by CODY CARLSBAD

Organized by United Nations offices from both Bonn and Geneva, the Conference on Climate Change brought in approximately 10,000 individuals from all four corners of the globe. I was hired to work security for the event and was subsequently given a first-hand glimpse of the conference goings-on.

Now, I could relay you a wealth of pertinent facts that I learned, like how more than 2.1 million of Indonesia’s 18–20 million hectares of tropical peatland have been damaged by fire in recent years, or how Sweden very commendably managed to reduce carbon emissions by 2.3 per cent between 1990 and 2003 despite their economy expanding by 25 per cent, but yo, I ain’t Greenpeace Man. I’ve always considered myself a little more Danielle Steel than David Suzuki, so on to some subjects a tad more sordid.

Oft-times boring!

Although I had looked forward to hearing the latest climate change news, to my utmost surprise the conference was oft times boring for my uninitiated self due to the sheer complexity of the event. A UN conference is a beast that is fuelled by social pleasantries and copious amounts of paperwork written in any one of the six official UN languages. In between lengthy niceties such as congratulating members for elections won and thanking Canada for providing a venue with working toilets, delegates’ speeches reference a confusing array of propositions, amendments, annexes and the like, using vocabulary that is littered with subject-specific jargon, all of which must be collected and collated by the organizing team. I almost don’t even want to mention the acronyms. I was confused on a daily basis by NGOs like the CCCCC, IAI, CARICOM etc. as well as administrative departments like the SBI, SBSTA, and COP/MOP. Let’s not forget that many of these acronyms change once translated into French, confusing employees and delegates alike. Upon learning of the Business Industry Non-Governmental Organizations, I was tempted to ask the Australian delegates, “Did the BINGOs eat your baby?” but I’m not sure if they’d have found it amusing.

Things were discussed in such a roundabout way, it was very difficult to keep track of what was being said. I found myself tuning out often, sometimes with very negative consequences. At one point I was in the main plenary session daydreaming about a smoked meat poutine for lunch when all of a sudden I heard the main speaker on the podium end his sentence with “…in celebration of this momentous occasion!” All of the delegates gave the speaker a standing ovation while I frantically asked my colleagues if someone had just made history or not. Unfortunately, none of us were sure.

What I am sure of is that participants have been given a particularly Montreal welcome to la belle province, with my spies telling me that one of the drop-dead gorgeous francophone event assistants was successfully ho’ing one of the Western European delegates, while one of the Eastern European delegates was confirmed present at le Stud, no doubt researching climate change effects within his trousers.

Alas, one of the African delegates may not have such fond memories of the conference. She was systematically ignored by the document distributors for crimes such as dressing like an orange sub-Saharan piñata and rudely snapping her fingers for extra photocopies as if she were training a dog. Her behaviour led some to believe she was some dour-faced trophy wife, until she got up to give her country’s closing remarks and it was learned she was the country’s Minister of Environment and Science!

Suits and mascots

The UN conference must have been a real boost to the local economy, if the number of delegates arriving late and leaving early to plenary sessions is any indication (Cameroon delegation, I am talking to you!). The majority of the conference participants were your standard suit-wearing business types, but there are just enough exceptions to make things interesting. I enjoyed the mock hockey game that was staged to highlight how global warming is destroying the outdoor ice rink, along with the girl in the bright green wig, accompanied by someone dressed as what looked like a candied yam, passing out pamphlets in the foyer.

The Greenpeace polar bear mascot, who basically looks like an albino Youppi!, has been very visible spreading the love around the conference. Various corners of the Palais des Congrès have been sporadically filled up with refillable coffee mug-toting bio-activist jetsam, my favourite being the ubiquitous nappy-headed guy with no shirtsleeves and a rawhide leather band around his upper arm. He looked vaguely like something out of Lord of the Rings, and I like to think of him as Montreal’s own personal ecohobbit. I was a little perplexed, though, by a lone figure standing silently in front of the Palais wearing a gas mask and displaying a cardboard sign with the word “Acti.” Was he protesting or begging for change?

International awards

An international body called the Climate Action entertained conference participants every day at 6 p.m. with its “Fossil of the Day” ceremony, with awards given to the worst delegations for climate control (Canada is second overall). In this vein, I’ve decided to give out a couple of awards of my own to various delegations, which are the following:

The Austrian delegation get my Ying-Yang award for their well mixed members. Their group, an almost perfect balance of attentive Euro-efficiency and hippy-dippy tree-hugging, just exuded low carbon emissions. I’ve always considered Sacher Torte very eco-friendly.

The Are You Sure You're a Real Country? award is a tie between Palau, Nauru and Niue, three countries that I had absolutely no idea existed until I saw their delegations. I would’ve also included Malawi if not for a recent report on cnn.com about how the people there eat termites.

My Spice of Life award goes to the Bhutanese delegates, who looked simply splendiferous in their native costume, a shortened quasikimono with knee-high black socks and loafers. Aside from two Laplanders and a delegate that looked like he was wearing Kenyan Masai beads over his suit, there was, in my opinion, an unfortunate dearth of traditional clothes. Special mention goes out to the blond South African delegate easily visible in the batik shirts. I find his attempts to promote his country’s culture commendable, even if the brightly coloured patters gave me 1980s le Château flashback seizures.

The Diamonds in my Eyes award goes hands down to the female delegate from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In stark contrast to many of the African representatives wearing the free tuque and scarf handed out at the information desk with the conference logo, this vision of equatorial glamour rocked the casbah every time she sashayed over to her seat in the plenary room. She was no doubt enthused about being able to wear her elegant floor-length fur coat, which I doubt she sports very often when trying to chill out in tropical Africa.

My Get-It-Together award goes to the British contingent, who deluged the document distributors with piles of photocopies to be handed out only at specific times when specific items were mentioned, and then never mentioned them. I saw a couple of Margaret Thatcher-ish dragon ladies freaking out because they were passing out certain photocopies before they were mentioned. It turned out the documents had been confirmed to be handed out at that time... by other members of their delegation.

My Making Everyone Look Bad award goes to the fastidious Kazakstani contingent, who are always present and not only dutifully provide copies of their speeches, but translate them from Russian to English in a flash. Although Borat would have you believe that Kazakhstan is a nation of vodka-swilling gypsy rock throwers, don’t you believe it.