burning that is decimating them at present. It’s a big ask, as in most developing countries more than half of the logging is illegal: theft by foreign corporations against the local law and with no return to the country that owns the forests.

We’ve been able to glean the inside story on the negotiations from the folk at the next table, including my old friend Peg Putt, former leader of the Tasmanian Greens, and now working for an Australian rainforest NGO. It was great to see her again.

At the Barcelona meeting the EU succeeded in taking out of the main text the protection of  the rights of the indigenous peoples who  live in and depend on those forests, and inserting the ability  to replace the  old growth forests with palm oil plantations and still qualify for  subsidy. There has been a huge  amount of work by the NGOs to protect biodiversity and indigenous rights and they have been restored in the text.

There is still the issue of how the finance will be managed – at national level or regionally. Some are concerned that corruption at government level may prevent the money reaching the people it is designed to help. Others say dealing with a plethora of local officials  could be even worse. It does raise the need for better governance in many nations if it is going to be possible to implement a global climate agreement.

Of all the climate disasters unfolding daily, the huge loss of tropical old growth forests is the most irreversible. It is not just  about carbon,  but about soil,water, species and ecosystems which may exist  nowhere else. That’s why even a small victory is important.

Jeanette discusses the lack of emissions reduction targets thusfar offered by rich nations, and the $100 billion pledge from the US that will begin in 2020 to assist developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. 

Kennedy tells us what he believes will cause these talks to fail, if indeed they do, and suggests the way to avoid this fate is to adjourn for six months to allow more time for a legally binding treaty to be negotiated.

And what will President Obama say, if anything, in the next few hours to avoid catastrophe?

For 8 days the conference has ground along in true diplomatic style, officials parsing words and bracketing phrases within the mindless straitjacket of 193 inflexible cabinet decisions thrashed out in advance of what purports to be multilateral negotiations.  Behind the screens, leaders are talking.  But not necessarily agreeing.

Now we are at the public High-Level Segment, today and tomorrow.  As I write, President Sarkozy is speaking.  Failure, he says, is not an option.  This is not, he says, a symposium on climate change – it is the moment for decision.  There are less than 24 hours left.  He urges leaders to take decisive action and he means it. Others agree.  Great. Must be time for action.

This has been a unique conference.  Although it is not over and although we do not yet know the outcome, I believe we can see the future through the veil.  Or, to switch the metaphor, humanity is peering through the eye of the needle, sizing up our chances of squeezing through.  Into the deliverance of global unity.  That includes the rich, who are in the business of recomposing themselves.

I have attended major UN conferences before – disarmament in ’88, Rio in ’92, Cairo’s Population Conference in ’94, and others.  This is different in kind.  Those conferences, governments were negotiating on behalf of nation-states.  This one, governments are negotiating on behalf of humanity.  In 2009, virtually all humans see climate change as a personal threat – to themselves and their mortal posterity.  We’d rather not condemn our descendants to Hell.  They might resent it – and remember who we were.

Nuclear weapons were the first global threat.  Einstein and others cried out for global change.  Yet the bean-counting could naturally be confined to the nation-state, so after the failed Baruch Plan the weapons stayed within our own arsenals.  But you can’t condense the global carbon atmospheric concentration inside the national cake-tin.  The global commons is shared.  We all breathe the same air.  We feel the same heat.

So the global civil society has kicked into action in an unprecedented manner and to unprecedented effect.  That does not, in itself, determine decisions – or lack thereof.  But it does influence the broader dynamics in a way that has national leaders running – for present cover or future office.  Global justice is no longer a prescriptive moral vision; it is a condition of survival.

And at the conference the political imagery is different from Rio.  That conference, I remember only one national leader referring to Earth in a cosmic context and he was regarded as barking mad.  This morning, one compares Earth with Mars and suggests we choose Earth.   Others talk of the beautiful pearl in space.  One calls for a global referendum on five questions that would logically lead leaders to a singular decision-point.  Outside the assembly hall the British Prime Minister appeals to humans the world over to sign a global petition to pressure leaders.  Leaders appealing to be pressured.  That is where we have come to.  So the philosophical context is different.  It is, as they say, a ‘paradigm shift’.  And that is an historic advance.  Equal to Apollo 8’s ‘Earthrise’ back in ’68.

