Submitted by Jim Thomas on
by Lucy Sharratt
Today Terminator was discussed again at COP8 - and the moratorium still holds! No country dared to challenge the consensus of last week.
Some governments made slight changes to a specific part of the text but this did not relate to the moratorium it was just enough to make us nervous!
Tomorrow the final plenary of COP8 is expected to approve the text of the moratorium on Terminator. Tonight negotiations will continue on other issues and tomorrow morning all final decisions will be reviewed; it is a last chance for governments to raise issues, though discussion is generally discouraged. Tomorrow afternoon everyone will say long, polite goodbyes - hopefully some governments will say how happy they are that the Terminator moratorium has been strenghtened.
Government delegates are coming up to us now and asking us how we feel. We are all very identifiable with our "Sucide Seeds are Homicide Seeds" t-shirts. They are happy with the outcome and since we so often spend time asking them to take a position and expressing our concerns, I am sure they are hoping we will share some of our happiness with them.
After this morning's session, a group of us approached Chair Matthew Jebb on the stage to give him a T-shirt since he has been so helpful - even instrumental - to the decision-making. Our gesture made him very happy and he kissed each one of us on the cheek - that was 7 of us at least. Everyone loves a good moratorium - and a ban even more...!
Meanwhile - friends and colleagues are still trying to stop genetically engineered trees here and are in the thick of intense negotiations...