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Copenhagen blog: Setting the scene

Submitted by Daniel T'seleie

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An activist dressed as a clown walks next to a Danish policeman during a protest for climate change in Copenhagen on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009. (Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press)

I'd like to set the scene of the negotiations for those of you back in Canada. They are being held in the Bella Centre, a very large building that can be difficult and time intensive to navigate. This week, the centre will hold about 20,000 people, which makes it as big as Yellowknife.

It's a fancy venue, but it stinks. Not just figuratively. I swear wafts of sewage reach my nose at random times in random places.

At first, I chalked up this phenomenon to malfunctions in ventilation, or some exotic food whose odour is foreign to my North American olfactory senses, but now I'm sure it's just all the BS in Bella Centre that makes it stink.

Yes, my previous suspicions of men in suits have returned. You see, I'm an older "youth," and at the age of 27 I thought I was well past my radical days of utopian anarchistic ideals. Well, I'm back to thinking I shouldn't trust anyone who wears fancy shoes.

I should qualify these statements. Developed nations, Canada included, are trying to terminate the Kyoto Protocol instead of negotiating the second phase that is supposed come into effect in 2012.

Some may say it's better to negotiate a completely new agreement, but I disagree. Think of it this way, you have an employment contract that you consider fair, or at least adequate, and your employer has jerked you around in the past. Your employer tells you they want to renegotiate the contract. You would probably be suspicious, and rightly so. Parties usually only want to renegotiate if they can get a "better deal."

In this case, a "better deal" for Canada's negotiating team includes lower pollution reduction targets, and far less responsibilities to help the world's poorest people who are already suffering from drought, hurricanes and other effects of global warming.

These proceedings have angered some nations so much that dozens of them boycotted yesterday's sessions. Negotiations have stalled, and most discussions are happening behind closed doors. To top this off, non-government organizations (including the youth constituency) will have limited, and eventually no access, to the conference centre starting tomorrow (they accredited more people than Bella can hold). We will have even less capacity to hold our governments accountable.

Like some nations, I'm ready to boycott this increasingly frustrating process. I think I'll quit my day job and join my cousin on the trap line in Fort Good Hope. Maybe I can get 10 years or so of good pelts before global warming drives all the animals north into the Arctic Ocean.

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