Tapas? You must be joking17 November 2009
Some of our campaigners returned from Barcelona this week (see a film of one of them below).
They were a bit down in the dumps. Why so glum?
Partly lack of sleep. They were working round the clock with scarcely time to eat.
But mostly it was frustration with the world's rich countries - the United States, western Europe and Japan.
Stick with me while I try to sum up the problem.
Our campaigners had been in Barcelona for the latest stage of UN climate talks, before the crucial meeting in Copenhagen next month.
Barcelona was one of several conferences to prepare for a legally binding global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Think of it as getting the paperwork in order and Copenhagen as the culmination of all this graft. Denmark is the place where the big decisions are supposed to be made.
But in Barcelona, the rich countries had still not committed to specific targets for cutting emissions. And without the numbers, what chances of a successful agreement in Copenhagen?
So are the talks in the Danish capital doomed to fail - as some of the mainstream press would have us believe?
Absolutely not, says Asad Rehman, who is leading our campaign team. Watch Asad on why the conference is still of vital importance - and why Friends of the Earth needs to be there.
