View from the Climate Change march, Copenhagen - December 2009

Sunday, 13 December 2009

A Window on the World and a Window to the World

It was cold, phenomenally cold. But luckily no winter rain for which Copenhagen is famous. We set off from outside of the Parliament to walk the 5 miles to the outskirts of city, to the Bella centre where the climate change talks were taking place. There were so many people from all over the world on the march: it felt to be one of the most international displays I have ever witnessed, with terrific team spirit between marchers, standing up for humankind in a way I have never seen before, coming from all over world. I understand that in total we were over 100,000 people: the biggest climate march and rally in the world. The Police were on the sidelines too, but contrary to reports in the media, I only got smiles from them, and help when I took a wrong turning. I didn’t see or hear any violence at all. Just music from around the world – and I listened to the stories from the front line on climate change, a window on the world:


I marched with with a woman who had come over from Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas) in the south pacific- A woman representing civil society groups there – one of the countries already facing rising sea level, and due to be abandoned in a few decades, as the sea swamps the small farming plots, and makes farming impossible. I marched with activists from Indonesia, and then Malaysia; from East Africa – Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. I talked with a development worker from central Mali, from the town of Mopti, and later from a woman from the rural Bolivia. It was humbling to hear about the very real problems that people are facing there, but inspiring too to learn how quite a few of the people said that their fellow citizens back home would gain courage from learning that other nations were marching along side, and with them to resolve the problems.


Towards the end, I bumped into Chris Davies, Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament in the crowd. I was impressed that he had taken the initiative to leave the cosy secure conference venue, and head into the maelstrom of marchers to stand in solidarity and listen and learn.


As I marched with my distinctive “tick tick” Oxfam climate change campaign life belt, I carried a banner saying “There is no Planet B”. Four different TV stations came up to me during the day to ask why I was marching, and what I wanted to happen at the summit: Bangladesh, Malaysia, Germany and the USA (Democracy Now). I said some pretty tough things to the last TV station, about the need for the world to act together at its final hour, and for the need to stop the Americans letting the world down AGAIN (as they did in Kyoto). The cameraman then told me they were American – from Democracy Now. I left the March in high spirits, knowing I had been a window to the World too, with another message to take on Bike the Earth, as it sets off later in 2010.



Chris Le Breton, Earth Partners Foundation.

In Copenhagen to help Oxfam