This morning, not having noticed anything in the press about COP17, the UN Conference of parties to its Climate Change Convention, presently meeting in Durban in the Natal province of South Africa, I decided to do a web search.
So I went to the site of Thailand’s most read English language paper the Bangkok post and searched for “Durban”. This produced two hits, one being an opinion piece from a Eurocrat and the other from the top UNOcrat.
Aljazeera.net gave about 20 reports with much more of substance. Aljazeera also mentions Occupy COP17 , which you might guess is a civil society attempt to raise issues which many, or in some cases apparently all, in government would prefer to avoid.
Our Chiang Mai comrade Tomoko from the Asia Pacific Women’s Law and Development organisation is at Durban to support the lobbying efforts of APWLD members, so Chiang Mai is not entirely left out of the picture.
In addition to Tomoko’s presence we all can participate by reading the Occupy COP17 blog and posting our comments.
The beginning of December marks what has become Thai Environment Week and coincides with celebrations of Father’s Day and the King’s Birthday. To mark this a talk fest is happening at JJ Market, next to the Kham Tien plant market in Chiang Mai town and a parade and cycling activities are also planned.
Perhaps folk may wish to participate and highlight Chiang Mai’s failure to face the climate challenge and send a resolution of solidarity to Occupy COP17.
PS I have not yet been sent a program for the Chiang Mai events in English. Here are some meeting minutes in Thai.
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