So...here I am in Copenhagen, together with another 15.000 (in the conference centre alone) other representatives from government, civil society and the private sector, in the city that is hosting the historic United Nations Climate Change Conference of 2009: Copenhagen. In these two weeks the negotiators, ministers and world leaders are assembled here to come to a global agreement to tackle the urgent, global threat of climate change. At least, that is what we hope.

Many of Uganda's corn millers work in the factories that line the railway track in Jinja, the city near the site where a hydro energy dam is being constructed. Bags of corn flour are displayed in front of the small wooden factories. The machines inside are covered in a thick layer of dust and flour. In one of the factories, some 30 bags of white corn flour are stacked in a corner near the entrance. "The flour is sifted so many times that there is no residue left in it," says the owner of the factory, James Ogwan. "It loses a lot of its nutritional value, but this is how people like it."

Characteristic with nearly all dams, upon completion and backfilling of reservoirs, or even before, a number of painful social and environmental problems manifest. This situation is true with Bujagali dam under construction in Uganda, where a number of the affected communities have lost their livelihoods to the dam.

It was still dark when I packed my bag for a Lokaalmondiaal trip abroad. Autumn had started and the sun was rising far too late again. I quickly turned on the light to start packing, because I only had an hour. The cold morning stirred up that winter feeling. I wished I could stay in bed a little longer, but to compensate for my suffering I set the radiator to twenty degrees. Climate change or not, in the Netherlands you need power to survive.