World Development Movement blog

We left Paris for Lille on Sunday morning, having been hosted by the Confederation Paysanne overnight. No sooner had we set off on the bus than Olivier, who has been one of the main organisers of the caravan, announced that we had an emergency on our hands...

The Trade to Climate Caravan

Organised by Klimaforum (www.klimaforum09.org)

From the WTO meetings in Geneva to the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, the Trade to Climate Caravan is taking the social and climate justice message through Europe, direct to the policy makers.

I mentioned roosting chickens in an earlier blog, I’m not obsessed with them honestly but chickens have come up again during my time in Geneva. Ghana used to have a buoyant poultry industry but subsidised poultry from the EU has decimated the Ghanaian poultry industry.

Tim Jones

In Trinidad on Friday Gordon Brown got some headline coverage for his latest announcement of billions of dollars for developing countries to tackle climate change.

Today I have been attending briefings in preparation for the ministerial conference which starts at 3pm tomorrow afternoon. I walked to the WTO building to pick up my badge which will allow me access to the ministerial as well as the NGO centre.

I arrived in Geneva at 5pm this evening (having left my home in London at 6am) and I had to quickly drop my luggage off at the hotel, work out the tram system and then get myself to a meeting with other trade campaigners from around the world. I arrived at the meeting, just as the pizza did, so not bad timing I thought.

Tim Jones

It's easy to deride twitter as superficial nonsense; yet its reach is staggering and important. WDM uses twitter to alert people to our latest reports, actions and titbits of gossip. But for anyone who saw the last episode of 'The thick of it', you will have seen that what starts in a tweeting tea cup can become much more.