Yuno's Blog

I don’t have much to write right now. The appendix will probably do most of it today.

I spent half of the night building ideas. After a short sleep, I got up early again, to find a bicycle protest in the street to the venue.

Full solidarity.

At 10 a.m., FFF Germany had their main protest regarding the failures of what the coalition talk results in Germany, which we prepared early.

Preparation of the signs yesterday was fun.

The rest of the day I spent in action preparation.

I also built another tensegrity structure and even a miniature crazy pod.

The action plenary with our group I have to append, as well as the details of the action plenary with the local people, but I can tell as much as that we’re collaborating now. Stay tuned.

I had so much trouble falling asleep. I didn’t get behind the fact that there is no single Party with an idea. Not a single party manages to think beyond capitalism. After a couple of hours of sleep, anyways, I went in early today again. But before, I went to the supermarket to buy tooth picks and cotton line. After checking in, I took a seat in the Action Zone. I didn’t leave that table for more than 30 mins most of the day and built tiny tensegrity structures in solidarity to Lützerath.

It was fun, but questionably effective at best – until 4 p.m., I made 6 reasonable structures I was able to distribute throughout the Action Zone. The Action Zone is the orange dome on the site map.

If one wants to get an idea about dimensions, it’s the Scottish Event Campus. It’s huge. Here’s a quick overview over the territory:

A is check in. B is the Action Zone. C is for Side Events, I haven’t been there yet. The upper part of D are the pavilions of Parties (and IGO’s maybe?), the lower has not yet been important for me. E are the main plenary halls, my first event on Mon was in the right one. F are the rooms for the real talks. It feels like Mordor to me. The rest is appendix. So, today I didn’t leave B until I witnessed an action of the European Youth Organizations at the back end of the D zone, just before the conference rooms.

It was quite loud and a textbook example of that kind of protests that are expected and wanted and tolerated by the UN. Well, it’s something. I am waiting for the action outdoors.

It was a good day for socialisation – my delegate family came over and had lunch with me, some fellow activists checked in, I even participated on a pre-autonomous action plenary, lovely.

After that, I missed dinner with my delegate family, because I was caught in 2 real action plenaries. Maybe, after all, this visit serves a mission, eventually? We’ll see…

Regarding politics, today, I solely want to emphasise the exclusionary classism that is manifested here. It’s sickening. Let’s turn it into a collective duty: we all need to talk more about classism and exclusion.

So, I call it a day with a better feeling than yesterday. It’s beautiful to see some structures grow and some decline. Change is coming. Slowly, but accelerating. Climate Justice. People Power.

P.S.: The Action Zone looks beautiful upon leaving.

Today was the day I entered the Blue Zone. I got up early, which payed off, because I had a really smooth transition through the check-in, which was not possible soon after anymore. I had a coffee and then met the first other person of our delegation. I call them Bee, they were much more organised and oriented (though also firstie), which was my blessing, because I was able to just follow them and still checking the venue.

I coincidentally met a fellow activist from Germany during breakfast and after having a walk through the pavilions of the Nations (and some coalitions, I would say), we went to the first major session, the summary of week one, with our senior delegate Kay (i.e. the person staying both weeks). So, we met with Kay in the queue for the official summary by the COP President & Chairs of Subsidiaries, followed by a discussion of the parties.

And this was the best that could happen to me, because I got a solid idea about how the whole system works. Here are my observations:

Quick positioning of the plenary – roughly half of the plenary were the representatives of the Nations or Parties, how they call themselves, the other half was filled with what I guess they call “Inter-Governmental Organizations”; all these abbreviations, UNXYZ, UNA, CCCCC, CCETC, ETC. The very last row were the main delegates of the observing NGOs, including one voice for Research & Independent NGO’s (RINGO), one for Youth, one for Industry, one for Farmers, one for Women, one for Indigenous People, many I surely forgot. After a long introductory summary of the last week with a proposal of how to proceed from the President, Alok Sharma from UK, and the other Chairs, some Parties raised their voice. The whole thing ended with every observing NGO representation having 2 mins for a statement.