So why do we not get agreement?   Because of a second truth.  Our 19^th century conference machinery is inadequate for 21^st century problems.  If humanity faces truly global problems today, and we do, then the principle of subsidiarity, accepted by nation-states in a regional context, requires certain limited global decision-making power at the global level.  Instead, we have 193 sovereign entities, bickering in tribal fashion over misperceived national interests.  New Zealand is one of the worst offenders.  And we have the simian gall to rail at Tuvalu for their intemperate behaviour – emotionally appealing for survival.

Humanity’s technological advance has outstripped its political evolution.  Our institutional structures, resting as always on underlying political assumptions and premises, remain national.  They are not even truly regional.

We can contemplate four alternative scenarios post-Copenhagen.

• We can, miracle of miracles, reach genuine agreement, legally-binding and reflecting national self-abnegation, collectively meeting the prescribed global targets, based on informed scientific evidence.  Chances?  5%.
• We can, miracle of miracles, refashion our decision-making at the national-regional-global levels that avoids the dysfunctionality of the traditional conference machinery, and emerge with a global solution of a genuine, legitimate kind.  Chances?  10%.
• We can fail to act with sufficient resolve and capability, and watch the UN Security Council adopt binding enforcement powers under Chapter VII in response to increasing international instability.  Legislate for climate change, the way it has for terrorism.  Alarmist?  In April 2007, the Council held a debate on climate change and its security implications.  The Pacific Islands Forum urged the Council to be prepared to act.  Presumably, that included New Zealand.  But China implacably opposed even a joint statement.  Then in June this year the General Assembly expressed concern over the adverse impacts of climate change, including sea-level rise, and the possible security implications this could have.  It urged the Security Council to return to the issue and asked the Secretary-General to report back.  So don’t write it off.  Chances?  40%.
• Or, we can wallow in the mire, continuing to fight one another for competitive national advantage, grabbing deck-chairs for the best positions on the Titanic.  Literally observing the icebergs as the boat goes down.  Chances?  No comment.  See if we can deny the maths.  See if we can thwart the Devil.

Copenhagen cannot be a ‘success’.  Barring a miracle (0.001%), there will be no numbers.  But ‘failure’ can be avoided.  This requires a strong statement of political agreement, and a decision to adjourn rather than close.  The conference would re-open within six months for a legally-binding treaty reflecting agreed obligations by both North and South in the global interest.  Six months.

Anything less is a failure.  And failure is not an option, for the President of France.  Nor for my grand-daughters.  Mia is 5.  Khali is 3.  Mala is 2.  Oshani is 3 months.  Four cute girls, very vulnerable.

Better get our act together.

Therese is one of a syndicate of Danish hosts who have signed up to billet conference participants from outside Denmark.  Jeanette and Rick have separate hosts.  The difference is, they have met theirs.  I have not met mine.  Five days and five nights together without ever meeting.  It is a surreal arrangement but it has become surprisingly normal.

Therese offered some months back and we set up the arrangement.  I made direct email contact with her just before my departure for Denmark last week.  She wrote back.  “Anyone who fights climate change is welcome in my home”, she said simply.  I immediately looked forward to meeting her.

I headed off for Copenhagen on Air New Zealand.  In Hong Kong airport I checked my email.  This was just as well since Therese had made a late-minute change to the arrangements.  She was attending her annual Xmas Party the Friday night I was arriving.  She would leave the key for her apartment at the Left Luggage counter at Copenhagen Airport.  An unusual arrangement, I thought, perhaps normal in Nordic culture, though three years in Sweden had not bolstered my experience for this.  I was beginning to like Therese.

Sure enough, the Danish official at Left Luggage cheerfully handed over the envelope in my name.  Don’t you want to check my identity, I said, incredulously, offering my passport?.  No, no, he said in clear and clipped Danelish.  We trust you.  I felt humbled.  I was beginning to like all Danes.

