“KlimaForum09 in ‘Hopenhagen’: The People’s alternative to COP 15.” DAY 5 from Copenhagen. Mickey Glantz

KlimaForum09 (also named the Peoples’ Climate Summit)

COP 15 at the Bella Center is the official site of the UN Conference of Parties. To gain access, you must be screened and approved by a UN Secretariat (in this case I think by the UNFCCC Secretariat). It was competitive and restrictive and to gain access you needed authorization for which you waited a long time. You could not attend as an individual (unless invited by the Secretariat privately or you represented a major NGO). To convene a side event to discuss an issue, you had also to apply to compete with other groups who had proposed to hold forums at the Bella Center or other officially anointed sites in the city.

Obviously, the competition was high among NGOs of all sizes to become accredited to join the COP and, as a result of space and other limitations (of a political nature) many NGOs and individuals interested in covering a wideror deeper range of perspectives could not officially attend like, for example, groups that view COP 15 as a top-down to managing the planet where those in control of managing the climate issue for the UN system were calling all the shots; and other people on the street had no official influence.

Voila! Therein lays the reason for being of the alterative Conferences that parallel the officially convened COPs.

Ivan, a grad student from Michigan State University and research assistant to my group at the University of Colorado, and I visited the KlimaForum09 a few times, at first out of curiosity but quickly thereafter out of interest. The topics discussed at the Forum were phrased in challenging and provocative ways, but with the purpose of having participants to the conference really engage in the discussions.

Being held in a small building, there were a lot more interactions among people to continue discussion in groups after various presentations. There were tables set up in a room with pads and post-its on them with construction paper signs identifying topics by each table. It is truly a people’s conference.

The ambiance was that of a student union on a day before exams, though people there ranged in age from teens to (gasp) me …70. No one was on the defensive (so it seemed) to protect an idea. It was all about information, presentation, discussion and take-home knowledge. Sooo different. Sooo lively.

There were famous speakers at the KlimaForum as well, such as Vandana Shiva (a should-be Nobel Prize winner) and Wangari Mathaai (an actual Nobel Prize winner) and of course Bishop Tutu, also a nobel laureate. Some visitors from the COP 15 (as we were) leaving the official site to attend sessions at the Forum. You could identify them by the UN name tags they wore around their necks.

Topics posed for presentation and discussion included the following: zero carbon world, grassroots, poverty reduction, sustainable consumption, global leadership from civil society now, popular movement, trade & development, climate change and democracy, mobilizing spiritual communities, tackling capitalism and the climate crisis, from globalization to localization, making marginalized voices heard, young voices on climate change, climate changes in Tibet, Impacts of monoculture on the right to food, the boycott, and demonstration banner making workshop. As you can see, many of these themes focused on basic questions that would not be politically correct in a United Nations COP setting.

There were no officials at the door checking badges. It was open to all. There were no security guards. The fear of protests inside was minimal. In fact many of the attendees would likely have been COP15-protesters in the absence of the Forum. [On Day 6 there was a major protest march from the center of Copenhagen to the gates at the COP 15 Bella Center. Thousands of marchers participated. 1000 were arrested; more on that is now in the news].

As a positive comment and to its credit, the KlimaForum was less focused on ornate displays of organizations and their wares than on their ideas and themes. So their presentation booths were by no means glossy or ostentatious. They were done by hand, not by costly full color printing machines. They were clearly low budget-to-no-budget productions; but their messages were sharp, clear and to the point.

In the main entrance of the Forum a woman was shouting to participants to sign an electronic petition from the Forum to political leaders yet to attend in week two of COP 15. Young people were sitting in clusters, wherever there happened to be space on the floor. People on one side of the hall were jammed around the information tables, while on the other side was the counter to buy hot and cold food. Lots of noise and I loved it. There was noise at the COP 15 Bella Center, but at the Forum there was a louder level of discussions everywhere.

Keep in mind that you can always attend or present your ideas at the alternative forums that accompany the COPs. The next one will be in Mexico City at the end of 2010. It is well worthwhile to attend as participant or as observers.

Got to go to the airport now on DAY 7 at COP 15. I will post pictures of the Klima Forum 09 from the airport to support what I am trying to say in words.