Keepfakingit has been in Copenhagen roughly 36 hours now. It’s the weekend and certainly today, Sunday, there seems to be an intake of breath and an easing off of negotiations ahead of the oncoming storm of the final few days. Will we get a deal? Probably. Will we get a deal that puts us on that gold paved pavement towards a low carbon future? Your guess at this stage is as good as ours. Whether we do or not though there are some seismic shifts taking place in the way civil society’s representatives are tackling climate change.

This is exemplified perfectly by the choice of Mary Robinson as one of the lead speakers at the vigil outside the Bella Centre Saturday. Robinson as former Uachtaráin na h’Éireann (president of Ireland), represents, to some small degree, the world of politics. Robinson as former UN High Commissioner for Refugees represents a UN insider who knows how the system works and climbed to a top level post. And here’s the interesting part. Robinson as Honourary President of Oxfam represents not only a huge NGO, but a social development NGO that now recognizes climate change as the biggest issue facing it and its ilk today.

In Mary Robinson we have someone who spans three hugely important stakeholder groups at COP15. Politics, civil society and those mysterious people in the middle who are trying to tie it all together and broker a deal. The convergence of these groupings is more than timely, it is vital. That the likes of Oxfam, ActionAid and others are now focusing their collective attention on climate change in such a manner represents a big boost to that process.

However, this isn’t enough. Without meaning to be cynical, Oxfam have not eradicated developing world hunger. So as well as smarter NGOs working in unison we need more cross-over figures like Robinson. Imagine the like of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown leaving Downing street and shunning the JP Morgan directorship for an international role running , who surely has lots of time on his hands that he isn’t

And speaking of former politicians who have seen the (green) light, here’s a poem from Al Gore. Good man yourself Al.