Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change… for Mayors

You read it right, ‘for Mayors”. Hot on the heels of the UN Climate Change Summit, is the summit for Mayors. I think it would be too easy to talk about the UN summit because we all assume that there are millions of dollars and endless resources being thrown at this summit and rightly so. With hugely influential world leaders like Barrack Obama attending you would expect that this event will begin building for ground work for a global reduction in greenhouse gases.

I think the less talked about Mayoral summit is perhaps where it is at as far as getting things done. I apologise for the cliché, but behind every great man there is a great woman and that woman is probably nagging him everyday to get things done. If we think of the women as mayors then someone like Obama has over 8000 wives nagging him either directly, through senators or heads of states. This is one hen pecked man and that is just on a good day.

In a round about way I am actually getting to the translation and interpretation of the mayoral summit, or should I say, lack of translation and interpretation. I would shocked to read that The City of Copenhagen will not be providing interpretation services and if a delegate doesn’t speak the assigned language of English then they are required to provide their own interpreter as part of their delegation.

Now I know that the mayoral summit is perhaps the poor second cousin to the UN summit, but I think the opportunities at this summit are equally important. These are the people charges with creating change for their city and to do that they need the support of their country. If their country does the right thing then they come up smelling of roses.

Surely The City of Copenhagen could provide interpreters at this summit, they have already spend a few million making it happen, what is another few hundred thousand to ensure everyone is hearing the same version of events at the same time.