I take a train, and then a metro, then I track down her apartment on the street.  It is close to midnight, cold and dark and unfamiliar.  The apartment is the standard, brick, semi-detached tenement building bordering right on the street.  Moment of truth.  The outside door-key works.  I reach the top floor and the same key allows me inside.  I am home.  There is a welcome note from Therese.  She will be home around 3.30 a.m.  I creep in, use the shower, and flop into what is presume is my bed in what I presume is my bedroom.  This proves to be perfect judgement.  At 4.00 am, I hear what I take to be Therese climbing the stairs and passing my bedroom.

Saturday morning I am up and off at 6.30 a.m.  Unsurprisingly, no stirring from Therese’s bedroom.  I e-mail her from the conference.  She emails back.  Welcome she says.  She will out that night at a second Xmas Party.  Do not expect her back early.  I am back at midnight – to an empty apartment.  But it has been made warm by a wood-burner and a light is left on for good cheer.

From Friday to Thursday today, I have left in the dark around 7.00 a.m. and returned in the dark around midnight.  It is not a routine guaranteed to meet Therese.   I email her.  This is from your phantom guest, I say.  It is proving difficult to meet up.  Perhaps breakfast next Saturday morning before I fly out to New Zealand?

She replies by email.  It says: “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha”.  Perhaps.  Perhaps not. Perhaps before.

I believe I k now Therese very well – better than many delegates I have shaken hands with and exchanged professional comment at Bella Conference Centre.  I know her habits.  I know her reading material.  I know what she looks like, since there are photos of her – at least I think it is her – on my bedroom wall.  There are quite personal notes to her posted up, which, given she knows I am coming and leaves them up, I presume I am free to read, though I feel a pang of prurient guilt nonetheless.  They make her out as an unusually creative, pleasant and carefree young woman.

I hope I meet Therese.

They also serve, who pass like ships in the night.

George Monbiot continues to speak bluntly of the reality humanity faces in this article on the Copenhagen climate summit. I was sorely tempted to post the whole thing as I did recently with another here, but instead a few excerpts and I encourage you to read the rest:

This is the moment at which we turn and face ourselves. Here, in the plastic corridors and crowded stalls, among impenetrable texts and withering procedures, humankind decides what it is and what it will become. It chooses whether to continue living as it has done, until it must make a wasteland of its home, or to stop and redefine itself. This is about much more than climate change. This is about us.   …

This is a meeting about chemicals: the greenhouse gases insulating the atmosphere. But it is also a battle between two world views. The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfilment, have understood this better than we have. A new movement, most visible in North America and Australia, but now apparent everywhere, demands to trample on the lives of others as if this were a human right. It will not be constrained by taxes, gun laws, regulations, health and safety, especially by environmental restraints. It knows that fossil fuels have granted the universal ape amplification beyond its Palaeolithic dreams. For a moment, a marvellous, frontier moment, they allowed us to live in blissful mindlessness.  …

Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battle lines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments and those who believe that we must live within limits. The vicious battles we have seen so far between greens and climate change deniers, road safety campaigners and speed freaks, real grassroots groups and corporate-sponsored astroturfers are just the beginning. This war will become much uglier as people kick against the limits that decency demands.  …

Although the delegates are waking up to the scale of their responsibility, I still believe they will sell us out. Everyone wants his last adventure. Hardly anyone among the official parties can accept the implications of living within our means, of living with tomorrow in mind. There will, they tell themselves, always be another frontier, another means to escape our constraints, to dump our dissatisfactions on other places and other people. Hanging over everything discussed here is the theme that dare not speak its name, always present but never mentioned. Economic growth is the magic formula which allows our conflicts to remain unresolved.  …

But somehow this first great global battle between expanders and restrainers must be won and then the battles that lie beyond it – rising consumption, corporate power, economic growth – must begin. If governments don’t show some resolve on climate change, the expanders will seize on the restrainers’ weakness. They will attack – using the same tactics of denial, obfuscation and appeals to self-interest – the other measures that protect people from each other, or which prevent the world’s ecosystems from being destroyed. There is no end to this fight, no line these people will not cross. They too are aware that this a battle to redefine humanity, and they wish to redefine it as a species even more rapacious than it is today.

