Slightly Disjointed Interview With Jonathan Neale Owing To Our Mutual Tiredness/Excitement About COP15

Slightly Disjointed Interview With Jonathan Neale Owing To Our Mutual Tiredness/Excitement About COP15

I knew Jonathan Neale in my final year at university. I’m walking around an exhibit at the Klimaforum in Copenhagen on the Sunday after the march, with my friend Hannah, when I spot him out of the corner of my eye. I get a rush of excitement and race over to him.
A man he’s with is explaining to him in a hushed voice that they’re reducing the numbers of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) allowed into the conference on Wednesday to 15,000 … Jonathan says ‘I think, myself, we don’t panic.’

S: I want to hear what you’re doing here.

J: I’m the International Secretary for the Campaign Against Climate Change. We’re the people who have been organising the national demonstrations up until this year when the NGOs stepped in and did it much bigger but we’re er…we’re…um…

S: Tired?

J: Tired? We are shattered, we had… I had a wonderful, wonderful time yesterday.

S: when did you arrive?

J: We’ve been here a week, we’re here for the duration.

S: Wow.

J: So basically that’s what I do with my life aside from what you are already familiar with.

S: I heard a couple of students say they’d seen you on YouTube and I’ve meant to look you up. Are you filming or recording here?

J: No I’m not filming or recording, I am writing.

S: Right, its weird bumping into you. I’ve got my friend Hannah just over there too, she’s with Climate Camp. They arrived halfway through yesterday, I think. I’ve kind of lost track of time a bit because we stayed up all night. We got stopped by the police for about two and a half hours. I came on the coach with the Stop Climate Chaos coalition and the Friends of the Earth, who’ve helped me out with accommodation and travel and taught me a lot about what we are all doing here.

J: right.

S: So what are you hoping to achieve?

J: First of all I’m just part of the movement. Secondly, I’m part of tons of arguments basically arguing for a socialist position. The third thing is we’ve got a campaign in Britain to get a million green jobs.

S: Right, the Green Party were involved with that…

J: Yes, what we’ve now got is the people who might do it, we’ve got a big network of unions and I’m trying to find other people who can do similar things for other countries.

(Jonathan asks me what I’m doing with my life, I explain that my father has been working with the Green Party for the past twenty-odd years of my life…he clarified for me yesterday that he joined the Green Party in 1981… and how we used to be embarrassed by his involvement, when everybody cared more about money than the environment, but now it’s everywhere and really important and I’ve come to be part of it. Jonathan gives me his email address on a business card and asks me to drop him an email).

S: So when are you going back?

J: I’m going back on Saturday.

S: Okay, I imagine you’re going to write up quite a lot of stuff as well.

J: yes.

S: It’s just really surreal to bump into you.

J: When a movement gets real you start meeting people you didn’t expect to meet.

(We are interrupted by a man telling Jonathan about the Danes prohibiting access to the Bella Centre. Jonathan asks if they’re going to decide who’s a good person and who’s a bad person. The other guy laughs. ‘So they’re just going to limit the number of NGOs?’ Jonathan asks him. I think the other guy says, ‘they’re going to limit but there will still be access.’
Jonathan proclaims, ‘This is the Americans, this is them clearing the way for Obama.’ We are interrupted by someone who is looking to interview Jonathan. He says not tonight, maybe tomorrow. I count my lucky stars I know him from back home).

S: I’ll email you. I’d love to hear about what you get up to when we’re not tired.

J: Oh it’s probably just excitement.

S: Yeah, I was really overwhelmed when that guy announced 100,000 of us turned up [to the march] I almost cried.

J: 100,000, by the way, is the official police estimate.

S: Is that true? Other people were saying it was less than that.

J: No that’s the official police estimate.

S: I went on the anti war march in 2003 in London and they said then that a couple hundred thousand turned up… but what I came away with was two million

J: The organisers said two million and the next day in a survey a question was asked ‘was someone from your household at the anti war march yesterday?’ and, extrapolating the numbers, there were people from 1.3 million households on that march, so that’s at least two million people.

S: Yeah, there must’ve been, I mean you could see. Even one of our neighbours who wouldn’t be seen dead at any kind of protest went.

J: Okay, the easy way to do it is…Wembley stadium is 90,000. Ask yourself; was that crowd bigger than a full Wembley stadium?

S: Definitely. Just look how big the traffic jams were, waiting for the protestors to walk past. You can probably work out how many people there were from how many hours people sat in their cars for.
Where are you off to now?

J: I’m off to dinner with a bunch of Socialists. I’m in the SWP in Britain and I’m talking to the Danish comrades. And then there’s a meeting with the NGOs back here at 7 o’clock to talk about what to do about them reducing the number of NGOs.

(I tell Jonathan that unfortunately, if the SCCcoalition are to make the Eurostar, we have to leave at 12am, but that I’ll email him and hope he’ll be able to fill me in on everything that happens that I’m unable to be a part of in the coming days).

J: Yesterday, I mean that’s the beginning of a global movement.

(I talk to Jonathan on a personal level for a bit and wish him luck. As I write this, he’s just emailed me from Copenhagen saying it was good to see me there. He’s shattered yet optimistic. I share that optimism. Reclaim the power).