Paris - Day Four

Global Culture: Paris posters for the "Breaking Bad" spin off and
the "Legend of Woodstock" - painfully, scheduled in January at the Bataclan club.

So I'm getting more efficient at this COP delegate thing. For example, I'm taking fewer things with me to the venue. Like my cane. It just occurred to me today to leave the stupid thing folded up in my knapsack. It stayed there all day. I felt unencumbered and my leg felt fine.

That innovation, and the fact that I had a good night's sleep, still did not get me to my first meeting on time today. The schedule said 8:00 a.m., but when I arrived ten minutes before that, they had already started the meeting.

"They", of course, are the team of Environment and Climate Change Canada negotiators, who, like all the COP negotiators, are caught up in the hamster wheel of forging the climate change agreement. These folks work fourteen hour days - from about eight in the morning until 10 at night - listening to and participating in painful exchanges like the one I reproduced for your reading pleasure yesterday.

I promised myself I'd break things up a bit today and go to a couple of side events. "Side events" are like mini conventions within the convention. A country, or an agency, or a company, or an association or non-government organization, will organize a mini-conference, featuring speakers and panels on a topic. Depending on all of the above, the side event can run for an hour, or for the whole day.

I learned in Lima that these events are a mixed bag. Some are awesome. Some are awful. Many fall somewhere in the middle - not truly terrible, but hard to get into. I find that if a presenter is not good at public speaking, or speaks English with a very heavy accent and unidiomatic pronunciation, it is really hard to stay focused. I randomly picked two - one at the very beginning of the day, one at the very end. Neither was awesome, but I learned some things - such as the fact that Ethiopia is building rapid transit systems for its population and will cut its transportation-related GHG emissions by 90%. That's good to know.

Now that the COP has started in ernest, I can't go on after work adventures. I have to come back to my hotel room and file my report, then type this blog, then send an e-mail to Bruce and then go to bed.

The situation affords me the opportunity to bring to the surface some thoughts I've had while riding the Paris subway. First of these thoughts is, you could take just about anybody on the Paris subway, magically transport them to the Toronto subway, and they would not look in the least out of place. Everyone in Paris dresses the same as people do in Toronto. They wear scarves the same and, although one of my colleagues said no one wears running shoes in Paris, they do wear running shoes the same as they do in Toronto. Their eye glasses are Marc Jacobs and Calvin Kleins; their jackets are Canada Goose (really). Everything Parisians wear is made in the same place as the clothes Torontonians wear: China or maybe India.

Then there's the game I played with my companion the Environmental Commissioner the first couple of days we were here, the "how do you know you're not in Toronto" game. I know I'm not in Toronto because there are soda vending machines on the subway platforms; there are vendors selling "hot wine" outside; there are posters slapped up everywhere in the subway for a film called "Baby Sitting" with a picture of a generic white guy actor posing with a baby ... sloth.


Alike, but different, too.

Paris - Day Three

How the negotiations look from the observer row.

For the second day of COP, I took it upon myself to be the LEAST bright-eyed and bushy tailed I could be, and to make it to my very first meeting as late as I could be.

I succeeded.

To achieve the first objective, I ordered "decaf" at a cafe last night and they very clearly decided to ignore that request. The drink they brought me kept me up all night.

I also walked too much for too long last night and really irritated my right hip.

So, wide awake until four a.m. from caffeine and random joint pain, I had two hours or so of sleep when I opened my eyes and said quietly to myself, "God DAMMIT, I have to be at the COP venue in TWO HOURS."

To achieve the second objective, I got myself cleaned up, had a protein bar for breakfast, chugged half a block to the subway station and ... took the wrong train.

Getting myself turned around took me the best part of fifteen minutes, which is exactly how late I was for the meeting with Environment and Climate Change Canada. Phooey.

Anyway, it was day one of the official negotiations and all the plans already laid for how the talks would proceed were blown out of the water because there's too much to talk about in too little time.

I know why there is not enough time.

First of all, no meeting called by the Parties to negotiate ever starts on time. People mill about and gossip and check their phones and fiddle with their other electronic equipment and wander off to engage in different gossip with different people and finally get around to starting the goddam meeting long after it was supposed to ... everything is at least 30 minutes behind schedule.

Second of all, people are long-winded and inarticulate in stating their positions. Bolivia doesn't say, on behalf of the G77, "Developing countries believe that it is properly the responsibility of developed countries to foot the bill for adapting to climate change."

No, Bolivia says, "Madame chair, thank you for the opportunity to (two second pause) I don't want to seem like not a gentleman because I am always the person speaking first (two second pause) but (two second pause) the first section of this paragraph (two second pause) I mean, believe me, I leave myself in your hands (three second pause) but the countries on whose behalf I am speaking (two second pause) the realities are that there is a feeling (two second pause) and I must respectfully not (two second pause) my colleague (three second pause) the United States (five second pause) we believe a different outcome would better serve the meaning of the text here."