It really is time to wake up.

Denmark is a wonderful country.  We all love the Danes, and for good reason.  They are unassuming and whimsical.  And they think ahead.  You will know about their carbon neutral island, Samsǿ.  They have made all public transport – superb as it is – free for all delegates in Copenhagen.  Organic food is the default inside the Centre.  A modern wind turbine spins out a lazy cosmic message behind the conference site.  Momentarily direct your thoughtful gaze out the window, and it caresses your mind.

And, as I travel along the metro to Bella Centre, the dawn breaking red to the east, you look into three giant smokestacks, belching tonnes of coal-smoke into a distraught atmosphere, the billows catching the crimson rays from the ultimate source of renewable energy we should be harvesting.  It’s a metaphor for humanity.  A Biblical sign.  Change your ways, O Israel, or prepare for exile.

The 15,000 of us inside the Centre are all very busy.  Most of us are devoted to trying to make sense of the pace of change – or non-change.  It is not easy.  There are probably 100 who will decide the fate of the Earth.  The other 14,900 are beavering away, making a contribution as best we can.  Yet it is critically important we are here.

That way, the NZ Youth Delegation can attend the NZ ministerial reception at the NZ Consulate and present their sail to Minister Groser.  There is a pregnant pause and he responds.  The words are honeyed but the body language pierces the outer perimeter of the comfort zone.  Minister Smith beams avuncularly.  He claps lightly.  He, too, was young once.  Simon Upton, former ministerial colleague fresh from leading the Kyoto delegation twelve years ago, claps long and loud.  What does this mean?  We need a Kremlinologist.  But one thing is clear. Ministers are between a rock and a hard place.  Yet that is right where they should be. The Youth have had their say.  Their beautiful white sail lies at the ministerial feet on the floor of the NZ Consulate in Denmark, bearing its antipodean message of plight and plea from thousands of young Kiwis.

Now, they wish to meet with the Prime Minister.  I hope our Leader agrees.  If he does, the Youth will give him ‘what-for’, because they are not cowed by pomp-and-ceremony the way our generation was, and because they are terrified of the future.  They see things we do not see.  So the Prime Minister cannot really refuse.  He is between a rock and a hard place.  Right where he should be.  Not because of his Government’s failing policy.  Because he is their Prime Minister and this challenge is not political, it is existential.

And us erstwhile opposition MPs – what are we to be doing?  We are following closely and intently.  We are judging the substance of the NZ policy and attempting the complex task of calibrating it within the twists and turns of the negotiations within the global context to determine a fair share.  At least Jeanette and I are.  We understand that Labour’s Charles Chauvel failed to get entry.  We met him once off-site.  Have not seen him in the precincts.

What more can we do?  Can we make a statement?  No, at least not in the official forum.  Jeanette is on a high-level parliamentarian panel, theoretically with Connie Hedegaard, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and other luminaries.  It is a fitting tribute to her global status as an environmentalist – largely unrecognised back home.  Something about prophets.  I introduced her the other day to a group as the ‘conscience of the nation’.  She embarrasses easily.  I think it comes with the territory – something about mana.

So can I make a statement?  No.  Only Jeanette has that outlet here.  But I did try back home.  I work in the NZ House of Representatives.  It is a debating chamber.  Only last week, just before coming, Jeanette sought an Urgent Debate on climate change.  An international scientific study had just appeared making it clear that current targets by the overdeveloped countries would result in a much higher temperature rise than 2°C.  This, we thought, might place the good work the NZ Cabinet had done in judging its 2020 and 2050 targets in a new light.  It would, after all, not be enough.  At least, this would be debateable.  So we wrote to the Speaker.

According to the Standing Orders, the Speaker gets to decide on an Urgent Debate alone.  He rises to his feet – I think Dr Smith (not to be confused with the other Dr. Smith) is a good Speaker.  What does he have to say?  “There is no ministerial responsibility for the results of the [German] study.”  And anyway, “the continuing issue – the accumulation of evidence concerning the setting of emission reduction targets – cannot give rise to a debate under Standing Order 380.”  There being ‘no particular case of recent occurrence’, the application is declined.

