Reflections on Copenhagen

Well in the late hours of last night the leaders finally came to an "agreement" that basically says a whole lot of nothing. It's hard to come away from here thinking that the conference was anything other than a failure.

It was very striking to me when I spoke to people and they found out I was from Canada. In the past when I've traveled abroad I've never heard anything but good things when people find out I'm Canadian, here it was a mark of shame. All week I heard variations on the phrase, "why isn't Canada doing anything to fix climate change, I though you guys cared?". Over and over I had to explain that most of us did care, but the problem was our Prime Minister didn't.

Canada also received the title of Colossal Fossil for receiving the most fossil awards throughout the conference. Here's a photo I took of the Fossil of the Day leaders board on my last day in the Bella Centre (Wednesday):

As far as the conference went, I have to leave disappointed in the UN's organization and communication skills. The fact that they changed their minds on who would get in the Bella Centre for the last two important days on the Friday of the first week of the conference was ridiculous. If I (and many others) had known they were going to do that we would have arrived earlier and not even stayed for the last two days as we could have followed it just as well from home. The fact that the UN constantly talks about the importance of the involvement of civil society and then restricted access of NGOs as much as they possibly could was atrocious. There was a gentleman who worked for the UN staying at the same bed and breakfast as me and he couldn't believe how they treated those of us from NGOs either. He told me how in the hall where the negotiations were taking place (that NGOs weren't allowed into to observe) there was a table with a sign saying it was for NGOs with only two seats, and those were empty because we were bared from the room. It's something I wish I had a photo of.

Finally, if you ever get the chance to visit the city of Copenhagen I recommend it. Besides being a beautiful city it has a public transit system you really have to experience to fully understand what we're missing out on here in Canada. The metro runs 24-7, and even in the middle of the night I never waited more than 6 minutes for a train. Most buses run from 5am to 1am, though some on major routes run 24 hours, and their trains run from 5am to 3am. Also, over half the city uses bikes as their main mode of transportation, and there's bike lanes on literally every road vs Toronto where people scream and cry when you even suggest adding bike lanes. It is certainly worth seeing as a model for some of the things we should be implementing if we really want to get serious about tackling climate change.

Disaster in Copenhagen

We've spend the day watching the live feed of negotiations from the Bella Center, and unless there is a big change in the next few hours then we will end up with a document that basically says everyone realizes that climate change is an important issue but no one is actually willing to do something about it.

Politicians are too busy being lazy and trying to commit to as little as possible instead of listening to the recommendations of the scientists and being bold enough to at least try for a 40% reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. Or if they really want to use 2005 as the base level have a percentage of reductions that matches that amount knowing that it will be something like 90%.

Instead we are currently on track for a 3-degree increase in the temperature of the earth that doens't matter to any of the leaders because they will all be dead by the time the fallout from climate change becomes obvious. Instead my generation and my childrens generation will be the one's who have to bear the brunt of climate change devastation. Many youth groups have been wearing t-shirts that read "How old will you be in 2050?" which are particularly poignant now we have been given an agreement that says nothing.

Everyone had hoped for not only actual action in Copenhagen but serious targets. Instead we are left with what is basically the worst outcome.

Live From Copenhagen Archive

Since today is a slow day for me, I decided to create a list of all my post from Copenhagen in one spot in case you've missed a post and are interested in following my coverage. I'll update this list with any posts I make after this point.

In chronological order:

Live From Copenhagen
A Failure in Organisation
Live From the Bella Center
CNN and YouTube Debate
Recap of Day Two
Green Growth and Green Jobs,
Gender and Climate Change,
Climate Summit of Mayors,
Clean Energy and Climate Action: A North American Collaboration
Recap of Day Three
Disaster in Copenhagen
Reflections on Copenhagen

Recap of Day Three

Well my day today again started fairly early with a line up at 7:30 to get into the Bella Center, fortunately today the line actually moved so I was in after about 30/40 minutes. If you got in with an NGO then you didn't have access to as much of the Bella Center as in previous days as the section of the main hall near the negotiating room had been blocked off with curtains so you couldn't even see anything down there.

Speaking of being barred entrance to places, all of the countries have these little delegate centers that are basically boxes with doors where they coordinate and do press conferences. Most countries have the door open and are happy to talk to anyone who is here from their country, Holland invites everyone in and serves all the delegates who are at noon lunch. However if you go by the Canadian one the door is shut and they don't even like you standing in the area by their door unless you are press and they are giving a press conference.

