NGO, are we the lowest of the low? (by Xixi Sun)

NGO, are we the lowest of the low?

By Xixi Sun

Wednesday afternoon 3.30pm. Bella Centre. Outside Plenary Tycho Brahe.

Everyone was waiting to get back in. 20 minutes ago we were told that we had to all leave the plenary for a security check before the high-level segment starts again. I have double-checked with the security if NGO passes are allowed to get back in and they said YES. I was the very few (if not the only one) among our delegation team that has a NGO pass for the plenary and I wanted to be at least be in there to represent China youth.

It turned out that we were fooled. “No NGOs are allowed into the plenary!” As the government delegates lined up in front of the door, the NGOs were stopped and turned away.

I do not remember if the same official has given me the different messages. He might have consulted with senior officials and got the latest update on security information, which was NO NGOs whatsoever (instead of limited number of NGOs in plenary). At the same time I was told that the Bella Centre was closed to NGOs now even if they have secondary passes. Before I got some time to figure out what was going on, I got another update from outside Bella Centre – the climate protesters today have been put down by police force using pepper spray. When I saw the pictures of people holding banners and flags, falling into mud on the ground, shouting silently, my feelings were hard to describe. The president of Venezuela, H.E. Hugo Chavez Frias, has said in the high level element this morning that the young people out there on the street should have our respect. They were protesting on the streets, some of whom were arrested by police.

The future belongs to the young generation, who has been marching in rain, in snow, in front of military troops, just to have their voices heard. I am one of them. We are them. But as young people, as NGO, we are not being treated in a fair way. The UNFCCC wants to keep all NGOs out of Bella Centre for Thursday and Friday, and after long negotiation it has been pushed to 300 tickets for NGOs. They are depriving our right to observe the historical moment which will determine our life in 2020, 2030 and 2050. They have silenced us in the Bella Centre by keeping us out. For the past week in Bella Centre, I felt that this is probably the only international event that I did not have to get information through media. We hope that the youth back at home can gain our insights from the youth’s prospective instead of the media alone, but now we can no longer do it.

To conclude, I strongly feel that we as NGOs and young people have been pushed around, and our voice to push for a fair, ambitious and legally-binding deal in COP15 has not been taken by the decision-makers. I admit that in the capitalist world, we cannot possibly have the same amount of power as the other stakeholders, such as the businesses, because we do not have the money and we cannot provide immediate interests and benefits for making relevant moves. But we will not give up. Our colleagues are still peacefully sitting in and waiting for a FAB (fair, ambitious and legally-binding) deal. It might take considerable amount of time. But we can be bothered to sit here all this time for the real deal, because we do not want to spend the rest of our life facing devastating consequences of climate change when it is too late to fix things.