 So thank you to those who are joining us today. This is the first in a series of live broadcasts brought to you by IPV and a number of cooperating organizations. Today we have Code Pink with us, represented by Nancy Mencius, who is live in Sharmal Sheikh in Egypt at the COP 27. And we're very thankful to have you with us today, Nancy. I'm going to give the floor right over to you so you can tell us a little bit about your impressions and experiences during these opening days of the COP 27. Thank you. Thank you, Sean and IPV for organizing this live stream. This is Nancy Mencius, campaign organizer with Code Pink. And I am here in Sharmal Sheikh, Egypt at the COP 27. What I'd like to do is maybe just give some comments about what I've witnessed and what I've heard and then open it up for any questions. I'm going to talk a little bit about the opening press conference. We heard from the new COP 27 president talking about how climate action is important and it's important to address it as a collective addressing these challenges. He says we are at a point of no return for future generation. Yet, during his opening remarks, did not mention one word of the Egyptian prisoners of conscience, some of them of a young age being held in prison. There is an importance this week of focusing on loss and damage. For those of you who don't know, loss and damage refers to the destructive impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided by mitigation or adaptation. Also during the opening press conference, we heard from Simon Steele, who is the new, I believe, the new UN executive climate secretary. And he urges that the world needs to come together on the crisis, creating a safe political space to address climate. There are areas of common ground. He's asking that all parties to come with ambition. And someone coined the term that this COP is the COP of ambition. He also warned, and this is where our work comes in, that emissions are not coming down. And so, mitigation needs to be increased to ensure we have a safer world. So how does that reflect on the work that we are doing when we talk about military emissions? He also emphasized the loss and damage is to be addressed for the most vulnerable countries to reach their climate goals. Now this issue of loss and damage, this is going to be dominating the agenda this week. Sorry if there's a delay, I'll try to slow down. The issue has been floating around for the past 30 plus years. And it's finally an agenda item. So how do we in our work put emissions on the agenda? How do we specifically put military emissions on the COP agenda? Are we willing? Are we up for the fight? It took loss and damage 30 years to get on the agenda. Are we willing to do this for the long haul to wait eight, 30 years to put emissions, military emissions on the agenda? I also have the opportunity to attend a conversation with philanthropic organizations. Specifically, one stood out to me was the Bezos Earth Fund. I believe that's Jeff Bezos Earth Fund. And the speaker, there's a large amount of contradictions that are happening here. The speaker Andrew Stier, he's went on and championed the U.S. in Canada, doing these, these innovative programs and work with personation indigenous people. But really we know deep down that that's bullshit. And that is absolute straight up brainwashing. If we look at the relationship between the U.S. and Canada, we can take the line three pipeline as a good example. Enbridge, which is a tar sands oil company from Canada, received a contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to lay an oil pipeline underneath the Mississippi River, which is going to disrupt the wild rice harvesting that the indigenous people of Minnesota have been doing for years. So there is a disconnect between what people are saying and what is really happening on the ground when it comes to indigenous people. And I really wanted to raise this point with him, but he was off the stage. And then I also have the other opportunity to attend a talk with the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Now, as you can imagine, he's a, he's the personality, lots of energy and was really just kind of a media circus. But he also talked about how loss and damage is going to dominate the agenda and how the U.S. as well as their wealthy countries are falling short on edges. Boris Johnson went ahead and he cheered on the U.S.'s policy and sending resources. Now we know what resources means to the Ukraine. That means military arms to the Ukraine. Now, he is coming here on the spirit of Glasgow. He is still so high on what has happened in Glasgow in the last couple of years. And he is now the top 26 and wanted to be here as a supportive person and really just reflect on that time. I think maybe he just looks at that as something that he could really reflect on as a former Prime Minister. Another thing he talked about is when we talk about loss and damage, there are some who are asking for reparations for the U.S. that don't have the money or something like that. But one thing I did want to raise while Boris Johnson was speaking was the issue of Allah and I'm going to mispronounce his name, Abdel Hattah, who is the British Egyptian writer, human rights defender that is in prison right now. He is actually on a water fast right now as the COP 27 is happening. I didn't have to raise the question. The interviewer raised it and Boris Johnson said that Allah needs to be free. And so that was a huge step. I don't know if you have a video of that on my Twitter account if anyone is interested in saying that, but the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is calling for Allah Abdel Hattah to be free. And he said that he's had discussions with a CC and with others in the Egyptian government to work towards that. And