Copenhagen Climate Summit 2009

by Bridget Green, with input from Margaret Westbrook

I think I’ve now recovered from our trip to Copenhagen – even though Margaret has been struck down with a dreaded post Copenhagen throat infection!
We went on the ‘Climate Express’ Campaign Train from Brussels to Copenhagen, with people from Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, arriving in time for a weekend of demonstrating (Saturday) followed by taking in a few talks, discussions, films and exhibitions at the Klima Forum or ‘People’s Forum’ on the Sunday.
I worried in advance about being able to sleep sitting up on a train as well as in a sleeping bag on the floor once we got there. After two nights of half my usual sleep (including 5am starts and 3am arrivals) I certainly slept well on the floor! The train journey home was a little more challenging with much conversation, singing and general high spirits, (- and for Margaret several attacks on her head! ) hence the few days -or more! -recovery needed...
Travelling with fellow activists was great fun –it was a party train on the way there with copious wine and song! The train had many nationalities and we met even more when we got to Copenhagen. Thanks mainly to walking with the new Trafford banner curled around us both, we talked with people from the Canadian, Belgian and Turkish Green Party’s and there was also a big youth contingent from Die Grunen. We chatted with people from as far away as Korea - this truly was a global summit, with a 100,000 people on Saturday’s march making it the largest demonstration so far concerning climate change. A shout from that many people certainly sends a message though watching the progress of the talks now we are back home we fear we may need to shout louder!
The march, in our section, was peaceful and fun with children and even pushchairs, music and puppets. Its important to say that, because often what you see reported in the papers is the trouble and arrests. And at least in the crush for the train at the end point we were warm.
We had never been to Copenhagen before so a wander round the city in the evening was lovely with the lights of Tivoli Gardens, even though we were footsore, and of course we sampled Danish parties for breakfast – yum!
Our next task is to read ‘Soil not Oil’ by Vandana Shiva, a very inspiring lady we heard speak on the Sunday about food security. It has inspired us to work on this issue even more in our little corner of the world. She also told us of the reduced snowfall in the Himalaya. The point she made was that it is not just temperature rise we have to be concerned about but the accompanying changes in precipitation leading to periods of drought but also flash floods. Perhaps we’ve seen this at home too in the recent floods in Cockermouth and Workington.
For Christmas we must see a reasonable outcome from this summit - hope for all our futures.