We have arrived in Cancun and at COP16. It is surprisingly quiet here. You would have never known the UNFCCC negotiations were taking place in this tourist mecca, apart from the well armed military checkpoints and COP related adverstising along the well-manicured tropical highway bordering the hotel zone. Former delegates of COP15 at COP16 this year will be surprised to find the amazing ease of access for accredited NGOs to the UNFCCC in Cancun. Unlike Copenhagen last December, COP16/Cancun is a well oiled machine, operating at maximum efficiency and offering international delegates hassle free access to the UN process. The only catch is that you need to be staying at an ‘official COP16 hotel’. If you are privileged enough to be staying at one of these accommodations, the UNFCCC offers you unlimited transportation on a biofueled bus to the COP from your kingly all-inclusive accommodation by the seaside. However, which part of the COP process you access is strictly determined by your status within the UNFCCC. In a conscious attempt to avoid the ‘disruptions’ of COP 15, the United Nations, in cooperation with the Mexican Government, have deliberately reconfigured the space in which the COP takes place by separating those of higher and lower status by massive distances. The zone of the conference would take 7 hours to traverse by foot and about 2 hours by car or bus. Within this COP zone are the Moon Place, Cancunmesse and Klimaforum10. Each is a separate venue, with separate access to the political process and negotiations on climate change. Unlike the Bella Center in Copenhagen, where National Delegates, NGOs, INGOs, and the Media, were free to move between spaces, one now has to pass through a series of pre-approval processes which vet the individual on their likelihood of dissenting against the official process.
Firstly, the Government of Mexico has constructed the Moon Palace, a venue capable of housing and holding up to 28,000 governmental delegates and media officials. Constructed specifically for this international event, the Moon Palace is locked between a navy patrolled ocean on the one side and a thick Yucatan forest on the other. It has one road access point which is safely guarded by the military of Mexico, federal police, UN police, and regional enforcements. Without accreditation as a media official, representative of a national government or ‘special NGO’ access to this elite confine of climate negotiations is strictly forbidden and off-limits. If you want to reach this venue, you need to be on a special bus, for which you need documents just to get to the gates. Moreover, within this venue, the media center is about a 10 minute car ride away from the official negotiations, making quick coverage of events logistically challenging.
Secondly, the UNFCCC in conjunction with the Government of Mexico have created an entirely separate NGO forum, at the Cancunmesse. Here you will find side events and exhibits for NGOs and INGOs. Like the Moon Palace, the Cancunmesse is guarded by a well armed platoon of military and federal police who have piled up a stack of heavy wrought iron barricades on the side of the road to be used in the event of protest. If you want to reach this venue hassle free, you need to be on an ‘official hotel’ bus, for which you need documents just to get to on for a ride. Once inside Cancunmesse the process is relatively smooth, but highly controlled and monitored. The only civil society actors to be found here are those deemed appropriate and relevant by the UNFCCC. National delegates and the media have access to this part of the COP, but for the most part, it consists of ‘accredited NGOs’ communicating with each other.
Alarmingly, civil society has not been pre-approved by the UNFCCC is no where to be seen here in Cancun. Not on the streets, not in the advertizing, not protesting outside the gates of the Moon Palace, or Cancunmesse. Where are all of the climate justice protestors and all of the people unrepresented by the UNFCCC accreditation process? Last year in Copenhagen the streets were full of civil society activity from art, to marches, to street speeches, to demonstrations, to ad busting, to a free access People’s Climate Summit. Unlike COP15, where movement between the People’s Climate Summit, Klimarforum, and the negotiations was only a quick train ride or reasonable walk away for civil actors, this year ‘the People’ have been placed a 6 hour walk or expensive 40 minute taxi ride away from the official process, if they could afford to come at all. The cumulative effect of this spatial reconfiguration is that unrepresented civil society and climate justice have disappeared from the purview of the UN, while official delegates have been treated to a vacation at ‘sustainable’ and ‘eco-friendly’ resorts. Making power invisible for the UN has thus meant a process of denying accessibility on the one hand, while plying the NGO community with a fantasia of pleasurable efficiency. This new efficiency of the UNFCCC has come at the expense of engagement with the people most affected by climate change, at the expense of freedom to protest by the climate justice movement, and at the expense of the freedom to speak out against the corporate agenda of the political elites that circle the space of international power. In sum, the new UNFCCC approach to the COP ensures that no voice but the voice of power can be heard. It will remain to be seen if the voices the of tens of thousands of climate justice protestors will take up the challenge of that 6 hour walk on Tuesday, when they have pledged to be heard.
Jacqueline Medalye and Ryan Foster, December 4, 2010
