My journey to Copenhagen starts early, very early, meeting several hundred like-minded climate change campaigners at Kings Cross St Pancras at 4:30am. I am taking up the third stage of UNICEF UK’s presence in Copenhagen - previously colleagues accompanied four young people from the UK to take part in the Children’s Climate Change forum. They were joined by over 150 other individuals from all over the world to take part in the conference hosted by UNICEF. During that week they negotiated amongst themselves to create their Declaration for the future of the world which was presented to the president of the COP15 Summit and would be passed on to world leaders attending the talks.
The Children's Forum was incredibly important as it gave young people the opportunity to have a positive influence on negotiations which will affect all of our futures. With the increase in dramatic climate change around the world and the constant depletion of finite resources of energy, it is the youngest, poorest and most vulnerable amongst our communities that will bear the biggest burden. If this two-week summit is not successful it is those same young individuals and future generations who will be counting the cost.
Anyway, back to our journey, which was long and rather eventful. I was travelling as part of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition (of which UNICEF is a member) who had organised 'The Wave' just days before. Representatives from a number of the member organisations had been given a 'golden ticket' - a chance to come to Copenhagen and take part in the events of the weekend alongside several hundred members of Friends of the Earth (FoE). Of course as we were all concerned about climate change our journey would produce as little CO2 as possible by taking a train and then a coach. After finally boarding the Eurostar to Brussels we excitedly settled in for the adventure ahead of us, if a little sleepily. Unfortunately before we had time to drift into a deep slumber there was a slight technical fault with the train which led to us being transferred onto a replacement in Kent. No matter, nothing was going to spoil our determination to be part of some of the biggest negotiations in history. The delay did leave us running slightly late but we imagined that some of the time could be made up on the road.
We were travelling as a convoy of three coaches; the largest two were easily filled by the supporters of FoE. Our accommodation until this point was a hotly guarded secret. Much of the build-up to the conference has documented just how many people are expected to turn up in order to put pressure on leaders to negotiate a fair and ambitious deal. Because of this, Danish authorities have taken control of much of the accommodation in the city in order to guard against unofficial activities and antisocial behaviour. We are located just outside of the city in a pretty town. Like much of Denmark, the roads and footpaths take second place to the cycle lanes that dominate this country - it couldn’t be a more appropriate location for the climate summit.
Despite doing our best to catch up on our beauty sleep many of us were looking forward to getting to our accommodation in plenty of time to recuperate for the busy events of the next day. However, before too long it became clear that our estimated arrival time was wildly inaccurate - in fact even at our first stop we were expected not to arrive until gone midnight, two hours on top of our delay. As the time of our arrival slowly crept later we became aware that our coach drivers had little time to spare before they both reached their driving allowance for the day. As we left our final stop having already travelled for over 15 hours we had little idea of what was to greet us a just a few miles up the road.
Due to the importance and sheer high level of the negotiations taking place in Copenhagen, security in Denmark during this crucial week was not being left to chance. All traffic was being diverted via a police check point to carry out random spot checks, and obviously two coach loads of climate change activists were the perfect candidates for a thorough search. Thankfully the third and largest coach of our convoy was waved through with little problem. Had it not been, what was to follow would have been a whole lot more excruciating. Drivers of both coaches were asked to collect and hand over all passports before unloading the entire luggage. One at a time individuals were taken off the coach and asked to bring all their belongings into a white forensic tent to be searched and questioned by the German police. Once off the coach you were not allowed back on until it had been emptied and searched. Four hours later, after a painless if time-consuming experience and much time spent in the cold we had our passports back and were on the road again. Strangely the whole event actually brought us together as a group and where many people had kept to themselves, the worry of what might lay ahead caused everyone to rally their spirits and begin to talk.
Our concern however soon shifted to the time. At 2am we still had four hours until we reached our destination and the drivers had a race against time before they would be forced to stop. By now we had all been together for 21 hours and with the following day's schedule due to begin at 6:30am we took whatever rest we could get. Finally we arrived at 6am with a round of applause for our drivers who still had to travel to their own point of rest. We had taken 25 hours to get here and wearily bedded down in the classrooms of the school to rest as much as we could. In just a few short hours I will be joining thousands of others on the largest climate change marches the world has ever seen... just as soon as I get some sleep and recharge my batteries.