he was doing this while he was Prime Minister. So I don't know what diplomatic conversations are happening now that Boris Johnson is no longer in office. And I think that is all I have to say for my opening remarks in what I've seen. So yeah, I'm open to any questions. I think it's great to have you there and in person. I think we'll start from our end with one or two questions and we will definitely open it up to everyone who is attending the Zoom meeting as well as those who are with us on the Facebook live stream. I think perhaps the first question I would have from our ends, and this is just purely out of curiosity, but I'm wondering if you can show us a little bit around the space that's being used. And what are the plans for that space over the coming weeks? Sorry, Nancy, you're muted. Sorry about that. So the space that I'm in is called the innovation zone. And I believe this is put together by a British group. And I'm not quite sure what they do, but they have hot spots. They have complimentary Wi-Fi. They also have these talks like the talk I attended with Boris Johnson. So they are a British based organization. And the thing that's interesting about COP, I'm not sure for those of you who, well, for those of you who have attended, you're familiar with the blue zone. And within the blue zone, there are side events. There's also the green zone hosted by, put together by the host country. This one's called the innovation zone. This is completely independent. I want to call this the side liners event. So what's going to happen here is going to be a week of talks. A week of workshops, an opportunity for people to set up their desks, their hot spots, their hot desks, use the Wi-Fi. But I'm not sure if I'm coming back to this location. I do plan on going to the green zone, which is across the street from this location, which is having a wars and climate justice workshop tomorrow. So that's pretty much what's happening in this space is the people who are independent outside of COP 27. And this isn't just the only independent space. Just down the highway, Saudi Arabia is having their own, they're having their own parallel COP 27 conference. And that's kind of an issue. Trying to save the people and planet when, you know, we all know that they are creating the most horrific human rights violations in Yemen. So I hope that's answered your question. Absolutely. And thank you so much for that. My next question would be just with regards to the atmosphere that you have felt over the past couple of days. If you've had the chance to speak to some other activists or other attendees of the conference in general, specifically on the overlap between climate and militarism, and if you've seen if there's been much perception, if people are open to this idea, or if really the focus is more on loss and damage or even other elements of climate change. Well, we are just at the beginning of COP 27. So there are some events that are dealing with this issue. That are in connection to COP 27. As you know, there are the side events inside of the blue zone that are taking place. So to have the discussion, people are interested, but I think folks are really, they're here with their own agendas. But if anyone is willing to talk to me and listen to me, I am all ears. I mean, I'm here for them to talk about the issue. Now, I think it's, it's our work to continue pushing this issue. We've done so much like last, last go COP 26 with such a game changer for us. And I think that we could continue to build on that and continue to build on what we've done here. Now, because people are so focused on their specific agendas and there isn't really, Shamal Sheikh isn't really an activist community unlike Glasgow, which has, you know, Scottish C&D, which has been there for so many years. We don't really have that here, but I have had the opportunity to talk to the local folks, like the Cathiffs in Egypt and I, I know I have some friends from Egypt with me, who are already speaking about the issue oflist, whether that's the Song of Egyptians, about what it's like, excuse me, having this conference in town. And what they're seeing is kind of a step up of security. More of a police presence. I'd have to say, And they say, well, this is because of the conference. This is why this is all happening. So my sense is, if this conference wasn't happening, there wouldn't be such a large police presence. Now, coming from the US, I think the US is such a police state. I think that this is normal. We have cops running the streets throughout our big cities. So, but for the local community, it's not so much. And I also have to say that going outside, I had the opportunity to go outside of Sharm el Sheikh. And that's a completely different experience. The city is surrounded by a wall similar to the Israeli apartheid wall. And there's only one way by land to come into the city and one way out. And that's through this checkpoint. But the city itself is a fortress. So outside the city, that's where I've seen the military. I took a trip up to Mount Sinai. And that's where the military is basically outside the perimeter of Sharm el Sheikh. Whereas the local police are inside, just kind of directing traffic, just having caught cars on the side, checking people's bags. So yeah, that's what it's been like for local folks. Great, thank you so much, Nancy. I think we will now open it up to the questions from our participants, both via Zoom and those who are participating online on our Facebook live streams. So those who are with us in Zoom, you can use the raise your hand feature. If you would like to ask the question yourself or if you would like us to ask the question for you, you can write that in the chats and then we will communicate that. For those online, you can just comments on the live stream and