How old will you be in 2050?

Today is the Youth & Future Generations Day. Youngsters from all over the globe distributed orange scarfs & tshirt at the entrance to the Bella Center. So it's quite fun to see so many participants and delegateas wearing a shirt with "How old you in 2050?" The goal of the current climate summit should be a legally binding treaty stating emission reductions to be reduced by 80% until the year 2050. I'll be 65 then and - hopefully - retired sipping cozily a nice bottle of chateauneuf du pape ;) More than a thousand youth delegates travelled to copenhagen and it's purely amazing what they organized -> today they will have a meeting with Yvo de Boer - secretary general of the UNFCCC.  The saying on my scarf b.t.w. is "survival is not negotiable".

The floor is open!

The speed and intensity of debates drastically increased since the unfolding of the "Danish Text". The text corresponds to the recent movement of the developed countries, notably the US and the EU, towards a break of the bondage between the climate convention UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocoll. The press conference by the G77 Group (more than 130 states) & China gives a very good insight into the current negotiations:

http://www2.cop15.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/cop15/templ/play.php?id_kongressmain=1&theme=unfccc&id_kongresssession=2356 

Where are the negotiations going to - what about the 2° C target?

Can the current pledges of the parties to the UNFCCC achieve that the increase in global mean temperature stays below 2° C? What does it mean if China states that they envisage a reduction of emission in the order of 40-45% in emissions per Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? Frankly, it doesn't mean much to me. During a talk this afternoon, a group of scientists introduced a new and fancy tool to translate the countries' pledges in emission reductions to the global mean temperature increase. The current result is not very comforting. The website (http://www.climateactiontracker.org/) states 

"Copenhagen Deal headed for 3.5 °C"

Hopefully it will change during these two weeks

You think the climate business is a circus? You can visit it!

Policy-makers, stakeholders and scientists talk about greenhouse gases, emission reductions, emission targets, offsetting, and emission trading. Do you think this is similar to circus once a while? Then visit http://www.climatecircus.com/

On this website, you can see what the climate policies of your own country are and actually mean in terms of reducing the carbon emission. I'm sure you haven't seen yet Angela Merkel on a unicycle ...

Buuuuuh, it's hot in here!

Two parallel lifes are being lived in the Bella Center: on the one hand, there are very formal sessions of the official delegations (if you'd like to have a look at a sessesion agenda with its astonishing amount of abbreviations and acronyms, visit http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_15/conference_programme/daily_programme/items/5068.php). On the other hand, the NGOs from all over the world make this conference a very spontaneous and colourful place. And they know exactly how they can catch you. Two days ago I found myself looking for the 100th time at the map of the conference center, when a bunch of bluely dressed australian young folks suddenly dragged me along and taught we quickly a song and a dance. I thought a flashmob is possible places like Liverpool Station, but now there was one going on among the delegates and government representatives (some of them even joined). The lyrics were quite catchy and easy to learn. So the following lines were being sung in a pretty loud voice at the very core of the Bella Center: 

"Buuuuuh, it's hot in here, there's too much carbon in the atmosphere, take action, take action, and get some satisfaction ... " 

This short event with its clear message shouted at the very end clearly showed the direction the civil society wants the negatioations to go: 

"NO MORE DELAY - CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW!"

The infamous "Danish Text"

Allmost every conference-based newspaper this morning covered the story of the unfolding of the secret about the "Danish Text". ECO (http://www.climatenetwork.org/eco) states that the text is "neither fair, nor ambitous". One of the main points for the developing countries at this conference is the need for a framework ensuring financial and technological transfers to developing countries. The NGOs here at the Bella Center are convinced that the Danish Text lacks of this sort of transfer. The story was disappointing for many observers and participants since it represents the opposite of what Connie Hedegaard said in her opening speech: "I will listen and I will be transparent".

COP15 at a glance - what is the climate conference all about? PART II

Enter: Kyoto Protocol. In 1997, the delegates met in Kyoto to work on the Kyoto Protocol - a worldwide framework to reduce carbon emissions. It is interesting to have a look a the timeframe of the conference outcomes: the delegates agreed on a average emission reduction of 5% with respect to the year 1990 during the FIRST period. This period refers to the years 2008-2012.