So, we cannot debate the latest twist in this Nordic saga – that the planet is heating up more than worst-case scenarios had judged likely – because it is an ongoing issue.  Nothing new under the Sun, so to speak.

Jeanette and I had prepared for the Debate.  You have to, even though you are not sure if it will go ahead.  My draft languishes in the hard drive.  This happens.

But here it is.  Call it a ‘Scream into the Void’ – (091209 Urgent Debate – Final )-echoing around the planet, catching up with me on the other side of the planet and with my 15,000 colleagues all around me right now, and with the other 30,000 milling disconsolately in the streets of Copenhagen – and for that matter the 6.7 billion of us dwelling on this fragile speck of dust.

Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.

The European Parliament cross-party forum on population and development held a “discussion lunch” yesterday to look at the relationship between population policies and the challenge of climate change. Family planning activists from many organisations around the world listened to three presentations then compared views over lunch.

Family planning is focused on the hundreds of millions of women who would prefer to have fewer children if they had access to family planning. While the prediction of 9.2 billion people by 2050 is scary when one thinks of food supply, this is just the central prediction, based on the assumption that current resources for family planning programmes will continue. That is no longer a valid assumption. Resources have been shifted out of programmes into other important initiatives like Aids prevention because governments love announcing new generous programmes and avoid telling people it is not new money, but recycled from somewhere else. The fear is that climate change adaptation finance will also rob these programmes.

Then there are the perverse drivers. There is climate change adaptation aid available in the Maldives. It is very short of land but some islands have  less than 500 people and so don’t qualify for help to build a sea wall. So families have more children in order to get to the population that will qualify for government programmes.

The man from Ethiopia spoke last at our table. The average land available for a whole family to feed itself in large parts of his country is 0.25 ha. Two million more people are expected to join that population in the next few years. He thinks it’s too late to leave it to individual choice.

The NZ Government has courageously undertaken to provide daily briefings to ‘stakeholders’ on progress in the Copenhagen negotiations and our country’s positive role in that.  Jeanette Fitzsimons and I have been looking forward immensely to the opportunity to learn about how New Zealand is playing its fair share on turning around the greatest threat to humanity we have yet encountered.  And straight from the horse’s mouth – I hope that is taken in the positive spirit it is meant.

We were particularly grateful and impressed, given that the Green Party is in opposition and we have preferred to come independently rather than as part of the official delegation, for fear of surrendering the integrity of an objective judgement.  So we were anticipating the briefings with a mixture of admiration – and a touch of apprehension lest we let the side down.

Upon arrival over the weekend, we learned that, to make things easier for stakeholders, the first briefing would be at the delegation’s hotel on Monday morning at 8.30.  So I arose early, travelled in the dark and cold, and turned up at 7.45, breathless principally from the cold.

In the lobby I met the ambassador, then Ministers Groser and Smith.  There would be no briefing that morning, I was told.  They would start Tuesday morning, at a time and place to be conveyed to us.  No problem.  I headed for the conference, grateful that circumstances had prompted me to be early.

We learned subsequently that Ministers had met with NZ business groups shortly thereafter at the conference.  That was good, I thought.  It will enable government and business to come to an understanding of how to interact synergistically to save the planet – ensuring that New Zealand plays its fair share.

Monday evening by 10.00 p.m., we had not been advised of Tuesday’s briefing.  I reluctantly phoned in to the senior Minister’s chief adviser, not wishing to distract him from his critical tasks.  The briefing, he said, would be at the conference site in the NZ delegation room at 9.30 a.m.

Tuesday morning, I arose early again in the dark and cold with purpose.  At the site, I was relieved to get through the extraordinary multitude outside the conference precincts in time for the NZ briefing.  I turned up at 9.25.  The same senior official was there.  So was one Kiwi student observing the conference.  And two NZ officials.  And me.  It was all pleasant and relaxed, if rather desultory in conversation.  But, without the Minister.

At 9.45 the Minister arrived.  The senior official immediately asked for the room to be cleared, which, given the student had already left, meant me.  This was so that minister could brief the NZ press.  I obligingly collected my papers and left the room, as a small phalanx of NZ press entered.