we will be monitoring there as well for any questions. Yes, I see we have our first question coming from Theo. Go ahead. Hello Nancy, thank you for helping us here for doing this broadcast. I am very interested in knowing, especially as you said, you've been in other cops. How were your expectations for this first day? How they were met and what are you seeing regarding this first day in this cop comparing to others? You've touched on the question about the activist community comparing with Glasgow, but could you talk a little bit more about this? Yeah, I would be happy to. So it was a little daunting coming into this cop 27 because I think what had happened in Glasgow was something special and I don't know if we will ever have that energy and collective community energy again. That's quite the opposite here. There isn't that. Just to give you a sense, Charnel Shake is a exclusive resort town. It's a place where folks from Eastern Europe, from Russia, even Southern Europe, Italy come to vacation where they may spend a month with their kids just bathing in the Red Sea snorkeling. So that's what Charnel Shake is. It's not a place of. It's not a hotbed of activism. That's for sure. So my expectations are very low. And I have to tell you that the low expectations have been met. Being in kind of a sprawl. It's it's a desert town on a beach. Really difficult to get around in glass. People can just jump in the bus or the metro and go off to an action or a meeting. And here you just don't have that there. There's a specific bus for the conference to take to take people to the to the different zones. But yeah, that's that's been. Yeah, just very low expectations. I don't want to say it's all that bad. I mean, it is a privilege to be here and to be able to connect with and have conversations and network with others to talk about military missions. But yeah, I'm just reflecting back. Maybe I'm just like Boris Johnson saying that spirit of Glasgow. It's just very, very different. I'm sorry, was there another point, another point to your question? That touches it. Thank you so much. It was a good it was a good response. Thank you. I say we have a hand up from Reiner next. So hi Nancy, great to see you in Chamelechake. And thank you for the description of Chamelechake. I can absolutely underline that I was visiting Chamelechake. It's really a nice place for swimming and snorkeling. But it's definitely not the place for mass demonstrations. Independently, which government Egypt has, even the government makes it absolutely mobile. So, you know, my question is related to the Ukrainian war. Is the Ukrainian war playing any role in the discussions? As not only by the questions of emissions, but mainly by the questions of cooperation or confrontation, because, you know, I personally cannot see any progress in the climate issue when we have these confrontational situation in the world. So this means negotiations for Ukraine are also a basic for more cooperation, other fields, including the climate field. Is this war playing any role? It is reflected in the discussions. And is this atmosphere of the war, these confrontational atmosphere also reflected in the whole conference up to now, you know, we are the first day, maybe you have the first impressions about that. Yeah, that's a really good question. And the war in Ukraine is something that is on people's mind. And just going back to Boris Johnson, who spent his time on the mic, just saying, talking about Putin's bloody war. And yes, the US is doing the right thing and sending resources to Ukraine. But yes, like the Ukrainian war is on is on on people's mind. Yeah, it is not front and center. Loss and damage is. But I can say that there is a side event that is going to deal with military emissions, which does include members government officials from Ukraine. So they have a side event here at COP 27. So even though the Ukraine war is not a front and center topic, it's not forgotten. It's not as if we are living in a box, although I think some people are living in a box when they come here just being single issued climate change and not wanting to address human rights or war. But yes, I think the Ukraine war is being framed in a way that it's Putin's bloody war. So if that helps in any way that answers your question. Thank you. Great. So just again to repeat, if anyone has questions they would like to ask, you can use the raise your hand function or send a message in the chat for those participating online. You can also just comment on the post and we will be looking for replies there. I'm not seeing any hands at the moment, but I will ask another mic the question myself and we'll see if any other questions arise in the meantime. I'm wondering Nancy, which events or activities you are most looking forward to in the coming week during your time here? What events give you some inspiration? Which ones are most interesting? What will you be doing during your time there now? Well, I will mostly be in the green zone. As I said, yes, tomorrow there is a workshop that is addressing war and climate change. And this particular group, their name escapes me now. Hopefully it'll come back to me. Is dealing with issues of oppression, war, climate change they really have a transformative justice focus looking at how people can be healed from these awful things, the awful experiences of war, awful experiences of climate change. So that's how I will be spending my week. Also, if there's any other opportunities to attend speaking engagement like here in the innovation zone, I will definitely take advantage of that. But yeah, that's how I will be spending my week. Hopefully I can bring a banner out front of COP 27 convention center. There was a Beagans for Peace. They had a demonstration with some music and banners and dressed as