The first Party to comment on the report from the board was Guinea, which is the current chair of the G77 group: The G77 group, originally named after the number of founding members, basically represents the Parties we would generally consider “Global South” or “the developing world” and currently consists of 134 member Parties. They call themselves “G77 and China”, because China doesn’t consider itself part of it, while the G77 does, so that’s the arrangement they have. You can see where this is going. The G77+C contrasts the North-Western OECD, the North-Eastern CISFTA, and the Council of Europe. Interestingly, almost all parties that spoke positioned themselves within G77+C. Exclusions were Switzerland (also talking for independent Parties with “developing” character, I didn’t really get it, but Switzerland is doing Switzerland things), and Georgia, which was already mentioned in the presidential report as “your concerns/remarks/complaints were heard”, which didn’t stop the delegate from articulating it once more (and I still didn’t get it, but I guess that’s okay).

So, the division between the “developed world” and the “developing world” how they call it here, is very stark. It’s obvious. Guinea, as the chair of G77+C, found really harsh words on what the Presidency & Chairs provided. After the President closed the call for voices, the NGO’s had their 2 mins. The Youth started, sharing it to 2 girls, one positioned in the developing world and on in the developed, then came the industry (yep. industry as second. yep. middle-aged white academic man. yep.) and from there on it was what I could consider the “encore”, because I at least agreed with all they said, basically what the Youth said from their perspective.

Here are the main contents:

1. The money thingy. As I understood, the 100 billion goal is not reached, so the G77+C countries all basically all mentioned that they want the money from the developed world. In different styles. The Macker award (read as “least constructive”) goes to Saudi Arabia.
2. Article 6 of the Paris agreement, basically dealing with the trade of emission certificates. Some nations really set on the strategy to just buy their net-neutrality in the developing world and the particular rules of that trade don’t seem to be clear yet; as I understood, even double-counting in the country that sells and the country that buys is possible under certain circumstances? Well, you get it, carbon is the new currency. Some other Articles were mentioned, 2 for example, but I have no clue what it’s about. But you get the hang of it, some details are to be discussed.
3. Loss & Damage. Also in monetary units, so basically compensations and insurances is what the G77+C Parties demand.
4. Climate Justice. People Power. But practically only in the last part of the meeting.

Lunch after that. Checking in with my fellow delegates. Chit-chat about our institutes. After that, I left them and basically stayed the rest of the day alone. I roamed around, got a hang of the flow and attended an event in the “Action Zone” about Governance. 3 or 4 Panels and an interactive story-telling by the audience, guided by a remote science fiction author, Malka Older.

One idea particularly resonated from the panels: Easily replicable small structures that can form plurality can give resilience. Governance is best organised bottom-up. It’s a matter of creativity – foreseeing the future is shaping the future. And follow Passy on Twitter, an eco activist from Kenya: @p_amayoO.

After that, I had enough for my day 1. I left the venue and met a beautiful protest outside. That immediately lifted my mood.

And this is the moment I can’t hide anymore that my camera’s protecting glass has the Spiderman app (“at least not the screen” is what I keep telling me):

Unfortunately, though, I learned today that the Fossil Fuel delegation is stronger than any national delegation.

Well, we’re really trying to make them regretting the effort – the panel on governance was disturbed by climate protester calls:

“What do we want?” – “CLIMATE JUSTICE!” – “When do we want it?” – “NOW!!!”

We’re there. We’re within their sanctuaries. The Old Power can’t hide anymore. The New Power is omnipresent. It’s the People.

The Old Power is yet to be removed from the streets.

I ended the day with a panel discussion on occupations and autonomous zones in Europe at the COP26 Coalition, today in a cinema. Daily Dose of Climate Justice.

More to follow.

Appendix (added afterwards)

There are a few things I forgot to mention. Here is a collection of thoughts I managed to recall.

1. About the composition of my first event: Behind every delegate was a seat for a deputy and the back of the room was filled with random observers who were able to get a space. It were not that many. A little more than 1 000 in total, maybe (wild guess).
2. A former President of the US&A was the special guest yesterday; the one under whom the Paris Agreement (2015) was signed. I have no clue what’s the justification of having a single Party’s former president as a panel speaker, when the resulting panel is the only ticketed event of the day, accessible only to the groups with a table seat.
3. The food is measured in carbon footprint as well. Nice idea, but a little useless, when still like 60% of the food is meat (or at least animalproduct) based. And it’s delivered in paper boxes – like wth?! This is the very event where there should be no discussion about fully plant-based resourcing and maximal waste reduction. Such behaviour neglects the systematic responsibility of the change we undiscussibly need. Direly. At least the coffee cups are reusable. And of course, everything is quite expensive.
4. I forgot one important thing about the main contents of event 1: the Parties are working on a concluding statement of the conference, despite all expectations. The Paris Agreement is the most prominent of these concluding statements. They call it differently, but whatever. Let’s see.
5. I also want to reflect on the notion of “G77+C” – China is present here only with corporate representation and apart from that is represented through every statement of the G77+C group. Without judging it, I think it tells all about how the Chinese government values this meeting – all they publicly add is the advertisement of their corporates and besides that, they just do their thing. I certainly believe the fact that G77 agrees to acknowledge China’s special position is through money. It makes me assume that they are paying their fair share to the “developing world” (or at least more than the “developed world” present here) and apart from that see no need to participate in the specific details and hollow words of the present discussions.

