COP16 – Cancun Mexico

Daily reports from the Conference
Setting the Context:
This year’s Climate Change Conference COP16 is being held in the beautiful ‘Mexican Caribbean’ state of Quintana Roo in the port of Morelos, south of Cancun. Our delegation is staying in a gorgeous beach house with unlimited vistas of the ocean where we are constantly accompanied by the sound of breaking waves on long sandy beaches. However, we are here to attend a conference with a busy schedule and so not too much time is spent at the house, but Amrit Vela and the morning sunrises are very special.

Cancun Messe
Half the delegation went to Cancum Messe, the exhibition and workshop center where the Brahma Kumaris have a stand. The afternoon was spent speaking to various people and exploring the area, where Governments, UN secretariat, UN agencies and NGOs are exhibiting together. Some of the governments have large exhibitions and Brazil has particularly wonderful stand, which as you enter, it is as if you are exploring the Amazon jungle full of sights and sounds.

Our delegation is now complete with the arrival of Sister Jayanti last night and Patricia Itergurri, from Peru arriving mid-morning. We also had an arrival and departure from our local centers, Raquel from Mexico City who departed and Rossy Rea who arrived from Tijuana (close to the USA boarder). After holding a meeting to brief Sister Jayanti and share news with each other from the previous day’s activities, most of us set off for the day.

Thursday 2nd December
Golo Pilz set off early in the morning for a live interview with Michelle Begue, Correspondent, Chinese TV Chinese Central Television where he shared how the Brahma Kumaris have been working successfully for the last fifteen years with renewable energies and that India had favorable conditions for successful implementation, as many villages still have little or no electrical connection and they would greatly benefit from such technology.

Saturday 4th December
Climate Change Village
A group of us accompanied Sister Jayanti, Golo Pilz and Patricia Itergurri for a presentation on Consciousness and Climate: A Confluence of Two Living Systems at the Climate change Village – this is the NGO Forum sponsored by the Mexican Federal Government. The area is a converted go-cart sports arena with large pavilions and huge stages that had been set up for evening entertainment.

KlimaForum
A group of us accompanied Piero Musini to the KlimaForum for a talk on “Natural Farming and Yogic Agriculture” It was the perfect place for such a meeting as the setting is the most natural, of all the arena’s of the Climate Change Conference, being open to the outside elements and the audience is the most interested in natural ways of doing things.

Meeting with South African Minister at the Moon Palace Hotel (COP16).
A group from our delegation, Sister Jayanti, BK Usha, Sonja and Golo met with Edna Molewa, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs. Sister Jayanti shared with her the necessity for ethics and values to be incorporated into the climate negotiations. The minister agreed and said that when there is not trust it is very difficult to come to an agreement.

Yesterday our delegation began to break up as Sister Jayanti, BK Carmen, and Usha left for Merida. Early this morning S Jayanti went to the University of Merida to meet with the alumni of business administration. She spoke on the theme of Administration for the 21st Century: Leading with Love. 200 business people attended. After the program she had a live interview on national radio station called Radio Formula which was also broadcast in twenty-five cities across the US.

Being at our Stand in Cancun Messe . . . .is an interesting experience as many passers by, on seeing the words “spiritual university” are amazed and want to know more about the relationship between spirituality and climate change and are also interested in our presence here.