And then Bolivia will say more or less the same thing three or four times.

This went on for most of the morning, and then for a few hours in the afternoon. I was at one meeting around three in the afternoon and a different G77 spokesperson was taking forever to say "OK, let's divide ourselves into drafting teams" when I'd had enough.

I was exhausted, in a lot of pain, and dangerously on the brink of an international incident, so I picked up all my stuff ... my coat, my cane, my iPad, my iPad charger, my phone, my long-strapped purse I carry my important stuff in to frustrate pickpockets ... and got the hell out.

I did not get lost on the way home and I did not have coffee at my evening meal. I am also planning on not spending so much time at the negotiation sessions tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be great.

Paris - Day Two

Today was the first day of COP - but different from COPs before because this time 150 world leaders spoke about their countries ambitions to start things off. Normally these airy, insubstantial barn-burners are delivered at the beginning of the second week - which was what I saw in Lima last year. But, the Secretariat thought that this year the leaders should give the negotiators a kick in the pants right off the bat.

Due to security concerns, and the fact that 150 world leaders were all bunched together in one spot, no normal COP attendee could witness the statements. But I did see Barack Obama deliver his wonderful speech at the US Pavilion where it was remotely webcast on a giant screen.

Left to right: Rachel Notley Premier of AB, Christie Clark Premier of BC,
Kathleen Wynne Premier of ON, Justin Trudeau PM o' Canada,
Philipe Coulliard Premier of QC, Brad Wall, Premier of SK

I did not see Justin Trudeau's speech because he decided to trade his place in the queue for an impromptu press conference - with five Canadian premiers joining him on the podium - for which impertinence the Secretariat rewarded him with a new spot at the very end of the list. It's 9:30 Paris time as I type this and I imagine the PM may be just getting to his statement now. I saw the press conference. I'm not entirely certain it was worth the long wait it earned for the PM.

Today I ventured on the subway to get to the COP venue. The easy way - line 7 up to a stop where shuttles pick you up and take you to the venue - is not as quick (maybe ten minutes longer) than the more complicated way that connects you with the high speed regional rail - line 8, then 9, then 4, then the Regional Rail - but the extra time, I have decided, is worth the reduced need to walk through vast underground tunnels and up and down multiple flights of stairs. My hip was killing me by the time I got back downtown today.

When I got downtown with my companion the Environmental Commissioner - we had intended to get off at the Place du Concord stop, but the train rattled right past it - and we emerged further down the Champs Elysee. It was great. Along with a baffling huge ferris wheel at Place du Concorde, there is stretched all along the Champs a gaudy, over lit series of "Christmas Villages" selling all kinds of amazing things. For a Monday night, the place was full of people, augmented every once in a while by a small clutch of camouflage-uniformed young men carrying very large guns.

Every world leader who spoke today opened his or her remarks (mostly his) with an expression of condolence for the people of France. The people I saw in the sparkly Christmas market would probably have appreciated the sentiment but are, so far as I can tell, taking it all in stride. Meanwhile, back at the COP, the negotiators complained that all the Leaders' speeches did was waste a day that could have been spent negotiating at the table.

Paris - Day One

I should actually start with day minus one - yesterday, November 28, when I got up at 4:30 local time, made sure I had all 500 pages of information I needed for the COP loaded on my iPad, and that I had all the things I needed packed, and that Bruce had enough food in the fridge to last for two weeks on more than just fried egg sandwiches and taco chips ... So I did all that, jumped on the UP train, got to Pearson in the promised 25 minutes and then sat for three hours in Terminal 3, waiting for my plane and reading the draft negotiation text from which will eventually emerge the new climate agreement among the world's nations.

Funny story about Terminal 3. If you've been there, you know the passenger waiting areas feature rows of white marble tables with iPads mounted at every seat so that you can read books, play games, browse the Internet, and, at least in theory, order food.

I needed to eat, so I ordered some Udon noodle vegetarian soup. The way it works is you select what you want from the menu on the iPad, pay for it at a little terminal also set up on the table and then wait a few minutes. Your order appears as if by magic.

Except mine didn't. I wasn't sure what was an appropriate amount of time, but when nothing came to my table in almost 45 minutes, I started poking around on the iPad. There was a "call for assistance" button, so I pressed that. Nothing happened. I had already paid for the nothing I was getting, so I pressed the button again. Still nothing. As there seemed to be no consequences to pushing the button, I pressed it over and over and over again.

Finally, a young woman approached me to ask if I had been the one pressing the assistance button. She seemed a little vexed. She explained to me that my iPad was sending a signal as if it were on another table. That's why I hadn't gotten my soup.

She brought me a bowl of Udon noodles - not very hot - and, as I was eating, a young man came along and fixed the iPad.

The flight to Paris left on time, was as uneventful as one likes these flights to be and got us into Charles DeGaulle Airport an hour ahead of schedule. Must have been tailwinds.

