Delegates from 194 countries – gathered together in groups like BASIC, ALBA, EIT, CACAM, AOSIS, Umbrella, LDC and G77 plus China – will try to come up with a solution on how to save this planet from meltdown. Discussion sessions are entitled SBSTA 35, CMP 7, AWG-KP, SBI and AWG-LCA 14-4 and use supporting documents such as FCCC/KP/CMP/2011/1 and FCCC/SBSTA/2011/MISC.8.If this overwhelming force of acronyms does not inspire confidence that our politicians can talk and negotiate with each other, I don’t know what possibly could!
On Monday at 10am the Conference was to be officially opened and the program asked all delegates in big letters to:
Being the good delegate I am, I followed this call and was seated in the plenary at 9.45am. Unfortunately the COP Celebrities did not take their own message quite so seriously and did not show up until about half an hour later. In the meantime, a group of more-than-semi naked African men entertained us with (what I assume was) a Zulu war dance involving an incredible amount of planned or unplanned (it really wasn’t quit that clear) kicking oneself in the face and falling over...
When the COP officials finally arrived, the MC kindly asked:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for the President of the Republic of South Africa Mr Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma .”
And so we did.
And then we waited...
...and waited...
...and waited some more!
Until a good minute later the MC announced:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just heard that the President will only be joining us later. You may sit down.”
What an opening! Welcome World – TIA! Aren't you glad that you entrusted us with the oh-so important task of negotiating a new climate change agreement?
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