So, we’re here now. We made it through the Netherlands over the Channel to Eastern England and travelled up to Glasgow in a day and a half. Glasgow is a medium sized capital city of a district-like Country – it’s pretty much all about COP here. Including enormous amount of Cops literally everywhere.

The walk from Ellis to the venue is as beautiful as it gets in a big city; I can walk alongside the river Clyde for roughly 3km to get to the venue. As the Blue Zone (i.e. the “inner circle”) was pretty much closed today, I took the chance to check out the Green Zone, the publicly accessible area. Being roughly a 10th of the size compared to the Blue Zone, the Green Zone is pretty much an exhibition on green capitalism covered in the basics of environmental science.

But before one is able to see the most modern form of green capitalism, the security check compares to an international flight. One can bring more, but the rigidity of the check is comparable – as is the presence of law enforcement and with it, profiling. So, inside were predominantly classy, white people.

In front of the Glasgow Science Center, holding the Green Zone, is an exhibition of green mobility – in its most capitalist form. At least the Check-In is easy. The first floor is packed with people trying to sell you a certain idea within the capitalist framework. The second floor is an exhibition of beautiful scientific experiments and information, there is a Café and a networking space, a cinema, a planetarium, and two plenary halls, which are filled with mostly old white men from institutions or corporations telling one their story. And that’s pretty much it. Well, let’s not forget the list of sponsors. Basically, the whole thing looks like an advertisement show, selling ideas & concepts – again, the global north/west spinning around itself.

Fortunately, though, today also started the People’s Summit of the COP26 Coalition, which is basically an alternative, inclusive, climate-just and open COP26 event by the Climate Justice Movement. I heard a panel discussion about degrowth, including decolonial and feminist perspectives, “about a transformation towards a political-economic system that priorities equitable human well-being – i.e. well-being for everyone – and[/while] staying within environmental limits.” In a church.

Day 0 was long and mixed. But the end was nice. Looking forward to tomorrow, hoping everything goes alright. This is where I want to pass tomorrow – leaving Scotland, entering UN:

It’s official now: I will be attending the COP26, the 26th Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In 2015, The “Paris Agreement” was ratified on the COP21, so I think it’s fair to say, the COP is the most influential conference on climate change in the world. This becomes more important as I am traveling as an official member of the Max Planck Society delegation, the non-governmental academic entity that is home to 2 nobel prize laureates in 2021, one receiving the nobel prize in physics (Klaus Hasselmann) for climate simulations, and the other one in chemistry (Ben List), coincidentally from the very Max Planck Institute I am affiliated to. So, there is a certain formal weight on my presence there, which is especially funny because I have not the slightest clue about anything that is going to happen. It is clear, though, to me, that my presence there will be of nothing but scientific nature in the form of my representation. It’s a bit of a pity that this formally excludes direct action, but I think I can live with that.

However, I think, as an anti-hierarchical believer in information hierarchies, I do have another duty: to make my experience and my critical analysis of what I observe publicly available to people without the privilege of attending the so called “Blue Zone”, which is the part of the conference that is for invited guests only.

My invitation is from 8th to 12th November, which is the second week of the whole conference spanning over two weeks, from 31st October to 12th November. I will be traveling with my mobile house, Ellis Dumbledore, a so-called rehabulance (retired ambulance) which will cost some diesel (which I compensate anually), but comes with an integrated bed, so I only have to pay for my travel expenses, not for any accommodation. It’s the first experiment within my COP26 experience: What is the minimum of resources I have to spend to attend this conference? What is the classist threshold, apart from the exclusionary character of the whole meeting? In terms of environmental impact, train would probably be the better transportation, but I guess Ellis wins in accommodation to any hotel.

I hope by the end of my journey, there will be more answers than questions. If you, however, want me to add a certain perspective or answer a certain question along my way, let me know:

yodathealchemist [at] riseup [dot] net

I’ll keep you posted.