UN Bloggers
I’m on my way to Bali. I’m heading for the UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC). I’ll be doing some background reading during the 30-plus hours it will take me to travel from LAX to Bali. My first stop will be at the media center in the Bali International Convention Center in Nusa Dua, where I’ll track down Langston James Goree VI. He’s known as “Kimo” to friends and is director if the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
Kimo was instrumental in securing my media accreditation. While applying for accreditation, Kimo and I exchanged several email, and spoke once by phone. When my initial application was returned with the single word: “denied” … I immediately forwarded it to him and asked for his advice. Instead, he contacted the one key person at the UN who could take action on my behalf.
In less than 48 hours, I received a second email from the UN with the hoped for word: “approved.”
It seems that the notion of bloggers was outside the scope of UN accreditation. They have no procedure to accredit bloggers, thus the negative response. To get around it, Kimo’s contact, Kevin Grose, Coordinator, Information Services, found a concept for one of the UN projects - at the UN Foundation - that supported the use of bloggers, and extended it to create a similar “affiliate” status for me. So I have been approved on an “experimental basis” without transgressing established procedures. The door is now open for bloggers.
Like my approval process, I’ve discovered that much of the work of negotiations – for example, an agreement by 180 delegates on specific climate change actions within an agreed upon timetable - lies in reaching agreement on the interpretation of a single word. Words like “necessary,” “serious,” “mandatory” or “required” require much debate and seldom survive the process.
However, world opinion is beginning to align with UN leadership in treating the issue of climate change as serious … and agree that we may be approaching the tipping point. So I’ll search out stories on the emerging climate of hope – and world changing solutions - that such a seismic shift in thinking can bring.