Posts from "Molly Walsh"
Molly is the Policy and Advocacy Officer with Friends of the Earth. Originally form Donegal she studied Environmental Biology in UCD. She likes cooking, gardening and cycling long distance. She got the train to Copenhagen.
Coping with Copenhagen
Posted on February 24, 2010 by Molly Walsh
Copenhagen was personally very disappointing for me. I did not expect there to be a final legally binding treaty agreed there but I had hoped for better things. I had hoped that perhaps movement would be made on sticky issues in the negotiating texts and that by the time things came to a close there would be maybe three or four areas that still needed to be worked through in 2010. What actually hap pended was that a parallel process developed, the process of drawing together the Copenhagen Accord. This sapped attention and focus from the real texts that have been being negotiated since the UN meeting in Bali two years ago.
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Copenhagen disaccord
Posted on December 20, 2009 by Molly Walsh
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Brussels. I was on my way to London to get home when my journey was thwarted by "climatique exceptionelle". The channel tunnel is closed beuase of all the snow. I'm hoping to be able to get home tomorrow.
The last blog entry that I wrote late on saturday night is now quite out of date. I was feeling very dejected and down. The weak Copenhagen Accord was all that anyone was talking about. This document put together by around 30 rich countries was a limp statement of nothing much really. It was about to be put before the meeting and i thought it was going to be adopted by all the parties. I wrote my blog and turned off my laptop and i was ready to go home. Then the screen behind me that relays what is happening in the plenary rooms popped into life. The Danish president Rasmutten was in the chair and he looked awful. Tired and sweaty he gave to floor to Tuvalu at about 3 in the morning. Tuvalu's response to the terrible document being put before them was profund and brave. Refering to the small amount of money that was being offered alongside weak and meaningless targets they said.
"It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future," he said to applause in the chamber. "Our future is not for sale. I regret to inform you that Tuvalu cannot accept this document."
YES! It wasn't going to wash. Of the tiny number of NGOs who were allowed inside te bella centre that day only a small number were left at that time in the morning, but we clapped and smiled at each other. Next to ask for the floor was Bolivia and we knew things were looking up. There was a fightback on. And then through the night the plenary went back and forward with countries that had been involved in drafting the weak useless document defending it and latin american and african countries attacking it.
I fell asleep in cold empty bella cantre listeing to the tired negotiators wrangle through the night. Around 7am my collegue from oxfam woke me and said he was leaving. I gathred my stuff and went with him into the bitterly cold night.
Eventually the next day at some stage it was decided that the accord would be noted by the cop, meaning very little. Its there, its on record but its not a cop decision.
I'm glad that the fraction of the countries who put this together didn't get away with getting it through, but this is not what we wanted from talks. There is no fair, science based deliverance of climate justice, and we didn't really come close. Copenhagen failed as a summit to tackle climate change, and don't let obama or anyone else tell you otherwise.
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A bad deal on a bad night
Posted on December 19, 2009 by Molly Walsh
Its 2.30 in the mornign in Copenhagen in the Bella Centre. And I'm dejected. These crucial talks about how the planet is to tackle climate change have failed and failed miserablely. This morning we arrived in to news that there was the text of a draft politicial accord. All along this was not what we wanted.
The first low point of the day came when Obama addressed the Plenary. His speech was weak and set the tone for a da filled with dissapointments. I was an obama fan back in the heady days of his election campaign, but now he has failed to display the kind of inspirational policies that would match his inspirational campaign rhetoric.
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Open the door, De Boer!
Posted on December 17, 2009 by Molly Walsh
What happened yesterday was a nail in the coffin for any belief I might ever have had left that the UNFCCC is an open democratic and transparent process.We heard a few days ago that every NGO group would only be allowed 20% of their registered people inside the Bella Centre. This was apparently because of capacity. WE were not pleased about this. If a process is to be open and transparent ngos must be able attend and see what is going on. Anyway we did what we were told and just like all the other observer organisations at the COP we picked some of our people to go in. These people were going to be given a white card that would now be needed along with our UN photo id that everyone has around their neck. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one for these people. This system of white cards and primary passes worked OK for Tuesday. Things were a bit quieter but we did manage to do a good flash mob action wearing blue ponchos and chanting "we stand with Africa, Kyoto targets now".Minister Eamon Ryan even joined in a bit, without really knowing what he was being dragged into!
