The Climate Express
Released: 11 February 2010
22 February 2010
For all of us at Rathbone Greenbank, ethical living is a real passion. Part of the attraction of working in such a team is the willingness to explore what might constitute a low-impact lifestyle – whether that be through installation of solar panels, shared living or choosing to spend 23 hours on trains getting to Copenhagen when most people chose to fly!
We started out on the 5.30am Eurostar service to Brussels and ended our journey at 3am the next day at Copenhagen Central Station, having joined up with 700 campaigners from across Europe on a specially chartered train.
Emerging into the chill of a stunning Scandinavian morning, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, but warmed by coffee and pastries from our amazing hosts, we joined our first march of the day – the “Flood for Climate Justice” organised by Friends of the Earth International. This took us from the Klimaforum to the city centre, with a sea of blue-coated campaigners flooding through the streets. Here we joined with various international groups to begin the main march from Parliament Square to the Bella Centre, where the negotiations were taking place.
Over 50,000 people from practically every nation joined together to call for climate justice – not just binding targets, but a fair deal for developing nations. We met activists from Belgium, the Basque region, South Korea, Benin and South Africa along the way. The vast majority of the marchers delivered their message in peace and safety.
At the end of the march we gathered to hear speeches from Danish government ministers and international figures, including Mary Robinson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It’s difficult to know what impact was made on the progress of the talks, but we can be sure that our gathering sent a message to those labouring to negotiate a deal – the world is watching and the world expects.
The atmosphere on the train on the way home was a mixture of elation combined with suspense concerning the outcome of the talks. On a personal level, the experience served to reignite a passion to strive for a fairer, greener world – in both our personal and professional lives.
Matt Crossman & Louisa Dennison