We’re sending a few pictures after a busy Day 1 at the COP22. The speeches at the opening ceremonies promised that ACTION would be the operative word at the conference. Salaheddine Mezouar, the president of COP22, argued that we must commit our work during these negotiations to ensure climate justice for the most vulnerable nations. He quoted a proverb from the Dogon people of Mali: “The sun does not forget a village just because it is small”. Let’s see what happens.
Here are some pictures from Day 1:
The COP compound is filled with meeting rooms, displays for countries and NGOs, and large halls for panel discussions. These are located in the Blue Zone, which requires special UN accreditation to access and is where we spent all of today.
We look forward to checking out the Green Zone tomorrow, which is where NGOs and other civil societies gather to hold events and displays. We only passed this space briefly on the way out, but look forward to spending more time there.
On the way out we also helped a group of event organizers transport the “Medina Bikes” on display…by riding them! (These are the city bikes available for public use in Marrakech, for a yearly fee of approximately $50.) While chatting with one of the other bike riders on the way out, it turned out we were riding bikes with the Moroccan Minister of the Environment. (Adina was asked if she was a minister too.) Afterwards, Giovanna reminded us that we probably should have asked about environmental justice in Morocco, but it was still a nice way to end the day.
More posts to come soon!
Adina, David, and Giovanna