I went to Copenhagen, to fight for a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. I went to fight for global democracy.

(Photo: Pavel Ryczan/Egality)

Arriving in Copenhagen on Sunday the 13th I was full of hopes and excitement. From the train station I went directly to the Klimaforum. This was a wonderful place full of interesting workshops and opportunity to network. After a few hours I left the Klimaforum and went to a preparation-meeting for the "no borders" demonstration, which would take place the next day. I had always been sceptical about these left activists that in my eyes never put forward constructive proposals and that consider violence as a necessity in their fight for justice. At the meeting, which took place in a cold and dark warehouse, and during the following days I learned that my prejudices were wrong. I did not witness any violence from the activists, not at the "no borders" demonstration, which called for equal rights of transnational movement -especially in the context of climate refugees-, nor at the "reclaim the power" demonstration, which called for a peoples assembly. The activists were an opposition with a very constructive proposal: a democratic process for a just deal - equal voice to each person. Surely you can criticize the demonstrators attempt to overcome the fence around the Bella Center in order to enter the negotiations and hold a peoples assembly in the Bella Center, but they were doing it with the intention to encourage the public to think about the lack of democracy in the process and they did not use violence. In response to this peaceful protest the police was arresting people "preventatively" -without charge- at the demonstrations and on the street, was hitting people with batons, used teargas and pepper spray and produced an image of riots, which was also published in the international press and influenced the public opinion worldwide. With my eye opening experience at Copenhagen I now question the press coverage of similar events. It showed me how difficult it is for activists to bring out their message through the mass media. If you want to have an impact on public opinion, you need a lot of money or good ideas. At demonstrations a well-designed banner or a meaningful sing-along chant are basic tools and can help you make it to the news. Other forms of direct action might need a little more preparation, but are also more likely to get press coverage as the following examples show: Greenpeace on the red carpet http://www.youtube.com/oembed?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOL-X9Nk7Xw&format=json Egality banner drop in central Copenhagen http://www.youtube.com/oembed?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQXv1sIgKQQ&format=json Beside the demonstrations and the banner drop, I was also involved in a pre-release screening of the documentary World Vote Now, which tries to prove the feasibility of a global referendum - giving each citizen of the world an equal voice. We were showing the film at the climate conference, because we are convinced that global problems demand global democracy. Nation state based democracy is not constructed to function in support of transnational negotiations. A meeting of sovereign nations is very unlikely to produce agreements on issues such as carbon dioxide emissions. The failure of the COP15 meeting, which was predicted, is a result of the lack of democracy in the process. Primarily neither the USA nor China are to blame. Our current system of global governance is to blame. And also because of the catastrophic outcome of the negotiations I do believe that people are beginning to question the current system more and more: Delegation leaders of European and Pan-African Parliament call for renovation of decision-making process. For me the COP15 conference was definitely not the last of it's kind. The next time I hope to see you too and we will be prepared even better to really make people wake up!