{"id":153,"date":"2015-12-04T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop21\/?p=153"},"modified":"2022-03-09T21:39:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T21:39:20","slug":"surprise-meal-2-with-a-party-representative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/2015\/12\/04\/surprise-meal-2-with-a-party-representative\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise meal #2 with a party representative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night I dodged into a restaurant on my way back to the hostel following a long day at the negotiations. At a pretty far metro ride from the venue I was expecting to be finished with learning about COP for the day. Little did I know I was just getting started.<\/p>\n<p>A party representative from Comoros took the open chair beside me. Between cigarette puffs he told me about his views on the climate negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>How many years had he been going? &#8220;Since before you&#8221; was his simple response. Sure enough he had attended the 1992 Rio Earth Summit at the very beginning (2 years before I was born) and every COP since.<\/p>\n<p>His answer was also concise for the largest climate worry for his country. &#8220;Sea level rise. We are an island and we will go under.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Desperate for a glimmer of hope I pressed on asking if he thought young people had any influence or power at the negotiations. No, he said. As long as polluting countries, especially the US and China, are refusing to abate a considerable amount, nobody has much power.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly while the Comoros representative had little faith in a legally binding commitment in Paris, he had his eyes on Marrakech, Morocco (the location of COP22). His reasoning: even though Obama is intent on making a lasting agreement in Paris, the current US congress is not. After a new US president is elected next year the politics of the US congress will likely shift to being more serious about a climate commitment.<\/p>\n<p>I left dinner with the weathered negotiator feeling pretty discouraged. These feelings of great hope and great sadness are both common here at COP when discussing the fates of current and future generations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop21\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSCN0475.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-157\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop21\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSCN0475-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"DSCN0475\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSCN0475-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSCN0475-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night I dodged into a restaurant on my way back to the hostel following a long day at the negotiations. At a pretty far metro ride from the venue I was expecting to be finished with learning about COP for the day. Little did I know I was just getting started. A party representative &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/2015\/12\/04\/surprise-meal-2-with-a-party-representative\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Surprise meal #2 with a party representative<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}