What the delegations in Copenhagen actually try to agree on - and this is daily emphasized by the developing countries at the conference - as a climate treaty for the SECOND period of the Kyoto Protocol, starting in 2013. The term "Post-Kyoto Era" which can often be seen in the media, is therefore somewhat confusing. 

All sorts of NGO, Institutes, Environmental Center and civil society are therefore calling for concrete and ambitious emission reduction targets within the two-sided approach:

i) within the UNFCCC framework, by stating that we should not interfer with our climate system

ii) withing the Kyoto Protocol (KP), by agreeing on concrete emission reduction targets for the second KP period

COP15 at a glance - what is the climate conference all about? PART I

Sitting in the night train from Basel to Copenhagen - a 17 hours ride in a train with very thin walls and very strong light bulbs - I tried to get ready for this climate summit by reading the guide to the COP15 by the "World Student Community for Sustainable Development" (http://cop15.wscsd.org/primer/) and the Primer of the South Centre (http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1131&Itemid=1). What follows are shortly the key points of the conference, its basic task and some of the abbrevations used in the media.

The fact that the intense emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2 changes the Earth's Climate has been noted allready in the 1980s. This notion let in 1992 to the first climate summit in Rio: the famous Earth Summit. In Rio, the head of states came up with the famous "United Framework Convention on Climate Change", or short the UNFCCC. 192 countries have ratified convention. It is essential to understand, that within this convention, the countries are grouped in three categories

-> Annex 1 Countries: Industrialized countries

-> Annex 2 Countries: Less wealthy developed countries agreeing to pay for some of the costs arising in developed nations due to the emission reductions

-> Non-Annex 1 Countries. Developing nations

So far so good. But this convention was not able to change the fossil fuel burning attitude of the large carbon emitters. The world needed something concrete, a treaty or a framework to actual emission reductions.

Do you have a couple of minutes off ? Learn something about how Cap & Trade works

The figures and numbers about emission reductions, be it in percent or the amount of gigatonnes carbon, are sometimes hard to understand.  The system of Cap & Trade was introduced in the Kyoto Protocoll in 1997 as a so-called "flexible mechanism" to tackle climate change and to put the idea of emission reductions in a formal framework.

There is a nice animation from the producers of "stuff" explaining the functioning of the Cap & Trade. So if you have a couple of minutes off, visit the website http://storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/ and learn how the mechanisms proposed by global policy works to reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Fossil of the Day

CAN International, together with Avaaz.org, awards every night at 6 p.m. the "Fossil of the Day" to those countries having blocked the negotiations at that particular day. Yesterday, the Ukraine was on the third and also on the first place - as far as I known an unprecedented success for Ukraine. Quoting the website http://www.fossil-of-the-day.org/, "Ukraine wins the first place for having the single worst carbon emissions reduction target in the world: a -20% reduction from 1990 levels ... which means a 75% increase from current levels".

The Fossil of the Day is a very prestigious award and the goblet - hidden in fossil layers in the Earth's crust - can only be brought to light by a mermaid. Keep updated in the winners, it gives a nice insight into the way carbon targets and semantics of the negotiations work.

Lost at COP15 - Where can I get information?

With about 25'ooo participants at the COP15 in the Bella Center (the Conference Center in Copenhagen), your hands and your head is allready filled with flyers, events, newspapers and information before you can even get your good-morning-coffee. By the way, an official number of participants was not available when I asked the lady at the information counter.

The first address in the morning is the officiall website of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (that's where the 3 C's in the abbreviation UNFCCC comes from): http://unfccc.int . The daily program is also available at this website http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_15/conference_programme/daily_programme/items/5068.php . 

Many NGOs and Insitute issue their own newspaper every morning to keep the participants updated. You can check out the ECO magazine from the CAN (Climate Action Network) http://blogs.climatenetwork.org/ or the the Special Report on Selected Side Events at the COP15 by the International Institute for Sustainable Development: http://www.iisd.ca/climate/cop15/enbots

Manga Hilsner,

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