“Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen,” warbled the 1950’s Danny Kaye song in the famously trite film about Denmark’s chilren’s story teller, Hans Christian Anderson.  As one Dane was telling me in the street “When this conference is over the stories of Global warming will bore us all to tears.” The Copenhagen conference is not one but three conferences. The first unfolds in the staged bustle of the Bella Centre with the entire coodinating backing of the Copenhagen Municipality and the government of Denmark vaunting their cool organizational efficiency. They’ve even renamed their city “Hopenhagen” for the occasion. A free bus shuttle ride whisks you from the airport to the Centre.  A vast exhibition-like space accommodates conference proceedings, workshops, delegations, press rooms, workshops, receptions, presentations, etc.  Delegates pour in from around the world to line up for the registration process under the strict scrutiny of heavy security surveillance. It’s a bit like lining up in channelled queues for passport control at an international airport, which most of the newcomers had just left. A rank of conference officials sit primly behind their computer screens vetting and checking each delegate, journalist, observer, NGO as they present themselves one by one for the grilling of these unsmiling steely eyed officials. 

Not having registered previously I failed the tests and checks of conference credentials,.  I had just turned up with tales from the tropical forests to relate and Aceh Green: a messenger of bad news and good news.  I felt like a refugee who has fled his destroyed homeland with hopes to make a new life, rejected at the frontier by faithful government servants who went strictly by the book (what book?) denied entrance and sent away but with nowhere to go.

I loitered around a bit with the countless other failed applicants. Some had come thousands of miles to be present: Indigenous tribal people in dire straits setting out from their destroyed habitats and homelands to take their messages of woe to Copenhagen; people doing pioneering development work in remote places, freelance journalists looking for stories - and, of course, stories are plentiful, wherever you look - just among those that failed to get into the conference and make their voices heard inside the hallowed precincts.

Feeling somewhat rejected and distinctly discouraged, I wandered around the other rejected ones comparing them with those that came “with all their papers in order”, invited or sponsored by the approved organizations or governments. I watched them slipping through the security barriers with smug nonchalance. There were so many bureaucrats from so many governments, and, well, bureaucrats are pretty much the same the world over whatever language they say yeah to their masters in, obedient and smug. One can get mugged in the street by a gun-toting thug, but the bureaucrats rob you wielding rules and regs, pure smuggery!  I decided that I felt better in the company of the rejected ones and wandered around exploring the company I found myself in. Entire University research departments, idealist activists, some coming from the ends of the world: A heady mix and not a dull moment.

Deciding to take a look at the centre of town, where, I quickly learned, an alternative conference, was taking place: Klimaforum.  A parallel concurrent event, something like the famous “fringe” of the Edinburgh festival. So free rides from the Bella Centre to the centre of town in diminutive electric cars which astound one with their speed, acceleration and silence (one passenger only per car). The cars are produced by BMW, who clearly thought it the best promotional opportunity available to drive people free to and from the Conference Centre. The talkative driver all the while helpfully explaining all the technical points of this snappy little vehicle as he drove at what seemed breakneck speed weaving silently in and out of Toyotas, Mercedes, Nissans and Volvos, all spewing CO2 in dogged flatulence: an exhilirating free test drive.

The driver/ test pilot/ salesman dropped me off smilingly at the Klimaforum, the Conference of the second level. As if arriving straight from the airport, with my bag still on my back I was more than ready for other than tense security situations.  Housed in a huge building, at first glance the entrance foyer ressembles more a food court than a conference venue. Stalls are everywhere selling Vegan, veggie, organic, healthy things to a motley colourful crowd: the avid and vivid and livid, treehuggers, adventurers and roadie friendly, enthusiastic students, the erudite and the wise.  Lots of famous people: the ones that really say it all and pull no punches in telling the truth:  Naomi Klein, Wanghari Mattai, Archbishop Tutu and the likes. All in all a much more promising mix of people for meaningful meetings.  Several panel meetings were taking place simultaneously with attentive audiences, ardent seminars and not just a little eager agit prop. No registration. Just take your pick.

The tone of the speakers at Klimaforum was more specific, direct and emotively committed. People used to talking from the streets, voices used to being voices in the wilderness; People used to being ignored by the governments of the world and ever more determined to have their voices heard above the blah! Blah! Officialese, propaganda and greenwashing. When you speak from the streets you keep to the essentials, unclouded by endless obfuscating detail and inductive argument. There’s no time to prevaricate and elaborate, any time you might be asked to “move on please!” All we want to know is the basic issues and what we can do. Then let’s do it. If it’s take to the streets, then we’ve got it all in a nutshell enshrined in a few slogans, banners and flags to wave.  Only the performance to stage manage a bit for max fx and impact.

After a few hours of this charged atmosphere, having given a couple of net streaming interviews on Aceh Green, tropical forests, Global survival, End of the world, and the like and talking to whoever was near, I decided to go on to Aalborg in the North of Peninsular Denmark to meet the Achenese community there.  By this time I was mighty hungry for as stimulating as much of the days events and people met were, there was not a discernable Muslim in sight and of course nothing much Halal to be eaten, although, I suppose, a nut cutlet sandwich wouldn’t

have agressed my sensitivity too much - just a bit dull. All this probably partly explains why Muslims are not involved or even concerned with Climate Change. It’s the company we’d have to keep while also not eating their food. In my experience, environmentalists tend to be fiercely secular and scornful of the spiritual approach, while at the same time prickling with “holier than thou” attitudes. 

I finally chanced upon a Lebanese Shawwarma place in an area indicated to me by a passer by. The area indeed hosted a couple of “ethnic” food outlets but seemed to be more remarkable for Porno shops to suit all deviant proclivities. Fortified by a shawwarma sandwich, I fled back to the rail station and on to Aalborg by train ....

The Copenhagen conference, much anticipated by the world as a deadline for a “last chance for mankind” action, seems destined for the same pointless horsetrading as before, which will just add to the people’s frustrations.  The Big, the Bad and the Hungry Capital profiteers will doubtless succeed in having their way and giving the jab that paralyzes even the most audacious governments of any note.  The scientists will meanwhile nag at our consciences, accompanied by ever more frequent natural disasters.  Where have all the brave ones gone?

In faraway Aalborg the Achenese are gathering their people and as in the past when they came out of the Forests to drive the enemies from their shores they will now be flying the flag for “Aceh Green”.  “If the world won’t, Aceh can.”  We’ll be on the streets to give Aceh Green a boost.  There is news that the Governor, Irwandy is coming with the President of Indonesia.  The telephone lines are buzzing excitedly among the Achenese in Denmark and Scandinavia. There’s definitely something cooking among the Achenese. The third level of the UN Conference on Climate Change is and will be on the streets of Copenhagen.  We’ll see what happens. Probably we can make the politicians hear, but Big Bucks are deaf, their ears full of wax their eyes glazed over with visions of profits. Perhaps a small, newly autonomous country in South East Asia can make a difference, set an example, be an environmental hero, for clearly most of the politicians seem bent on suicidal inaction. It’s a M.A.D world (mutually assured destruction) all over again. God save us all!

Tok Man