I was a bit unsure what to do with myself, having been bumped for the first briefing on the conference by our Minister who so clearly knew what was going on in the inside.  But I knew that this simply meant that the stakeholder briefing would be deferred to after the press briefing.  Of course, I understood.  It was important for the Government to get the message out to the NZ people, on what it was doing in the global effort to combat climate change.

As it happened, the entry cubicle outside the briefing room was vacated.  No NZ official was within sight.  So I plonked down in the secretary’s chair and began to scroll through my e-mails.  A positive use of time until the Ministerial briefing commenced.

I had been engaged in this pursuit when a figure appeared over me.  I looked up and into the pleasant face of a young official from the Chinese delegation.  She introduced herself.  Her name was Guo Xin.  She had come to enquire about the bilateral ministerial meeting between New Zealand and China, scheduled for 11.00 a.m.  She was concerned. She had been trying to finalise arrangements and had received no reply from the NZ Government.  What was New Zealand intending to do?

I looked around.  Not a person in sight.  What to do? I took the plunge.  I asked her for some details.  Which Chinese minister?  Mr. Xie Zhenhua.  What portfolio, I felt bound to ask?  The reply was unintelligible.  I struggled to comprehend.  She gave me an understanding look. Climate change minister will do, she said.

She looked at her watch.  She was concerned, she said, because time was running out.  The Chinese minister was an important person and his time was not be trifled with.  If it was not confirmed within the next few minutes, she may need to conclude that New Zealand did not plan to proceed with the bilateral.

My thoughts approached panic level.  New Zealand cancel a bilateral on climate change, and no doubt trade, with China?  This must not be.   Wait a moment, I implored her.  I shall clear it up.

I went to the open door into the briefing room.  After considerable un-Chinese style effort on my part, I caught the eye of the senior official, the Minister being engrossed in his briefing.  I wagged my finger and pointed to the Chinese official who, perversely, was just out of his sight.  The official quickly turned away.  Another got up, came over and seriously closed the door, virtually on my nose.

I looked around wildly.  I had to do something.  Guo Xin looked at me expectantly, on behalf of Xie Zhenhua.  I had a choice.  I could have, and, in light of the previous 24 hours and especially the last 15 minutes was sorely tempted, to advise the emissary that the NZ-China bilateral was cancelled.  Now go, and quickly.

But I could not bring myself to do it.  Years of humbling obedience to Her Majesty stood in the way.  Stammering incoherently, I tried to explain, I could not help her.  I could not, I continued, speak for the Minister.  Guo looked at me.  She looked at the seat I was in, and the desk I was at.  She swung around and read the sign.  NZ Delegation Room.  There was a NZ flag on the door.  My accent was unmistakeably Kiwi.  I was dressed in a sober suit and tie.  My hair was grey.  Why was this man suddenly crumbling?  What mysterious pressures were at play?  She did not understand.  She viewed me the way an officer of the law views a suspect.  She knew not whether to cancel the Smith-Xie ministerial or play for the last tiny bit of time left.  China, she said, could use this time for other meetings.  I looked despairingly into her eyes.  Nothing I can do now, I whispered.  I am not part of the delegation.  She turned her head.  I am not, I ventured, mist clouding the eyes, I am not a part of the delegation.  She looked away.  She did not understand this small, strange, country.

NZ-China relations were rescued by the appearance of a young NZ diplomat.  Another young woman.  They struck up immediately.  Yes, of course New Zealand had received the message from the Peoples’ Republic.  No, there was never any intent of declining the meeting.  There must have been a miscommunication somewhere.  Very sorry, from New Zealand to China.  The matter was cleared up, between the two young women, in an instant.

Guo left the room without a glance.

The young Kiwi took my seat.  She smiled sweetly.  We introduced ourselves.  She knew who I was.  Actually, she said, there had been a misunderstanding about the NZ stakeholder briefing.  They had switched the time from 9.30 to 9.00 a.m.  No, they had not sent out any advisory to that effect.  No, nobody had turned up.   Some miscommunication somewhere.  She was very sorry.  Presumably, on behalf of the Minister.  No problem, I said.  Thank you for explaining.

