President Lula plays ball with us over Copenhagen

"The problem is your European game is too slow and stilted" - Lula might have been saying.

So it's not every day that you tackle the president of Brazil dressed as a member of his national football team. Or at least, I don't. (Tackle in a very metaphorical sense, I should say.)

But when you want to attract Lula's attention in order to tell him that he should really go to Copenhagen in December to push for a strong climate deal, the legendary prowess of the Brazilians at football is an obvious avenue to go down.

Well, it was eventually. For a while we were thinking about the possibilities presented by dressing as a Brazilian beach volleyball team, but, you know, it's November, it's a bit cold, and to be honest the sight of twelve pasty Greenpeacers in swimwear probably wasn't going to be that alluring to the great man.

So football it was, and there we were, ball at the ready, banner unfurled, as Lula exited the hotel he was speaking at via a side door, surrounded by security guards and diplomatic police. In what we hoped was a sportsmanlike manner, we gave him a round of polite applause in anticipation of him delivering a solid, workmanlike performance on the pitch of the international climate negotiations. We want Lula to be pushing for a strong international agreement that will help protect the climate, and help to save the Amazon rainforest which fills the northern part of Brazil. Anything else would be a lacklustre performance.

Just as he was about to get into the car, he stopped, came over, and addressed us in Portugese. It was along the lines of - I'm talking with other world leaders - Sarkozy, Obama, Brown were all mentioned - because if Copenhagen is a failure it will be very bad. And then he took the football, bounced it a couple of times, chucked it back to us, got into his limo and left.

As it all wrapped up, his aide came and had her photo taken with us. "See you all in Copenhagen!" she grinned, and then she left as well. So, all in all, fair play to us, we put in a solid performance. No own goals, we held our own, and we didn't need to go to penalties. Let's hope that when it comes to the final in Copenhagen, we're on the same form.

Plus, we've now got a sweet corporate football kit. Wonder if anyone from WWF or Friends of the Earth fancies a game?