Women's caucus

Every morning since the conference started, there has been a Women’s caucus meeting in the conference centre, to allow women and organisations representing women to meet, share information and strategise. On Monday, WEN’s Chair, Bernadette chaired the meeting, and yesterday I had the privilege of doing so.

Today, only 300 people representing NGOs were allowed into the Bella Center, so the six organisations of the Women’s caucus, representing 2% of all NGOs, were allowed one representative each. There was therefore little point in holding the women’s caucus inside the conference centre, so it was moved to KULU, a women’s centre in central Copenhagen.

The few of us who were able to get the information about the new arrangements and make it to the new venue were in low spirits. There is a feeling among NGOs that they are being deliberately excluded from the UN process, with respected NGOs such as Friends of the Earth being completely banned. Those of us present at the caucus reflected that, even if there were legitimate concerns about the number of people accredited exceeding the capacity of the conference centre, this is something that could have been foreseen weeks ago: NGOs had to submit their lists of representatives by mid November. Had those representing civil society had known that they might not be allowed access to the conference centre, they could have considered how else to engage in this important process, and whether it was worthwhile them spending valuable resources to travel to Copenhagen at all.

It seems that if the UN is unable to properly organise an international conference, there is little chance of them facilitating an agreement to take the action to tackle climate change that is desperately needed. With one day to go, it is doubtful that anything will be agreed, and even more doubtful that it will be fair and as ambitious as necessary.