At a recent press briefing between the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, the former president of Ireland, a senior Caribbean negotiator, and the youth, a series of questions were posed to the youth by the panelists. Some youth found these questions patronizing — Earth in Brackets included. The questions were:
- What would you do differently?
- What would you change if you could run the negotiations?
- Why aren't you angrier?
Jane delivered the following statement in answer to the above questions, stressing that the youth are indeed angry because even as the UN asks them to be more revolutionary, it excludes those who are even slightly so. She highlighted the situation of Anjali, who remains blocked from the negotiations based on an arbitrary personal decision made by UN Security.
Anjali's continued ban from the COP is a serious issue of the UN Secretariat undermining the participation of civil society. It also must be noted that the UNFCCC accredited the other seven people who had been de-badged in Durban, allowed them to incur all the trip expenses, and then upon their arrival in Doha made their entrance conditional upon getting approval by UN security. This is an unacceptable process. We cannot help but wonder what the aim of the UNFCCC is with regards to civil society. Can the personal impression of Anjali by the UN head of security constitute a genuine reason to ban her for the entire week? Does the fact that the guard acknowledged that Anjali was "influential" and "has a say" among her peers have anything to do with it?
UNFCCC Secretariat: Why ask us to be angry in such a patronizing way when you have deliberately excluded angry voices from the process?