Insomnia finally solved (a bit - six hours of sleep), but still working at night at my real job and figuring out how to find real food here. The food at Bella Center is Danish food. Need I say more? I am going to try something different because coffee and Coke and fruit and Snickers is not always the food of champions. Especially after three days.
The technology support here is amazing. There are several very large computer rooms that are available to delegates and they even have stations set up for Skype (which cracks me up since I have been resisting using it). So for day 3, dumped the laptop; especially after my converter broke. My thoughts though, as this is a conference on climate change after all, is how much electricity does it take to power these huge computer stations? Or the bajillion laptops in sessions being held here? If nothing else though, it is clear that the internet age has been achieved and Dell is doing well at this conference!
I will begin to answer the question that several of my readers asked early on - is this Conference anything like Model UN? I will elaborate further, but the short answer is yes, incredibly similar. The only real difference is the volume of people and strong presence of NGOs and media. But more on that later.
The media has been doing a great job of coverage. The NY Times and Christian Science Monitor really have been spot on. So if you have a need for additional background, I really would direct you to their stories.
For Day 2, I attended the SBI Plenary and heard a great deal of statements on ongoing concerns about duplication and overlap of agenda tasks between the multiple tracks. Also the ongoing sentiment in the SBI was that capacity building and education generally have not been as robust as possible. Partially, this is due to the lack of up to date communications by Annex I countries on what they have done to date and how. They also noted that lack of financing is to blame. Technology transfer and the lack thereof is another ongoing concern. In all, I think the lack of Kyoto compliance is coming to bear at the conference and may flavor ongoing debates for the KP and SBI tracks.
The delegation caucuses are well established here. Normal groups like G77, Least Developed Countries, the African Block, EU, etc. But fun new names like the Umbrella Group (Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Ukraine and the USA) and the Environmental Integrity Group (Mexico, South Korea and Switzerland).
Interesting notes from press briefings - CAN-Europe noted that the EU actually can do more financially with their commitments as emission reductions have made certain compliance items cheaper and the financial strength of the Euro has grown. Others noted that the continuing rhetoric that nothing can be accomplished at this COP has been done before. "We were told no agreement could be achieved at Montreal in 2005. Told that Bali's road map would be impossible. We have two weeks and this is the first time that heads of states will be attending. If we can come to an agreement, lawyers can turn that into text," noted Steven Guilbeault of Equitterre.
Most depressing press conference I have attended in a very long time: UNEP and IPCC's update on AR5.
According to science models and data sets using over 24,000 studies, with climate staying where it is today (no change), AR5 work has found:
- Arctic ice will be gone between 2030-2050.
- By 2090, most of the world will experience 4-5 degree C increases with arctic regions up to 7 degrees.
- Stand at 387 ppm today which is 29 percent higher than it has been in 800,000 years
- There is thinning of ice in Greenland and Antarctica but some new build up that they wish to study further
- At zero emisisons starting in 2020, sea level will still rice
- With geoengenerring activities, they still cannot make the ocean acidification go away and any efforts would quickly be undermined with the geoengineering not continuing
But here is a great quote from Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, when asked about Saudi Arabia's use of the email/hack situation to question the scientific validity of climate change: "I would have been concerned if they didn't bring it up. Oil and politics mix well; I am not as sure if oil and science mixes well."
Fossil of the Day Awards, brought to you by CAN.
I really enjoy these I have to say and had the theme song in my head all last night!
- Third place went to the Ukraine for their lack of transparency of what carbon offset profits will be used for, as mandated by the Kyoto Protocol. Over 300 million euros has come in from Japan in offsets; Ukraine has been silent on where the cash has gone. The issue will now go to the courts.
- Second place went to the Umbrella Group for proposing that carbon capture and storage should qualify as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project. As described by Wiki (oh Jen, no!) CDM is a Kyoto project that allows countries "to invest in ventures that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries. A crucial feature of an approved CDM carbon project is that it has established that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reductions credits, a concept known as "additionality"."
- Third place went to Ukraine again, but this time for having the words emission target of 20%over 1990 levels. Due to emissions reductions in the country since 1990, that would mean actually a 75% increase in current Ukrainian emissions. They do math like I do!