They also serve, who only stand and wait.

With a population similar  to greater Auckland, although covering much less space, it has a new (2002) metro that is very  fast and I’ve never had to wait more than 4 minutes even though I’m near the end of the line. It is comfortable, quiet, clean and people use it  to capacity. It doesn’t cover the whole city, but does of course go to the airport and connects well with the older surface train system  and the buses.  Changing lines is no trouble.  Denmark has  excelled in planning for the visitors -  electronic signs that tell you  how long to the next train also tell you which one delegates to COP 15 should take.

And the whole system is free to delegates which saves the hassle of working out what ticket to buy and how to buy it.

There are cycle lanes along all the roads, between road and footpath. Not a good place to  stand and get your bearings – there are so many cyclists using them you’d be knocked down in 30 seconds.

It all seems so sensible and straight forward – why is it so desperately hard to get decent transport systems in NZ?

Oh, I forgot – motorways are so much more important.

I talked yesterday  with a Norwegian NGO negotiator who says the text providing protection for biodiversity and for  forest indigenous peoples, of whom there are some 60 million, has been moved from the body of the draft to the preamble, so that it would not form a set of conditions for qualifying projects, but a non-enforceable intention.

There are also arguments about whether the financing of forest protection should be by a fund to which developed countries donate agreed amounts, or through a market n forest credits, where any money spent on saving third world forests just buys the right for developed countries to increase their emissions. A new form of carbon colonialism.

A very good workshop by a US forests NGO produced figures showing that in most developing countries more than half of the logging is illegal and carried out by foreign multinationals against the law of the host country and with no payments to it. Their conclusion was that there is no hope of stopping deforestation unless import is outlawed in  the market  countries.

This is, of course exactly what Catherine’s Bill would have achieved except that the Government voted it down  few weeks ago. The US passed such a law – the Lacey Act – in 2008 but it seems that is too hard for NZ, despite the support of our  own forest industry

Two quick things to clear up.

First, yes we expended carbon getting here, along with the other participants.  But we financially offset this out of our own pocket (I have paid about $1500 this year on flying offsets, and am happy to do this.  One day perhaps, we shall not need to do this, but until then I shall do so).  Also, the Danish Government is achieving the remarkable feat of ensuring that the conference is carbon neutral.  John Key and McCully will do well to meet that challenge for the 2011 World Cup.

Second, it is not, as some NZ Government ministers have said in Parliament recently, unpatriotic for opposition MPs to be here.  In addition to Jeanette and me, Labour’s Charles Chauvel is here.  We are here to understand the process, make a positive contribution to a successful outcome, and critique our own Government where we disagree with its views and policies.  This is what we do back home, inside the House and outside it.  It is called democracy – at the global level, not just the national.  It is unworthy of the any government member to impugn the patriotism of us three.  I shall call them on it in the House if they continue that ruse in 2010.

That said, let me say where I stand on ‘patriotism’.  I love New Zealand as much as any compatriot.  I love Earth equally.  Aotearoa is one component part of the planet and I do not believe we have sovereign rights to take advantage of the other 192 nation-states or the other 6, 750 million humans when we are at a critical state in facing the greatest global threat humanity has yet confronted.  So my national patriotism is subordinate to my patriotism to Earth.  Whereas Earth has historically been seen only as a geological entity in a cosmic context, today the global community is emerging as a political entity.  This requires fine and prudent judgement and we are each obliged as individuals to exercise that as best we can.  Such a judgement can no longer rest on a mindless pursuit of the competitive national interest that devastates the global commons.  Whenever I criticise the Government, it will derive from that philosophical world-view which may well differ from those of the Prime Minister and Ministers Smith and Groser, for all of whom I have considerable respect.

