the powder room

I was in Bath welcoming the new millennium at St Peter’s Lodge, an old church that passed as student accommodation, but should have probably been condemned, at a party with all my old school and cadet friends, seamlessly blended with my new uni friends. We were invincible. Pook got a parking ticket from a jobsworth traffic cop who seemed intent on spoiling someone’s new year. Gareth got horrendously drunk but still managed to wander his way back to my place. I laughed, drank, cried and hugged my way into the brilliant new millennium. We were free. Life was fun, spontaneous and crazy.

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Day 6 of COP15/CMP5. Copenhagen. Middle Saturday so we’re having stocktake plenaries.
Time to take stock. Here I am, sitting in the privileged position in the main plenary room, with my precious pink badge. And feeling completely detached from the process. There are an estimated 28,000 people here, 5,000 Party delegates, 5,000 press and 18,000 NGOs of various ilks (BINGOs, YOUNGOs, ENGOs, RINGOs, TUNGOs – the listGOs on). In that sense I’m on the inside, beyond the velvet rope, over the fence. Except it’s not a fence, it’s a labyrinth. I’ve hopped the first wall and faced with a maze of ego and barriers, with a sense that the real decisions are being made from the watchtowers. Concentric circles of power and influence – Parties -> negotiators -> EU issue leads -> EU negotiators -> Heads of delegation -> ministers -> Heads of State. Ever contracting and for a while I’ve felt like that influence front has passed me by and I’m now in the rain shadow of power. Feeling increasingly insignificant.

It’s easy to fall prey to criicising those lower down the food chain than you, to mock their sense of self-importance. But the reality is that it hides my sense of self-importance and the fact that my ego feels bruised. There is a genuine sense of disempowerment and acceptance of the state of affairs, but there’s also an ego-driven part of me that wants to play the part.
Now all of this sounds terribly pessimistic, like nothing we do matters, but that’s not true. Nothing most of us do matters here in this forum, but imagine if the energy, passion, creativity and commitment on display here was directed to places that really mattered, where change is possible. What a world we’d live in. But to get there we need individually to look inside and ask ourselves “what am I doing here?” “is this the best place for me to contribute?” “am I here for my ego or to create real change?” “where am I best placed to stimulate change?”. Time to pause. Appreciate the stillness, get perspective. Time to take stock.

A Bear of Very Little Brain

I’m going to try to put down what goes round in my head, my worldview, or at least the main thrust of it. It’s an ever evolving kaleidoscope of thought, but I felt it was time to try to share it more. But as I do so, I’m reminded of a quote from a great sage:

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

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My plan to post meaningful insights from the Bangkok climate talks proved a bit too ambitious. 2 weeks of frantic running around, wheelspinning or as a friend put it, the cha-cha-cha – movement with the illusion of progress.
Impressions? Chaotic, insular, rarefied, self involved, frustrating. (more…)

The sun rises lazily over the Bangkok skyline as I find myself awake and contemplating the coming days.

2 weeks of negotiations between some 200 countries in pursuit of an ambitious global deal on climate change. When you think of what’s at stake, the whole process seems cumbersome and inadequate, but what alternative is there?
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