CAFOD blog

Sitting in our hotel lobby, there’s a sombre atmosphere amongst our fellow campaigners who alternately reach for the large communal pot of steaming coffee in an attempt to keep alert. Most have been up all night, eyes glued to the internet.

The culmination of the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen, and a seminal point in the history of activism on climate change, was too much to resist, even if the proposed accord fell far short of our expectations.

It is hard to believe that scarcely a week has passed since we arrived in Copenhagen on a coach with 30 other CAFOD volunteers and campaigners. It has been something of a rollercoaster, with many high points interspersed with a few low ones.

Getting to know Clare, Paul, Sr Alphonsus and some of the other CAFOD volunteers you’ve heard from over the past week has been inspirational. They’ve carried us CAFOD staff with them in their enthusiasm, their passion, and their unrelenting commitment. They have given hope at times of despair, and support when we needed it most.

And not just our troop of CAFOD campaigners. We have joined with well over 100,000 others over the course of the week to march, to pray, to sing and to dance – all in the name of climate justice. Where talks have stalled, where negotiations have failed, people of all nationalities and all faiths have united and drawn strength from each other.

And when the proposal for a weak accord was announced last night, an accord that will fail to stop catastrophic climate change for the world’s poorest people, we came together again. We gathered at the Bella Centre at 2am, in the swirling snow, to urge world leaders to return to the centre and think again.

As we stood singing climate change carols to delegates inside the Bella Centre this week, as we dressed as angels (pictured above) and called out ‘for heaven’s sake, don’t kill Kyoto!’, as we stood for hours in the freezing cold to get access to the talks, we knew we weren’t alone.

We watched Archbishop Desmond Tutu present over half a million signatures to UN climate chief Yvo de Boer last weekend – including 55,000 from CAFOD supporters – and we remembered the great things people have achieved when they joined together in the past. We remembered the fight to end slavery, we recalled the struggle to bring down apartheid and we looked back with joy on the cancellation of third world debt.

The proposal of a weak political accord formed behind closed doors is far from ambitious, fair or legally binding and will push people further into poverty and risk millions of lives. There is no doubt that we will have to keep up the fight into 2010.

Our leaders shamed us last night in putting their own strategic political interests before those of humanity and we need to show them that we will not stand for this. We will form new alliances and allegiances. We will act with hope and courage in our hearts to get a fairer deal on the table.

We will stand in solidarity with those already affected by climate change and those who will be affected in the years to come and show our leaders that we will not stand for this injustice.

As we prepare to leave Copenhagen tonight we will not be returning home to rejoice, as we had hoped at the outset of our trip. We will not be able to put our feet up and say ‘job done’. But we will be returning home with renewed determination, strength and courage. Those living in poverty cannot wait for us to act; our future generations cannot afford for us to fail.

Together, we will rise to the challenge and show that 2010 can still be humanity’s finest hour.

Posted by Katy Harris and Lucy Hurn, CAFOD Campaigns team