Back to the practicalities.  Saturday morning we registered and got our bearings, and met several delegates for the first time. In the afternoon, we participated in the extraordinary public rally that has probably been broadcast around the world.  A massive and good-humoured crowd – estimated between 60,000 to 100,000, wended its way from city centre to the conference site from 1.00 pm to 5.00pm.  Having confined my protests over the years to the Byzantine dangers of intellectual opposition within the establishment, I had not hit the streets frequently – in fact, not once.  So notwithstanding the Northern cold, this virgin demonstrator had an enjoyable first time, not least linking up with the NZ youth delegation who are bringing a breath of fresh air to multilateral diplomacy.  May their dreams of inter-generational justice be realised.

Back in the office, the sights are strange and wondrous.  Some 34,000 have applied to participate where the limit is 15,000.  This includes 110 national leaders.  John Key will be one, although inexplicably he has chosen not to list himself as the delegation leader, notwithstanding that scores of others have – including Australia, China, Brazil, France, Indonesia, Iran, Italy and Lebanon.  Why is our Prime Minister so half-hearted and keen to distance himself?  Is it because he lacks the vision and sense of reality to understand the magnitude of what is happening around us, or does he wish he wish to avoid any risk of being shown up?  Which is it – dimwittedness or cowardice?

The delegations are huge.  New Zealand’s (of which we are not a part) is 23 plus two from Tokelau.  Australia’s is 114.  Tiny Tuvalu, threatened with sea-level oblivion and making an extraordinary impact on this conference already, has 19.  The US has 194.  China, of course, has 233.  But they are all trumped by Brazil, which has 735.  People are taking the future of the planet seriously.

And that is just the officials.  In my last job before returning home in 2005, I worked for the UN University.  The UNU has 22 here.  Back in 1995, I studied on a fellowship in Dhaka with the Bangladesh Institute for Advanced Studies.  They do research and policy prescription on sustainability issues.  Their country is impoverished, at least materially, their population density is the highest of any nation-state with significant landmass, and they are threatened as much as any by climate change.  The Institute has sent 30 at cost.  And of course, there is Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.  FOE have 250 here.  Greenpeace has 118.  That includes 12 photographers, 2 musicians, a sound-and-light technician and a video librarian.  Just another day at the office.  Should they be here? Of course they should.  We’re talking about the future of the planet.  They have a right, and an abiding interest, and they aim to make a contribution. We thank them for their concern.

Listened to some Brahms and Bach and reflected again how the heights of our civilisation were achieved without fossil fuels but so much 0f what makes life worth living is  likely to be lost because we now can’t or won’t live without them.

The Danes have pulled out all the stops to host this conference and it is obvious from the moment you land. Free public transport of all kinds, free hire bikes and alternative fuel  cars.  Big adverts everywhere for climate-friendly  products,including some clever ones of world leaders – digitally altered to look much older – saying “Sorry. We could have stopped climate change, and we didn’t.”

I’m told there are two new drafts out today which might cause walk outs tomorrow, and there is a huge march  planned through Copenhagen to pressure the negotiators to get on with it.

Sleep now. More tomorrow.

New Zealand won for statements yesterday by Prime Minister John Key: ‘I am not focussed on increasing New Zealand’s target. What I am focussed on is going to Copenhagen and making sure that New Zealand can successfully negotiate the conditions that we think are important in order for us to achieve a target of 10 to 20 percent. If we do not negotaiate those conditions, we will not be able to achieve a target of 10 to 20 percent and we would have a lower target. If New Zealand were to achieve atarget of 10 percent less, that would be a significant milestone’.

I thought John was ambitious for New Zealand. Perhaps he is just ambitious for fossil fuels, as he can now add a considerable cup of coal to our growing pile of Fossil of the Day Awards.

Young Green Georgina Morrison accepts the latest Fossil of the Day Award

Legislation giving police the right to pre-emptive arrests in connection with the COP15 climate conference was passed by a decisively split parliament yesterday.

The new legislation allows police to detain those arrested for up to 12 hours under the premise that they ‘might’ take part in civil disobedience. In addition, protesters can be jailed for up to 40 days if police determine the activists have ‘hindered’ their work.

So uhh, that’s some pretty heavy curtailment of freedom of speech… If you’re thinking about having your say at Copenhagen, be sure not to say the ‘wrong’ thing! Or look like you’re thinking of saying it.