Climate Debt protest today outside Bella Center

Klimaforum Sunday

Pictures from the Copenhagen march

We've arrived!

Well only a day or so after we intended (but minus the link-up with the Social and Climate Justice Caravan, we’ve arrived in Copenhagen. First impressions? Beyond the rain and the terrible exchange rate, the first thing that struck me was the adverts.

Every global corporation worth its salt wants to position itself as a green guardian of our collective future here, and there seems to be no escape. The first bus shelter we saw when we walked out of the station was carrying a Coca-Cola 'Hopenhagen' advert extolling you to buy ‘A bottle of hope’. I’m sure the folks at Coke Justice resisting Coca-Cola’s threats to local water supplies in India and elsewhere would have a few things to say about that. Then when we changed buses we found ourselves next to the global advertising industry’s massive outdoor Hopenhagen exhibition.


With so much hope in the air, and Obama due to jet back in next week, it’s a wonder a deal hasn’t already been reached.

One big disappointment about the bus breaking down was that we missed today’s standout session at the Klimaforum - the two-week civil society counter-conference taking place in the centre of Copenhagen - a panel discussion on Ecological Debt and Climate Justice featuring the Bolivian Ambassador to the UN, Angela Navarro, Canadian author Naomi Klein, as well as Lidy Nacpil from Jubilee South, and Ricardo Navarro from Friends of the Earth El Salvador. There’s a follow-on session tomorrow, though, so I’ll see if I can catch up then.

Without the bus our accommodation plans have been somewhat scuppered. So tonight we made our way to a converted warehouse at the north end of the city centre. Converted, that is, into crashpad accommodation for the hundreds of people who have turned up in Copenhagen without a place to stay (all the hotels were booked up months ago), but featuring that most essential Copenhagen home comfort – electric heaters. After grabbing a vegan dinner from the People’s Kitchen (several have been set up by Danish activists at ‘convergence centres’ around the city) we hit the floors in preparation for our first day proper.

Time to abandon ship

Well it's been a valiant effort, and Matt has captured the whole thing on film so there's a disaster movie coming soon to cinemas near you, but we've had to abandon ship (or bus).

After two days of heroic efforts from Norman our driver and Ian the bus's owner on a phone from Shropshire, we've had to admit defeat. We tracked down a Routemaster specialist in South Coulsden who had the spare parts we needed. He gave us the inverter and the belts, we fitted them, then we whisked the bus off to Bexley Heath bus garage for a once-over from some proper bus mechanics and a bit of spring cleaning, and hit the road again. But this time we only made it as far as Maidstone Services before the bus ground to a halt again! Norman thinks it could make it as far as Dover, and possibly all the way to Copenhagen, at 15mph, but we wouldn't get there til it's all over. So tragically the Climate Debt Bus is no more. It's being towed back to Shropshire this evening.

We're now looking into alternative routes to Denmark - it's looking like a ferry is the next greenest (and cheapest) option, aside from flying, but the next one isn't for two days. Let's hope our breakdown isn't a premonition for the fate of the Copenhagen talks.

Having a Good Time?

One of the passengers on our bus is Theo - a singer-songerwriter and activist who's written a special song for Copenhagen.

When people buy the song, all the money raised goes to Treesponsibility to help plant fruit trees in Yorkshire. It's called Having A Good Time. We're not having that good a time at the moment as the bus is still broken, but Theo's keeping us entertained! Here's the video...

Theo Bard - Having A Good Time from TAPE REC on Vimeo.

Theo says: "It's just a humble little song but it's had a lot of time and effort poured into it, from scrawling out words and making them rhyme, to trying to get it perfect in front of a microphone, and then hotfooting around london trying to shoot the video on a tiny budget.

If you like the song, you can buy it. To buy the song with minimum cash being lost to online commissions, please click this link. You can also buy it through all online music retailers."

Mechanical work still going on. We'll keep you updated.

Bus breaks down in Peckham!

Well we haven't got very far! Just as we reach our top speed of 40mph on the way out of London, the bus has come to a halt on the hard shoulder. Matt the filmmaker loves the drama, but for the rest of us it's not a good start. After a bit of looking under the bus, it seems we have a serious problem - the inverter has gone and two out of three belts have snapped. My mechanical skills are not up to much, but spare parts for Routemasters are not available in your average Co-op. Plus it's raining. As it happens, Norman our bus driver has access to an empty house up the road in Bexley Heath, so we limp the bus there and set up camp for the night.

Climate Debt Bus in central London

The bus has made it to London and we’ve been touring the town – handing in a ‘climate invoice’ to Gordon Brown and ‘climate cheques’ to representatives of developing world countries.

In recent weeks our supporters have completed thousands of petitions telling the British government to pay its climate debt and standing united with developing countries in their determination to ensure economic justice is at the centre of a deal on climate change.

The petitions demand that the UK pay £17 billion each year to developing countries as compensation for the climate change that the UK has caused. Our petition was accepted by our own Gordon Brown, as the real one refused to come out. Gordon was then off on a tour of embassies to repay the debt.

We met ambassadors and representatives of the Indian, Philippine, Bolivian and Bangladeshi embassies. We left a strong impression and kept the pressure on the Government to agree a just and equitable agreement at Copenhagen, as well as encouraging poorer nations to stick to their demands in the face of strong opposition.

This event took place at the start of a fortnight of action in the UK, including the Wave which will take place on Saturday and is to be the biggest climate change demonstration in UK history.

Now our bus – running on recycled chip-fat- is off to catch the ferry to Calais on the first leg of our journey to Copenhagen. It will travel through Belgium, France and Germany, and stop off at Brussels (where we will take part in a demonstration) and Cologne and Hamburg (where we will meet the climate caravan) before settling outside the Klimaforum, the activist counterpart to the UN conference.

Climate Debt Bus, leaving Friday 4 December from London