World Leader Pretend (COP 15)

18 Dec 2009 – Gary Kendall

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and all of the ‘important’ world leaders – including the US, China, and Brazil – have spoken, and are now locked away in the Arne Jacobsen meeting room deciding our future. While the world’s media crowds outside this room like expectant fathers, the rest of the 120-or-so Heads of State continue the charade of stating their positions in the Plenary. I don’t wish to be the bearer of bad news, guys, but you’re not being listened to – it’s all being decided upstairs in this room by the privileged few.

I’ve been waiting with the press outside this room for about 3 hours, and have just decided to bail out after seeing a trolley-load of sandwiches and coffee being wheeled into the inner sanctum. But not before catching Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on film with Maldives President – a real celebrity at COP 15 – Mohamed Nasheed Nasheed, saying: “We’re all working very hard.” I should hope so too! Spending some time hanging around with the ‘rotters’ as they are called, I caught myself sympathising with the journalistic profession. This is an often tedious job – hours and hours of hanging around punctuated by the occasional brief rugby scrummage. One of their number shared with me his perspective on the reporter’s lot: “It’s the thrill of the hunt.”

Kevin Conrad of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations squeezed through the mêlée and into the negotiating room, pausing only to answer the AP journalist standing next to me with a chilling viewpoint on the likely outcome of this gathering of world leaders:

“It’s all fluff, there is nothing operable.”

You heard it here first!