The day we thought would never come, came

After an entire month of loving on climate change all day, every day, the COP16/CMP6 climate conference in Cancun has finally come to its long-awaited end. As we all expected/feared, it didn't end neatly on the evening of Dec. 10 as the program suggested. Instead, it ran clear through Saturday until around 7 a.m. Three reporters (including moi) and a production team stayed behind to cover the conference throughout the night.

I had the extreme pleasure of fulfilling all my journalistic dreams and working on a video from an informal plenary session in which we edited out all the content with value and selected only the sound bytes where delegates praised and lauded Mexico and the COP16 President for the magnificent, marvelous, stupendous job she played in creating a "transparent and inclusive" environment throughout the negotiating process. As such, I didn't even really learn about what happened until I edited the translated copy of another reporter's stories on the final conclusions...a series of agreements called the Cancun Accords...Google it, I already forget it all. Bolivia provided the evening's entertainment by denouncing the entire process and all the agreements reached, although I think I missed the juiciest parts, because all the texts and Gchats I received from friends highlighted something interesting that I didn't see.

I was already tired throughout the day since on Thursday we stayed out until 3 a.m. getting tacos (we meaning everyone else, I tried to sleep in the car but failed). Then I got up at 8 to get to work by 10, and then stayed until nearly the next day. I believe I looked incredibly gorgeous after all that. Once we got back, I crashed, hung out by the pool and drank tequila with coworkers, got lunch, crashed again, and now I'm all clean and sparkly and ready to get my ACE OF BASE on!!!!!! That's right, the Swedes/Danes/Fins/(who knows?) you loved from 1992 are back and bigger than ever, performing at a free concert in the climate conference's village for civil society (i.e. us). I've decided that I will storm the stage and tackle them if they refuse to play the classics and try to impress us with some new album that no one wants to hear.

Now I have just a little over a week left in Mexico, and I may or may not hide in a Mayan pyramid and never come out.

Mexico's own climate conference

Things have started to balance out a bit as we all adjust to working together, working crazy hours, eating Chips Ahoy! for dinner and being paged like doctors at all hours of the day. There are good days and crazy days...like on Wednesday, when my first assignment wasn't until 6 p.m. and I got out of the office by midnight, or the time I had to cover 3 consecutive events (which means 3 videos, 3 text stories and 3 photo slideshows...which, thanks to the help of my news team, got done relatlively fast), or the time I spent 10 hours in a Playa del Carmen conference center watching bloggers, media experts and Mexico's most famous scientist ever, Mario Molina, sit in panel discussions.

The latter event was actually very interesting from a journalist point-of-view. The panelists talked about the role that media play in educating and influencing the public on climate change topics. Even in the climate stories I've written prior to the COP16, I struggled to find the delicate balance between celebrating efforts and initiatives and criticizing the fact that (surprise!) none of them have been implemented, or they don't reall work. Climate change is real, it is affecting us, and we must all change our lifestyles to lessen our impact, but how exactly does that translate to a run-of-the-mill news story whose purpose is not to preach or take a side?

Despite supposedly being the voice of an international conference filled with 25,000 participants and delegates from 193 countries, all of the stories that we cover at the COP16 news center have to do with the Mexican government. Really, I should feel stupid for being so surprised that a semi-official news center would actually just tow the national line, especially here. Every event is hosted or co-hosted by the Mexican government, and all of the interviews that are scheduled in advance are Mexican officials, scientists, environmentalists, you have it. But what is actually the most irritating is the quality of the website. We pour hours into making videos, photo slideshows and stories. The video and photo editors hardly eat or sleep because they spend all day in their freezing cold studios working, and the reporters are under pressure to file stories for an immediate turnaround. And then you look at the website, and you can't find things, or the organization is uninviting to random viewers, and it's disheartening to see that.

Anyway, that's my daily dose of bitching. It's Saturday, so I must be working!