We - the Minister, three of his staff, the special advisor to the Premier on Climate Change and me - were spirited away from the airport by a hired driver who then took us to the COP site - minutes away
from the airport - so we could register and pick up a few goodies, like a free transit pass and a welcome kit that included a portable ashtray. I'm not kidding.

When we got to our hotel, it was still pretty early in the morning - 9 a.m. local time - so we got ourselves settled in, had some breakfast and then went for a walk with the Premier of Ontario to Sacre Coeur at the top of the hill in Montmartre.

From left to right: Security guy, security guy, the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, the Premier of Ontario, the Minister's Chief of Staff

I hadn't slept much on the plane, and had more or less been awake for the past twenty hours, and really pushed my hip past its limit with the little jaunt. So I just hung around in my room for most of the afternoon, trying not to fall asleep.

That would have been a full day, but the new federal Minister of the Environment decided to throw a reception for the hundreds of Canadians in town for the COP. I hooked up with Ontario's new Environmental Commissioner, Dianne Saxe, walked through Paris at night, crossed the Seine and joined a giant, teeming, hollering band of very happy Canucks at the Canadian Cultural Centre on the rue de Constantine. My Premier was there, the Quebec Premier was there, Tom Mulcair and Elizabeth May were there and I had just missed both the Alberta Premier and the federal minister.

Just when Dianne and I were really starting to feel the jet lag, the booming, happy crowd thinned out. We grabbed the subway (first time on the Paris Metro for both of us) and rode back to Boulevard Hausmann. Assuming it would be hard to go wrong - but recalling the trouble Bruce and I had the last time, thirty years ago, I was in Paris - we assessed our options for a meal with a bit of care. We ended up eating at a nice little place, tres authentique, where I had duck confit.

Allan Gardens Photo Essay and Paris: An Update

In the summer of 2013, an agave flower spike pokes through the greenhouse roof, with the old power plant smokestack in the background.

In November 2015, the agave is long gone, the smokestack is still there and something new looms over the roof - a fifty-storey condo building at the corner of Dundas and Jarvis.

In January 2012 - the City erected hoarding to secure the perimeter of a massive watermain project.

In September, 2012, First Nations artists decorated the hoarding.

November 2015, the hoarding came down.

Paris Update 

The ongoing state of emergency in France notwithstanding, I am travelling as originally planned to Paris for the 21st Conference of the Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I fly out on the 28th of November. Last year, when I went to Lima for COP, the week before I left people asked me whether I'd packed my bags yet. This year they're asking me if I'm frightened to go.

In case any of my readers are similarly curious, no, I'm not frightened to go. Life's not certain. What is certain, though, is that opportunities like the one in Paris come just once in a lifetime, to a very short list of people. Seeing as I am on that list, I'm going to take that opportunity whatever the risks might be.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

The Last Time I was in Paris ...

The first photo in a long series of
Bruce with something coming out of his head.

The last time I was in Paris, in late September 1986, there had been a series of terrorist attacks just two weeks before, between September 5 and 17, killing 12 people and injuring more than 180. 

Bruce and I had to scramble for visas in order to be allowed into the country.

The Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is supposed to start on November 30 in Paris, and I'm supposed to be there, but I'm not sure what's going to happen.

In 1986 when we visited Paris, we did not fear for our safety at all. We saw army personnel everywhere in the City of Lights. They searched my bag at the entrance to every museum. But we were unconcerned.

We were 29 years old and nothing bad had ever happened to us. There was nothing to be afraid of.

Thanks for reading. Say a prayer or two for the good people of Paris. And have a great week.

Karen

Carpe Trudeau

Where the old murals have been gone since May,
new graffiti spontaneously appears,
but something's missing.

This past week I reconnected with a federal colleague that I had not spoken to for a bit better than two years. He works on climate change in the newly renamed federal Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. 

Speaking of change, things for him are now transformed beyond reckoning.

Despite rampant rumours that Stephane Dion would get the job, I correctly guessed that the new federal minister would be a girl. 

When Catherine McKenna's name and background information came out, the people I work with looked at her date of birth and concluded they'd wasted their lives.

My federal colleague reported that he'd already met her, not officially, not part of a Transition Team mass hand shake, but in front of the environment offices at Place Vincent Massey in Gatineau, where the brand new minister stood on the sidewalk and greeted staffers as they came to work.

After a decade of working for a government unconcerned with protecting the environment or fighting climate change, my federal colleague now has the opportunity to support a government that seems hell bent on both.

The dreariest aspect of the so-far fairy-tale-calibre first few days of Justin Trudeau's tenure as Prime Minister is how many media hacks have to hone in immediately on the "this can't last long" story line.

I'm going to enjoy this while I can. I was at the Conference of the Parties last year in Lima, where the world's expectations of Canada were too low to measure. 

I will be going to the Conference of the Parties again this year in Paris. 

It'll be different.

There we go.

This week's moral: "Honeymoons can save the world."

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen