One World

How invigorating to get out of the office once in a while and interact with “real people” in the region rather than names in your email contact list! The RCCP is first and foremost a programme and partnership for and with the people of Southern Africa. I am learning fast how people from all walks [...]

Leonie Joubert
A few years ago I read this fabulous little factoid: it takes something like 66 calories of energy to ship every one calorie of carrot from South Africa to the European supermarket. Okay, I’m a bit rusty on the exact figure (was it 66 or 86?) but the point is that it took [...]

The Assembly,
1. TAKES NOTE of the report of H E Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the coordinator of the Conference of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC), on the conduct and outcomes of the 15th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on [...]

For me, Copenhagen resembled a high-stakes game of Russian roulette, all sides wanting their own, unique outcomes. And despite a very detailed two-year negotiating process, Copenhagen failed to narrow divides and build geopolitical bridges. The developing countries wanted a result whereby they could proclaim to the world that the Kyoto Protocol had been saved. The [...]

Day 14: To sleep, perchance to dream…
Slept late. Woke feeling groggy.
Went online. Sunday Independent’s front page top story: “The Hopelesshagen flop”
It’s all over. I survived my first CoP (Conference of the Parties).
And now I feel the gravity of home beginning to reel me in … time to shower, pack and head for the airport.
Copenhagen. Hopenhagen. [...]

Day 12: … and then Copenhagen froze
My ed wanted two things out of today: a colour piece to show what the activists and green folk were up to, and a wrap of the conference since it should finish tonight (midnight’s the deadline by when they’re supposed to have signed this thing into law).
I’d heard, from [...]

Day 11: Snowed Under
Jorisna Bonthuys (my intrepid colleague from Die Burger) and I made the grave error of deciding to leave an hour later than normal (6:30am) this morning, and got snarled up in a city snowed under and suffering transport failures.
But we did manage to get to the 12-noon briefing with our president at [...]

Day 9: Time’s running out …
Unbelievable. It seems that the most exciting thing to happen at Copenhagen so far is the arrival of Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s if you judge popularity by the length of queues … and the queue to get the “first come, first served” tickets to his talk today was several [...]

Day 8: If it bleeds, it leads; if it’s dull …
I’m feeling a little cynical about my profession today. Here’s how today played out: in a press conference scheduled for early today, the Africa group said it wasn’t happy with the way the Danish hosts of the negotiations had set the agenda for the day.
It’s [...]