Flexible Thinking Amid Uncertainty
Something extraordinary about this COP27 was the implementation of what we RCers call “flexible thinking.” Our Sustaining All Life (SAL) delegation had prepared for the COP for a whole year—cultivating our connections, supporting each other, overcoming obstacles, and thinking about the logistics. But there was no way for us to know how our days in Sharm El Sheikh would unfold.
We had to fight for the presence of every delegate, solving problems until the last day.
Some of us who had spent months preparing to lead the delegation contracted COVID, and others had to assume responsibility. Delegates quickly took on [assumed] roles they had not planned for.
Sharm El-Sheikh, where the COP was held, is a small city of approximately ten thousand inhabitants on the Red Sea, in the Sinai Desert. It is designed for tourism. The environment, the effects of the pandemic, and the resources available in the city’s infrastructure challenged our imagination and resilience.
But although unexpected challenges arose every day, our organization and human connections did not weaken. Delegates were ready and willing to face every situation, stay connected, make the best of it, and together move toward solving the climate emergency and preserving our great Mother Earth.
Those of us from the Global South are not new to living side by side with uncertainty. Like many working-class and poor people, we have learned to stretch our resources to the maximum and creatively solve problems that seem insoluble. But even with those skills, COP27 was a great challenge.
Many times I have thought that certainty is an illusion created by capitalism, and one that can be maintained by only a small part of the human population. In fact, the universe is constantly changing. I am deeply proud of each of our delegates, of the previous COPs from which we learned, of all the people who collaborated remotely to resolve the thousands of details, and of all who have been part of the loving fabric that allowed us to be flexible, lead, create, solve, have fun, and show our humanity and love for Mother Earth in the midst of uncertainty.
What SAL did at this COP—as it has done at all the previous ones, and will do at the ones to come—was, and will be, the fruit of a deep commitment to all life.
Mexico City, D.F., Mexico
(Present Time 210, January 2023)