An impression of COP15…

Today the conference finally kicked off! Unfortunately for many NGO delegates, including ourselves, it was difficult to actually get to the conference - we didn’t manage to get registered yesterday, and today could only register as of 12am as government delegations had priority. Expecting long lines we decided to come at 11am already - and stood outside in the cold for about 2 hours along with many, many other IGO, NGO and media people… Once inside the building it took us another one and a half hours to get registered, but we got through and could finally really get started!

A quick impression of COP15: it is gigantic and seems incredibly chaotic at first. We therefore used the remainder of the afternoon to get an idea of what is happening, and when, and where… To give you a bit of an idea, here is a brief description of what the conference looks like.

First, there are many different people at COP15 – over 30.000 people have signed up to attend in fact! This ranges from government delegations (COP15 stands for 15th Conference of the Parties) to NGO representatives, from media to scientists etc. All these people meet each other in all kinds of different ways during the conference. First there are the different official sessions in which the government negotiations take place, in which today countries made opening statements. Then there are the various side events, in which an NGO, research institute, a city – anyone really who wants to organize a side event – addresses a certain topic or question, bringing together people interested in that topic and sharing knowledge. Also (and this is what’s most visible when walking outside and through the conference centre) many NGOs organize all kinds of actions. Dressing up, singing, holding up banners, dancing, whatever can be used will be used to attract attention and create an atmosphere of urgency at the conference. More official lobbying happens everywhere in the conference centre as well of course. Also the various alliances of countries at the conference as well as all the stakeholder groups have daily meetings, to coordinate their strategies. Youth is one of the official stakeholder groups at the conference, along with for example indigenous peoples, business, women, farmers – and with our delegation we’ll be engaging in the youth constituency meetings and projects and through there try and influence what is happening at the conference. Keep watching this space for updates!