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Boat building in Copenhagen
Posted on December 08, 2009 by Molly Walsh
The night train to Copenhagen is unusually late. The crowded platform in Cologne train station is dominated by interesting looking characters. There is a tall bearded man with a black stetson carrying a very battered leather briefcase. There are two scruffy punks form Belgian with very advanced cameras. There are a two people who joined my journey in London and seem to be from a UK NGO. They have long since exhausted their political discussions of what the weeks ahead will hold and are now much more animatedly discussing their cats. All these strange characters waiting for the train, myself included, are going to Copenhagen for the UN climate conference. From Monday thousands of delegates from around the world will gather at the Bella centre in an attempt to negotiate a global deal on climate. The train finally arrives at the platform and we all get on. I love night trains. Perhaps it is because we don't have any opportunities for international train travel in Ireland, perhaps its the idea of going to sleep in one country and waking up in another. Anyway I find them really exciting. There is a certain sound that night trains make that is different to the noises of other trains. The tone of the rattle seems lower and flatter, they are calm beasts that carry us sleeping to our destinations.
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Walls do come down
Posted on November 10, 2009 by Molly Walsh
Most of the Irish papers today carried pictures of the Brandenburg gate in Berlin on their front pages. The photo is of celebrations marking the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, that day that few had dared to imagine and less had believed would happen. These pictures buoyed me as I had been feeling a little pessimistic of late.
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Wrapping it Up
Posted on December 14, 2008 by Molly Walsh
So, it's all over. Late on Friday night the negotiations came to an end. So was progress made? Did they wrap it up?
I don't think so.
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Yes, Minister
Posted on December 11, 2008 by Molly Walsh
My father was an environmentalist. Long, long before sustainabilty was a marketing buzz-word, before the Green Party even had a leader, nevermind one who was a minister, I found my ideals in the vast library of books that we have in our house. They cover almost all areas of environmentalism. The big, famous ones are all there, such as Silent Spring and Small is Beautiful. One of my favourites though, was The Green Guide to Ireland. I liked it becuase it was simply written, it had cartoons, I could dip in and out of it, and I may have been a bit young for some of the more intellectual tomes that littered the shelves. As I grew up I knew that the book was getting quite outdated and I dreamed of one day updating it. I looked at the picture of the author in the back of the book and wondered what he was like.
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Paying our climate Debt
Posted on December 09, 2008 by Molly Walsh
So I suppose you all want to know what happened at the NGO party. Unlike a certain drama, I didn't get shot or sleep with an oil executive (extreme lobbying!). I just went to a very big, polish night club and saw a lot of professional grown ups get very drunk and score each other. Still the music was cheesy 80s stuff so great for dancing. I admit that due to the cheap drink and good dancing it was very late before I fell into bed. The FOE international strategy meeting on Sunday moring was quite hard to get up for but very well worth it. There is some amazing experience within the network. Yuri from FOE japan shared his mind maps with us and I felt the last bits of cop fog clearing from my mind. Throughout the meeting people were always happy to stop and explain issues to us less senior members of the FOE team. We discussed how we feel it is going and what our key areas of focus should be for the next week. I felt at last that I was getting on top of the process. I still come accross bits i don't understand but I have crossed the thereshold of having most of the structures and issues clear in my mind.
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Global day of Action in Poznan
Posted on December 06, 2008 by Molly Walsh
Today was the global day of action on climate change. There was a bike rally organised here by friends of the Earth Poland and some other groups under the coalition of bikes for climate.
It was a huge critical mass of many many cyclists. It was bigger than any other group of cyclists i have ever been in. We cycled around the misty city singing and chanting for climate action. It was really great to see the road filled with only by Trams and bicycles, very much the way I think it should be.
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