Climate negotiators meet in Bonn, Germany, today for the first time since the fractious Copenhagen summit, but there is little hope of forging a new legally binding United Nations deal before the end of this year. The Bonn meeting will lay out the process for a larger and more comprehensive meeting in June, which will [...]
Archive for the ‘Copenhagen’ Category
19 Dec
Good News From Copenhagen
Disaster avoided! The Copehagen Climate Change Summit drew to an uneasy close tonight with negotiators only able to secure a non-binding agreement between the developed and developing nations and avoiding economic costs in the trillions. President Obama said that a “fundamental deadlock in perspectives” had overshadowed the negotiations. He said that a climate deal had been [...]
19 Dec
“Copenhagen Accord” on the Rocks
While protestors attempt to storm the conference center in Copenhagen and Hugo Chavez takes the opportunity to call President Obama the “Devil”, climate talks are apparently breaking down. According to The Times, The Chinese delegation reacted negatively to a slight from President Obama in his speech to the conference on Thursday. The Chinese took offense [...]
18 Dec
President Obama Says ‘Time Running Out’ on Copenhagen
President Barack Obama told delegates at the United Nations climate change talks that he came to Copenhagen “not to talk, but to act.” He said it is time for “the nations of the world to come together behind a common purpose.” “While the science of climate change is not in doubt, I think our ability [...]
18 Dec
Copenhagen, Day 7
From Wednesday in Copenhagen… Wednesday saw various arrivals at the Copenhagen conference: some heads of state, some settling snow and a rising sense of despair. The conference was designed to ratchet up the pressure as it moved form the procedural to the substantive and from functionaries to heads of state. Now the bigwigs are here [...]
17 Dec
Copenhagen, Day 6
From Tuesday in Copenhagen… Inside, temperature and stasis are not a problem; things are simply slower. This is in part because more of the 15,000 people in the building now know each other than did so last week; they have what physicists would call an increased cross-section of interaction. Though such interactions may speed the [...]
15 Dec
Copenhagen, Weekend
From Sunday in Copenhagen… ON SUNDAY, they rested. No doubt informal talks continued all across Copenhagen, as did organised side events such as “Forest Day”, but the Bella Centre itself was shut, allowing a security sweep prior to the arrival, next week, of over 100 heads of government and state. Thus freed from the obligations [...]
15 Dec
Copenhagen, Day 5
From Friday in Copenhagen… …I’m leaked a text of a recent negotiating draft released by the chair of one of the two main negotiating tracks. It’s been leaked so widely that some journos think it has been officially released, and they complain to Yvo de Boer in the press conference that they’re not being given [...]
11 Dec
Copenhagen, Day 4
From Thursday in Copenhagen… Much of what NGOs do in Copenhagen is theatre. And it must be said, some of it is pretty decent. Every evening, the Climate Action Network and Avaaz.org present the “Fossil of the Day”. Presenters wear Oscar-style fancy dress, sing a little ditty, and give third-, second- and first-prize awards for [...]
10 Dec
Copenhagen Climate Accord Could Cost Trillions of Dollars
If a climate accord is reached in Copenhagen, there will be profound shifts in energy production, dislocations in how and where people live, sweeping changes in agriculture and forestry, and the creation of complex new markets in global warming pollution credits, according to an article in the New York Times. It could all cost trillions [...]
10 Dec
Copenhagen, Day 3
From Wednesday in Copenhagen… I spoke too soon about the plenaries being boring, and the convention being sharply run. Tuvalu’s delegate, Ian Fry, gives a speech calling fora new protocol that will limit climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius, not 2, the target of most negotiators. Mr Fry’s speech gets an unusually hearty round of [...]
9 Dec
Copenhagen, Day 2
From Tuesday in Copenhagen… …In theory, the plenary sessions of the COP should be its grand events. This is where the UNFCCC’s signatories, which include virtually every country in the world, join in a grand session to hammer out a treaty. But the plenaries are dull; for negotiation they are useless. A speaker has just [...]
8 Dec
‘Huge’ Carbon Footprint Expected at Copenhagen Conference
Nearly 17,000 delegates, activists, reporters and others with interest in climate change will descend on Copenhagen, Denmark, Monday for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The United Nations estimates that the 12-day conference will create 40,584 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, roughly the same amount as the carbon emissions of Morocco in 2006. The greenhouse [...]
7 Dec
Copenhagen, Day 1
The magazine, The Economist has some interesting coverage of the Copenhagen Climate Conference. A correspondent for the publication is maintaining a daily diary of the events at the conference and it makes for some humorous reading. From the opening session on Monday… I am not so confident this week will be paradise. It begins with [...]
Shawn Martini
Chad Vorthmann
Rachel Vermillion
Garin Vorthmann
Crystal Korrey
Troy B
El Sagehorn
Brent Boydston
