On Radicals and Reformists
By Jen Frye, MALD Candidate, The Fletcher School
A model of the Earth floats above the Action Hub in the Blue Zone.
“It’s funny,” I commented above the crackle and pop of wet wood, warming my hands over the flames, “The United States is such a young country yet we feel this entitlement to global hegemony.”
I was standing in a loose circle around a fire of scrap wood sloppily built on the concrete. The flickering light illuminated the faces of the others in the circle, young people from around the world who had congregated in Glasgow for COP26. To my right, an abandoned warehouse pulsed with sound, the muffled electronic music mingling with the low murmur of conversation around me. A burly man with long, curling red hair who had told me he was from Glasgow replied,
“Ah, but you can do a lot of evil in two hundred years.”
“True,” I said ruefully. “Imperialism.”
That moment - my collar turned against the wind, brushing sparks off my jacket and sipping a badly mixed drink - struck me as wildly incongruous with the policed halls of the Blue Zone where I had spent the last week. The Blue Zone was where the negotiations took place at COP26, and where countries and United Nations organizations peddled their climate policies and pledges at bedecked pavilions. It was also where I met a local volunteer while eating free sandwiches in the chilly walkway between buildings. He struck up a conversation and asked me what my plans were for my last night in Glasgow.
The security line to enter the Blue Zone
“I’m not sure. Probably laundry,” I answered truthfully, worn out from a week of observing negotiations, volunteering at events, and fighting to stay awake during panels that, after three or four days, began to blur together.
“Well, then you’re lucky I have this,” he smiled, and handed me a flyer from inside his jacket. The flyer read: “DAY OF ACTION AFTERPARTY AT CIVIC HOUSE WITH HEALTHY AND FRIENDS - FOOD, DRINKS, CHATS, MUSIC, DANCING.”
It was Saturday, November 6, the international day of climate action, a day for environmental activists around the world to make their voices heard. Hundreds of thousands of protesters, many of them youth or indigenous leaders who were few and far between in the Blue Zone, took to the streets of Glasgow. I had considered joining them. Was I not also an angry youth, frustrated by the pace of climate policy and disillusioned by the ‘blah blah blah’ derided by Greta Thunberg in the first days of the conference? Was I not experienced at painting scavenged cardboard and chanting responses to calls until my throat was raw?
My UNFCCC Trustees of Tufts College OBSERVER badge
In the end, I chose to stay in the Blue Zone, to make full use of the OBSERVER badge afforded to me as a delegate of the Trustees of Tufts College. Observing - sitting quietly behind the representative of the United States as the negotiators word smithed the same paragraph for two hours - was a privilege afforded to a select few young people, mainly students like myself and representatives of youth activist groups and nonprofits. I joked with the other Tufts delegates that you could tell who was who based on their outfit: the activists were in jeans and Birkenstocks; the party delegates were in suits; and, according to a woman I met in the conference security line, everyone in development carried a leather messenger bag.
My seat behind the United States representative
The Blue Zone uniforms were a far cry from the crop tops and bell bottoms, mesh and leather, studded jackets and platform boots that swirled around me as I pushed my way through the crowd to the warehouse’s ad hoc bar. I felt distinctly overdressed in my oxfords, slacks, and button up, the remnants of the suit I had worn to the conference that day. In the Blue Zone, that suit allowed me to stroll brazenly past the delegation offices, keeping one eye peeled for heads of state, and shake hands with people whose rings were worth more than my family’s net savings and whose LinkedIn connections each had a Wikipedia page. But around the fire, two shots of tequila in, my clothes felt shamefully like a costume of the imperialism I was mocking, a wrinkled imitation of the bankers and CEOs prowling the Blue Zone halls.
My Blue Zone uniform
I felt caught in that liminal space all week, between youth and adult, activist and academic, radical and reformist. I was honored to have been chosen to represent Tufts, but at the same time, I questioned why I was at COP26 at all. This past Monday, at the COP26 debrief with Dean Kyte and Professor Gallagher, an audience member asked:
“The pandemic taught us to run conferences virtually. Given COVID, and the carbon cost of twenty thousand attendees flying to Glasgow, why was COP26 held in person?”
I agreed with Professor Gallagher’s answer about the importance of in-person negotiations. The most valuable conversations often happen over dinner and a glass of wine, or when passing in the hallway, or while washing hands in the bathroom. But I had asked myself the same question about my own participation in COP26 many times. Was the impact of the conference on me - and my impact on the conference - really worth the carbon it took to get there? What right did I have to take up a seat, to even observe, when so many around the world were excluded from the conference due to COVID and socioeconomic inequalities?
I didn’t answer those questions that night, one foot in the ashes and the other in my ivory tower, and I haven’t answered them yet. I can only leave COP26 with hope - yes, hope, despite the weak agreement reached one day late, despite the well, maybe and the not quite and the next year. I have hope for our generation, the young people around the fire and dancing in the night, their joy and fury and power and energy. Hope that, after everything, it will all be worth it.
Jen Frye is a first year MALD candidate at The Fletcher School, Tufts University studying International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution as well as Gender and Intersectional Analysis.