animals. So hopefully I can bring the banner out and have it outside in front of the convention center. Great, thank you Nancy. And we look forward to hearing back on how all of that went when we have our next conversation with Nancy on Saturday, the 12th of November. I see we have a hand up from Jacqueline. Yes, hi, thanks Nancy. I'm gonna be coming to COP 27 from South Africa and we're working with some activists who are involved in a documentary series. And I guess, you know, because of the context of Shamal Sheikh being a resort and we're so far away from, I guess, people on the ground who could be part of any mass sort of mobilization or mass sort of protest. I guess I'm just wondering, is there any space for that? Is there an opportunity for any activists to gather and get together and protest? Because it feels like, like you said, it's so different to Glasgow, but I feel like there are still gonna be so many activists and is there an opportunity for that? Or because of the context of the government, it would be allowed. I guess I'm just trying to understand. Thank you. Well demonstrations can happen inside the blue zone given that it is the, hold on one second. Anyway, I don't know what that was. Someone was just flagging me. Anyway, so given that the UN COP 27 conference is part of the UN, the UN people can protest inside of the convention center. So I can tell you that Greenpeace plans to have a blue wave, but that flood the COP, I think it's called, that's going to be inside of the blue zone, not necessarily outside. And there is the COP 27 coalition and they were planning to set up a climate justice hub at a local hotel, but that's the thing to have been materialized. That was supposed to be a place for activists to come together in Charnel Shake who were flying in. But I have yet to have seen that and that would have been a place for us to get together and have discussion and organize, but we'll see if it happens. I mean, it's day one of COP 27. Maybe it'll happen during the second week, but I have not seen it. And it's led by a local Egyptian activist. So yeah, but a lot of actions inside, but really nothing outside. Okay, thank you, Nancy. I'll just read out. We have a comment from Marla Slavner in the chats. If anyone is hosting an event at COP 27 that you know of and would like to screen a three to five minute trailer of Tasha's film, 1.5 degrees a piece, please let them know and the email is posted there as well. I have to say I've seen a trailer for the movie for the documentary. I have not seen the whole thing, but it's very inspiring and quite wonderful. So happy to include that here as well. I'm wondering if we have any more questions someone would like to ask either writing in the chats or raising a hand. I'm also, we're checking our Facebook page. There are no comments on there at this point. Otherwise, yeah, we will see. I'm trying to think in terms from our ends, maybe one other matter that we could mention. And this, I know Nancy, you've referred to a little bit before, but we had a lot of discussions in our working group on militarism and climate change about the human rights situation and how to engage properly with COP 27 in regards to that. I'm wondering if there is a presence of some Egyptian activists, climate activists on the grounds, if it really is more of just an international gathering or if there's much in relation to the local activists. Well, Cheryl Shake right now presently feels more like an international gathering like we've kind of invaded the local people's space. I understand that there are the activists on the ground in Cairo who will be having a conference after COP 27 for civil society, Egyptians civil society to get together. I don't see that happening right now. I do know that there are some side events in the blue zone that are addressing human rights, but to what extent that it's going to address the prisoners of conscious. I don't know. And well, like I said, we'll just have to wait and see if the COP 27 coalition hub, climate justice hub will materialize. Okay, great. Well, thank you very much. It seems there are no more questions for now. I know this is sort of our introductory sessions. So with COP just beginning, there may not be as much to ask about now as we see some of the developments in the coming days. But as I was mentioning before, Nancy will be with us again this coming Saturday, the 12th of November, and the time for that would be 6 p.m. Egyptian time, which is 5 p.m. in, oh, I think we might have lost Nancy here. Nancy, are you still with us? Okay, well, it seems we may have lost Nancy, but she will be with us again then on the 12th, 5 p.m. Central European time. That's 11 a.m. on the east coast of the U.S., and then 8 a.m. on the west coast of the U.S. I'm sure Nancy will also be posting on her Twitter page all of the updates about what is going on. So make sure that you follow Nancy and her journey throughout the COP, as well as Code Pink, her organization, who is doing some great work. So we thank you for being with us and providing us insights from onsites and look forward to hearing updates on how everything is going. It is worth mentioning, IPB currently has four scheduled events of these broadcasts in COP, so we do have one that's coming Wednesday the 9th. That one will take place at, let me just confirm the time there, does anyone have that on hand? Excuse me, the 9th is at 4 p.m. Central European time, which is 10 a.m. on the east coast of the U.S., and then we will also have a session on Tuesday the 15th of November at 1 p.m. Central European time, and each of those have certain themes that will be brought into the picture. You can find more information at www.ipb.org, and we hope to see you there. Thanks again, Nancy, and we wish you all the best for your time in COP.