Ominous November Warmth

You may have noticed that recent summers in southern Ontario have seen a bizarre menage-a-trois between droughts, floods, and depleting lake levels. How the hell does that happen? Oh yeah...climate change. While that spells pretty (relatively) minor seasonal inconveniences in our region, global warming amounts to extinction of species, poverty, and even death in other parts of the world.

It was bad back in 1997. That's why the United Nations spearheaded the Kyoto Climate Conference in Japan. That led to the monumental international treaty on emissions called the Kyoto Protocol (hence the name). Eight years later, with the agreement finally in effect, the UN is holding another such meeting in Montreal. And that's where I'm posting from right now.

The gist of the current UN Climate Change Conference is to initially gauge how well Kyoto is working, and how it can be improved and enhanced. Being a reporter for a certain specialty channel that focuses on something that rhymes with "feather", I'm here to tell the rest of Canada how that goes. I'm here with supreme camera operator Dwayne, and our News Director and boss Jen. Today was Day 1 and it went down something like this:

8AM: Meet Dwayne and Jen in the hotel lobby to head to the over to the Palais des congrès (convention venue) to pick up our credentials. The process to get accredited for this thing is a whole blog entry in itself, but I'll leave that for another day. Since when is the UN such a big deal anyway? PSYCHE.

8:15AM: Arrive, wait in line with delegates, scientists, and activists from over 180 countries. Countless words from languages unbeknownst to me flutter through the air.

10AM: After intense security screening, we finally have our passes and are allowed inside the conference facilities. Look for media room and formulate battle plan.

10:15AM: It's decided. Today we'll just do a story about the opening of the conference, and its significance. Access to the main meeting room is pretty limited, but no sweat - we can tap into the feed and get lots of our footage/clips from that. Dwayne goes into the broadcasting room, Jen and I stay and do some research/writing/more brainstorming.

10:30AM: A little snag. Dwayne calls on the cell. The camera doesn't have a video input, so we can't tape the feed. We feverishly come up with a backup plan. Jen starts dialing up all her Montreal contacts trying to get some viz and clips from them. I start making calls for supplementary interviews.

10:50AM: Scored an interview with a UN spokesperson. He only has a few minutes for us, but that's all we need. I ask my three questions, get the clips I need, and we head through the conference facility to get some more b-roll. We also go outside to shoot a standup. While Dwayne is shooting, I make calls to Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and Environment Canada for more interviews. I still haven't had my morning coffee by this point.

12:15PM: Return to media centre. Jen has had good and bad news about getting a tape of the morning's opening ceremony. It's out there and it's free; it's just a matter of tracking it down. Dwayne has to resort to shooting an actual TV screen just in case. Due to the whole "government falling" thing today, a lot of media didn't send their crews to the opening ceremony right away. Priorities crooked, I say! She goes to get us some sandwiches, I start to write a script.

1PM: Jen returns with some delicious sandwiches. She would have returned sooner, but she had to put said lunch through the x-ray screener at security. We eat, and wait. Sometimes in journalism that's all there is to do. You've made all the calls you could, and you just gotta hope someone gets back to you.

1:15PM: An announcement comes over the PA in the media centre. Canadian Environment Minister (and freshly elected conference President) Stephane Dion is holding a press conference momentarily. Sweet, we think. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

2PM: Well apparently "momentarily" means 45 minutes to the government, so we're finally in another room setting up for Dion's presser. It went alright, we only used one clip from it though.

2:50PM: Back to the media centre, and no sooner that I sit down that I get calls back from both Greenpeace and the WWF. Killer. We bang both out in a matter of 15 minutes. Oh yeah, and Jen has all our other footage lined up for us, we just gotta go pick it up from Global.

4PM: My script is finished, even though I haven't gone through all the interviews yet. We finally pack it in for the day. Now we just gotta go pick up a tape from our buds at Global, head to MeteoMedia (our Francophone counterparts) edit, and send the story back to headquarters.

5:30PM: Arrive at MeteoMedia. We had the wrong address to Montreal's Global studio, and ended up going on a bit of a wild goose chase through the city. But we got everything we need. Jen has vetted my story, and it's ready to be voiced, edited, and sent via FTP back to HQ in Mississauga. "Bagged and tagged", as they say.

8:25PM: Return to the hotel. The story turned out pretty dece. It was a pretty exciting opening day at the conference, so the next few will only get better. We dump all our gear in our rooms, and head back down to the hotel restaurant five minutes later. We eat, and spend the next couple hours discussing World War II movies over pints.

Just another day at another international environmental assembly.

Posted by waub at November 28, 2005 10:50 PM