Adopt A Negotiator  Germany

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"Show me the girl"

Posted: 05 Jun 2009 08:51 AM PDT
http://adoptanegotiator.org/2009/06/05/show-me-the-girl/

and not the environmental stuff!

Just to get one thing straight: Thats not what I was thinking while doing  
this live-video with Hannah from the Youth Group of Friends of the Earth.  
She is explaining the The flood is coming campaign to me, while I stream  
this short interview live on www.qik.com/socialblogger

The funny thing is: Just next to those live-videos, people can chat with me  
(while I am taking the video) so guess what happened, when I shot the  
movie? I was watching the display of my mobile..the number of viewers was  
rising from 0 to 3 within several seconds and then, the first Chat came in,  
saying That chick is hot. Show me the girl, not the environmental stuff..

Well, I am speechless. Guys out there: Behave! But on the other hand: As  
long, as it helps the campaign to be that successful, I guess, we need more  
outgoing and charismatic girls like Hannah   Joke aside: That environmental  
stuff is quite serious  and unless we take care of it, we wont be able to  
enjoy the beauty of each other much longer mmm.

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The German Outlook - meeting Nicole Wilke

Posted: 05 Jun 2009 04:24 AM PDT
http://adoptanegotiator.org/2009/06/05/the-german-outlook-meeting-nic...

On wednesday evening, I have finally met our leading German Negotiator:  
Nicole Wilke.

In a meeting set up for all German NGOs, representatives from German Watch,  
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others had the chance to ask a bit  
more detailed questions than usually.

It was quite interesting to see the general consensus among the German  
NGOs, regarding both the questions they wanted to ask and the positions  
they were representing themselves.

But even more surprising for me was the eloquence and intelligence of  
Nicole Wilke. Having come here to track her down and show my blog audience  
how much we need to do to push our German delegation towards the right  
direction, I felt a bit useless while listening to her indepth analysis of  
current politial processes and conflicts.

Referring to the current financial crisis, she stated that one needs to  
understand the different conflicting urgencies of our time and the  
situation that many politicians are in at the very moment.

After many very detailed questions that I could hardly follow, I finally  
got the chance to have my coming-out as a naive and non-climate-educated  
Blogger:

Sorry to bother you, Ms. Wilke. I am just a blogger, not a Climate expert.  
Like most of our fellow countrymen in Germany and most of the general  
public out there, I dont have any technical or political background  
knowledge that might be needed to understand all these details here. But  
what I do have, is a subtle feeling that these negotiations wont ever  
achieve what needs to be done and that far too many countries/governments  
keep feeling far to comfortable in their old positions. You were talking  
about learning processes that can take some time  how about our own  
learnings in Germany? And how do we convince and educate our people to  
consume differently and thereby put pressure on companies to produce  
differently? How about saving Opel & GM at the same time as striving to be  
a leader in the Climate Negotiatons? How about the Abwrackprämie? Isnt that  
hypocrisy at its very best? How can we handle both: Saving jobs on the one  
hand and the Climate on the other?

Well, what can I say? I guess, Nicole Wilke answered the best way she could  
have, stating:

Well, I could answer this question a bit better if I was a politician. But  
I am not really. I think it is not really a secret that we have elections  
this year in Germany and that due to that, all will be done to satisfy the  
short-term political needs in the first place, which is obviously the jobs  
of thousands of people of a company like Opel. I cannot change that, but  
what we try to push forward right here and right now is to build the right  
framework so that in our future, a company like Opel will be much more  
incentivised to build the right car that is not polluting our environment.

Most charming though was her statement that NGOs are and will always be  
needed to push parties of all sides to make the right decision. Referring  
the EU commitment to a target of 30% emission-reduction till 2020, she said:

  I cannot open up this discussion again right now, since it is a very  
fragile political balance that we have there in the EU. But I do need you,  
we all need you, NGOs, to keep nagging and keep bothering and pushing us so  
that we do have the pressure to act accordingly at some point.

To close the joint session, one of my NGO colleagues asked the most  
interesting question among all of them: What, Ms. Wilke, is  your personal  
outlook/forecast for the future process of these negotiations?

Well, listen to her answer right here:

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