Copenhagen diary: Strange delegation and Mugabe seated next to the queen
Copenhagen diary: Strange delegation and Mugabe seated next to the queen
Day five: As numbers at the summit reach into the tens of thousands, small island states are left off the map
None of the 43 small island states has been included on the vast UN globe right outside the Bella Centre. Photograph: Christian Charisius/REUTERS
Copenhagen Hope-o-meter Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Conference hordes
The longest text floating around the COP15 meeting here on day five is the full list of people formally accredited to the summit. The figure is 30,123 but this does not include the 5,000-odd media, the business and financial conferences, or the hordes at the parallel alternative summit. The biggest government delegation? Brazil, by a mile, with over 1,000 people, followed by Denmark (800), the EC (400) and China 250. The US, surprisingly, has only 200 people, and the UK a discreet 70.
Staggering teams
At the other end of the scale, Vanuatu, Uzbekistan, and Syria have sent only two, Sao Tome three and the minute Pacific state of Niue has sent five. This sounds not many until you know it is nearly 3% of its total population. The biggest NGO delegation is Friends of the Earth International which has a staggering team of 600. This dwarfs Christian Aid with over 200, the WWF with 133. Whoever said NGOs were cutting back?
Strange delegates
One of the strangest delegations is from Papua New Guinea, the country leading the rush to getting a Redd forestry deal. The PM is coming, but also in the party of 60 are 10 media specialists, representatives of the World Bank and the UN, a security adviser, several lawyers and a swanky US business consultant. Even more strangely, our own dear fashionista Vivienne Westwood, as well as Bianca Jagger are included in the delegation. What these two femmes formidable bring to the negotiations is not clear yet.
Australia may foot huge climate change bill for China
Australia may foot huge climate change bill for China
- From: Sunday Herald Sun
- December 13, 2009
- India, China may force Australia to pay
- Minister says nation ready to contribute
- Breaking news: What’s happening now
AUSTRALIA faces having to make a hefty payout to help developing countries such as China and India cope with climate change in order to clinch a deal in Copenhagen.
Despite Australia facing a domestic Budget deficit of about $50 billion for the coming year, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told The Sunday Mail from Copenhagen that Australia would have to contribute to so-called climate “abatement” funds if India and China were to come into the climate-change tent.
“There are a range of figures flying around,” Senator Wong said. “(British Prime Minister) Gordon Brown has proposed a $100 billion mix of public and private money. We have not indicated a figure but we have indicated we’re prepared to do our fair share.”
Feeling sceptical about Copenhagen? Read This
satire ( New Matilda Com)
11 Dec 2009
Feeling Sceptical About Copenhagen? Read This
We know you still have lots of questions about the climate talks. We’ve tried to help. But there are some questions that can only be answered by Ben Pobjie …
It’s quite unnerving, knowing that somewhere on the other side of the world, a small group of complete strangers is gathering to decide the very future of the planet you live on. It happens but rarely — the Treaty of Versailles and the first table-read for Are You Being Served? being the only previous occasions I can summon to mind — but here it is, happening again with the Copenhagen climate talks.
The Physics of Copenhagen,Why Politics-as-usual May Mean the End of Civilization
The Physics of Copenhagen: Why Politics-As-Usual May Mean the End of Civilization
Posted Dec 7, 2009 by Bill McKibben
[Excerpt] Most political arguments don’t really have a right and a wrong, no matter how passionately they’re argued. They’re about human preferences — for more health care or lower taxes, for a war to secure some particular end or a peace that leaves some danger intact. On occasion, there are clear-cut moral issues: the rights of minorities or women to a full share in public life, say; but usually even those of us most passionate about human affairs recognize that we’re on one side of a debate, that there are legitimate arguments to the contrary (endless deficits, coat-hanger abortions, a resurgent al-Qaeda).
Pressure on PM to triple emission cuts as nations force his hand
Pressure on PM to triple emissions cuts as nations force his hand
- From: The Australian
- December 09, 2009
THE world’s biggest climate change conference has opened in Copenhagen with Kevin Rudd under immediate pressure to triple Australia’s unconditional emissions-reductions target.
Amid optimistic predictions of a successful political deal to reduce greenhouse emissions on the conference stage and entrenched divisions hampering negotiations behind the scenes, Australia was under intense pressure to commit to an emissions-reduction pledge of at least 15 per cent by 2020 — three times its unconditional target of 5 per cent.
968 arrests at Copenhagen rally
968 arrests at Copenhagen climate rally
- From: AFP
- December 13, 2009
POLICE have arrested almost 1000 people among the violent fringes of a mass rally in Copenhagen intended to put pressure on the UN climate summit to take stronger action.
Tens of thousands of people took part in the march overnight to the heavily guarded conference centre where world powers are struggling to hammer out a deal to combat global warming. Other rallies were held around the world from Australia to the Arctic Circle.
Most of the main Copenhagen rally was peaceful, but police moved in when hundreds of youths clad in black threw bricks and smashed windows. Riot police surrounded the troublemakers and made them sit on the ground with their hands behind their backs before being taken away on buses.