Posts from "John Sweeney"
Professor John Sweeney has been a lecturer at the Geography Department NUI Maynooth, since 1978. Over the past 30 years he has published approximately 60 scientific papers and edited/co-authored 4 texts on various aspects of climatology and climate change in Ireland. As one of the contributing Authors and Review Editors of the recently published Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), John shared with several hundred other climatologists the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Lows and Highs of a Day at COP15
Posted on December 16, 2009 by John Sweeney
It started as another day of inching along with the crowd seeking to register from around 9 a.m.. This time a further obstacle was presented to NGOs - a magic white pass issued on a quota basis which effectively eliminated entry for thousands of NGO observers who had surmounted the accreditation process successfully. In a scene which made us feel for an instant just a little like they must have felt at Auschwitz or Srebenica, NGOs were herded into a separate queue from the press, media and other observers. Those of us who had braved the 8 hours the previous day knew another similar day was ahead with no guarantee of success at the end. As with all queues, there are times you get your hopes up, only to be dashed. In this case around the 4-hour mark the VIPs began to arrive and the triage system was operationalised. NGOs were back at the bottom of the pile and the queue froze. It was turning into another eight hour queue day and for a time the heavy snowfall didn't help our spirits. The historic achievement of getting past the front gate, with the great co-operation of the Friends of the Earth's Molly Walsh was dashed as it became clear that there was a major logistics problem inside the building. Four hours later the cause of all the problems was apparent. 10-15 administrators were working flat out to register people, each one taking 5-10 minutes in total, or around 100 per hour passing through the system. Trouble was, around 45,000 people had apparently indicated they were coming to the conference and the bulk of these had obviously materialised for the second week. The system was now obviously hopelessly inadequate for the several thousand souls out in the snow. The United Nations got everything right except this crucial detail. 10 times as many administrators were needed at the registration desk and fewer security scanners. There are several good courses in Event Management at Irish universities which I could recommend!
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Left in the Cold
Posted on December 15, 2009 by John Sweeney
It was 8 a.m. when I alighted from the train from the city centre to register for the conference as an NGO delegate for Friends of the Earth Ireland. In the sub zero temperatures the beginnings of a 500m queue of humanity could just be discerned stretching into the distance beyond the railway station. 3 hours later I had reached the railway station again, cold and weary, but still hopeful that the gates would at last open to the Bella Centre. The crowd around was generally patient and kept alert by the occasional noisy demonstration, extolling the virtues of a vegan lifestyle or denigrating the Australian government for their support of the world's largest coal export industry.
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Copenhagen - a good place to bridge cultural divides
Posted on December 13, 2009 by John Sweeney
Copenhagen is certainly a suitable place to attempt to bridge the gap between two very different cultures regarding managing climate change. On an island where the Atlantic world meets central Europe and the progressive societies of Scandinavia, Copenhagen is where European meetings of minds have historically occurred. It is where hopefully the sensible reasoning of the inhabitants of this ancient place can be brought to bear on civilisation's greatest challenge to date.
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