Not quite “Hopenhagen”?
COPENHAGEN, 17 December 2009 (IRIN): When you are a small NGO from a poor country in the South, how can you hope to make yourself heard at the climate change talks in Copenhagen?
One answer is to get more influential NGOs in the North to do it for you – engaging public opinion and urging their governments to help the vulnerable cope with the increasingly erratic weather.
As the Copenhagen conference nears its end, IRIN takes a behind-the-scenes look at the strategizing and manoeuvrings, the highs and lows that an NGO from Uganda – the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) – has experienced in the past few days.
A few years ago, NAPEs Kamese Geoffrey would never have imagi-ned sharing tables with government ministers from his country. – But things have changed at this conference; our countries in Africa face a desperate situation, they need all the support they can get, he said.
When not lobbying for support for poor countries, whenever his government called on him he provided feedback and assistance on policy adaptation, and the REDD strategy – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and (forest) Degradation (in developing countries) – which looked like being one of the positive outcomes from Copenhagen, until earlier this week.
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