There won’t be many days in my life when I shake hands with an ex-Vice President. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that I’ll probably never do that again.
But to backtrack. Yesterday was MAD. It started with a live radio interview with BBC Radio Bristol – slightly nerve-wracking as I am definitely not media trained! Turns out that although I could talk about climate for ages, I get slightly bemused when someone suggests people don’t want to take climate action because they think they will end up “colder and poorer” if they do so. Goodness knows what my answer was (I can’t bear to listen to it back), but in this bubble of environmentally-minded people who really care about this and know their stuff, it’s helpful, if concerning, to know where wider conversations about COP and climate change are at.
We then headed to the SEC, or Blue Zone, along with a lot of other delegates, queuing outside in the pouring rain to get through security. First impressions? The SEC is obviously massive, connected by a maze of marquee tunnels and (to the disappointment of this geographer) a significant absence of maps. Other than the official opening plenary session (not open to observers), not much was going on, so many first-timers were wandering around, looking a bit lost, figuring out where the meeting rooms are and trying to blag their way into the area for the country pavilions which was still under construction.
But back to Al. One of the people on the CCOP programme I’m here with is connected to the Climate Reality project he founded, and so organised a 45minute sit-down with him and his daughter Karenna to talk about faith and climate. It was a ridiculous privilege and an outrageously surreal experience. I got to ask a question about how we could make the most of the opportunity we have at COP. His answer was about making sure we didn’t get swept up in the frustration and despair, which was particularly interesting given the theme of optimism which ran throughout the rest of the conversation.
I ran from there to an interfaith Talanoa dialogue – really inspiring to see how many faith communities come together in this is space, with talks from the Chief Rabbi and various other Big Names in faith-based climate activism. I'm aware that after five months studying this for my master’s thesis, it’s kind of my niche, but it was really good to see in three dimensions and touch base with some of the people I’ve spoken to on Zoom.
Much more to say from today’s World Leader’s Summit, but this blog is already too long! If you haven’t already, you can sign up to the CCOP newsletter written by different members of our team at bit.ly/CCOP2021 and keep up to date with what’s going on.
*he did not say this.
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