Friday 18 December 2009,COPENHAGEN--When one delegate laughed to another "let us pray" when sitting to lunch on day 12 of COP15, it was not the food they were referring to. Process and rules of procedure for COP meetings have borne the brunt of frustrated groupings, particularly from developing country and small islands nations who are feeling marginalised and disowned by what they call a lack of transparency. Even the much awaited whistle stop visit by US President Obama, despite stopping traffic and stirring media and delegates into a frenzy, roused other world leaders wanting to vent as the reality of a political agreement rather than a legally binding outcome set in. We caught up with COP veteran, Cook Islander Diane McFadzien, who had spent her one hour of sleep in the last 30 hours or so, at the Bella Centre:
TRANSCRIPT: DMcF: I think there's a lot that can still be done but also at this stage of the process, we don't even know what we're really going to get at the end of today. We still have a lot of text that's still in draft form, or absolutely full of brackets. Theres almost every option on the table. The good the bad, it's just sad. I don't even know what we will end up with.
LWL: Is this the scenario you expected, even at its worst, before you came to COP15?
DMcF: No.
LWL: What did you expect?
DMcF: I think I expected things to be run a little bit more transparently. I think a lot of the problem why so many of us don't know really know what we're getting is at the moment there's a lot of rumours going around...LWL: In all the years you've been at COP and you've been at many, how does this one compare?
DMcF: It's the most confusing COP I've ever been to. It's a COP where nobody knows what is going on. It's my least enjoyable COP.
(on the question of whether the leaders should take a 2deg. or more deal or walk)
DmcF: I don't know what our leaders will do but personally I wouldn't sign a deal that was a suicide pact. I don't think that I would come here and represent my country and sign the dotted line on something that I knew woudl put my countrys' existence under threat. If I was a leader, l wouldn't do it.
LWL: As an NGO activist then, any last words, in the last hours?
DMcF: ENDS
I have to keep thinking optimisticaly. People keep telling me deals can be made at the last minute behind closed doors. So I kind of hope that some of our leaders will hold on strong and push their way through. I don't know if it's possible but I just hope they will do something that will just make us proud.
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