Ekklesia’s blogger, Pascale Palmer, reports that storms are brewing within the conference center in Copenhagen:
A Storm in Copenhagen
Pascale Palmer is blogging for Ekklesia from Copenhagen
Who would have thought you could have a storm inside a conference centre?
But storm there was. And so big were its whipping, curving gusts that yesterday it toppled both the UNFCCC head and the Danish PM’s office right out of their beds. With much talk of rotten goings on in the state of Denmark, The Guardian revealed it had in its hands a leaked text.
Now for those unfamiliar with the workings of these serial UN climate meetings known as COPs or Conference of Parties (we’re on COP15 now – where have you been?), there is a legal process being followed which negotiates an official text that all countries hammer out to the last comma and bracket. What was interesting about this leaked text, was that it was separate to the official text and was therefore tantamount to a kick in the teeth for the UN process.
The document, known as the “Danish text” because it comes from the office of the host prime minister with input from a number of other developed countries, albeit still in draft form, played around with some notions with which those fighting for a fair deal for the world’s poorest were not at all happy.