I spent most of the day attending seminars (Green Growth and Green Jobs, Gender and Climate Change, Climate Summit of Mayors, Clean Energy and Climate Action: A North American Collaboration), and between seminars watching some of the leaders speeches which were being broadcast on TVs around the Bella Center. Most of them seemed to have similar themes of action is needed, acting for future generations, and creating a system that made it fair do to whatever their specific concern(s) were.

I also had an opportunity at different time during the day to meet and chat very breifly with Jack Layton, Oliva Chow, Elizabeth May and Jean Charest. David McGunity also stopped by the tables we were using as our central meeting place to speak with us for a while.

Tomorrow I won't be in the Bella Center as all NGOs are basically banned for the last two days, I think there's something ridiculous like 90 passes being given to NGOs so they can actually get in. Today there were a lot of people from NGOs protesting not being let in tomorrow and Friday the restricted access from today and yesterday that only let a third of individuals who were here with NGOs in. For example, for the entire IFLRY delegation of 100 people we got 24 secondary passes that would let people in on Tuesday and Wednesday. The protests were very unhelpful because as soon as they started it meant that they stopped letting anyone from any NGO in so we couldn't even switch passes with someone else so they could be there in the afternoon after we'd been there in the morning. It may also cause problems for NGOs who want to attend future COPs.

Clean Energy and Climate Action: A North American Collaboration

This panel is hosted by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Pembina Institute.

Guest Speaker are:

Jean Charest

Greg Selinger

Shalini Vajjhala (Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of International Affairs, US Environment Protection Agency)

Gabriel Quadri (Director, EcoSecurities, Mexico and Central America)

6:26 - Charest starts off talking about how the sub-national governments are the one's that will be responsible for a lot of the implementation and how the municipalities and provinces are already moving and if we wait for higher levels of government to act very little will happen.

6:30 - Quebec has adopted the California emissions standards for vehicles, he is glad to see the change in the US administration on this issue

6:34 – Charest wraps up his remarks, now it’s Gabriel Quadri’s turn. Who starts off with the 3 most concerning sectors in Mexico.

6:37 – In Mexico the most important sector, and fastest growing sector is transportation, by 2020 it should make up about a third of our emissions if it continues at the current rate of growth

6:40 – The second largest concern is electricity, and energy use and the third issue is deforestation, which is different then US and Canada

6:42 – Unfortunately in Mexico there is a gas and oil subsidy, an obscene subsidy because of its size in his words

6:46 – Greg Selinger starts off by stating that 60% of Manitoba’s hydro electricity is sold to the US, and that is something that they need to examine as it’s clearly a huge issue.

6:48 – We’re currently under a lot of pressure to start changing things before we pass the tipping point.

6:49 – Pursuing UNESCO world heritage designation for some of the Boreal forest to help preserve them

6:51 – We need a smart grid for keeping track of energy, to allow for energy savings and to allow access for green energies such as wind and solar

6:54 – Also need to be pursing cap and trade

6:56 – Now it’s Shalini Vajjhala’s turn. Federal US government was taken to the Supreme Court by the States for action on climate change. The Supreme Court ruled that CO2 was an endangerment to the public. The endangerment label is good because it has allowed them to start pushing for change.

6:59 – Moving towards creating a GHG emission registry, which makes public the emission that come from different facilities

7: 02 – a number of things that state and local government can bring to these negotiation. 1) helps bring specificity to international negotiations, the negotiated documents are as broad as possible 2) transparency, not required but fundamental so that people see that it is working and that their money is spent well 3) coordination, depends on working together because we are depending on our networks, electricity systems, water systems, etc.

7:08 - we've now wrapped up and moved on to Q&A

7:12 - first question is on federal governments role vs. sub-national governments role, are the federal governments needed? Charest takes the question and starts talking about all the deals Hydro Quebec has been making, and all the stuff Quebec in general has been doing (it's a long list and I would probably miss things) then says the federal government has nothing to do with it. However he ads that the federal government are the best ones to implement things like a carbon tax.

7:14 - Vajjhala says role for both, depends on the specific project

7:15 - Selinger: role for federal government to facilitate things like moving energy east-west, right now it's easier for them to move energy south. Basically feds need to provide enabling legislation/resources and provinces and municipalities are the one's who actually implement things.

7:20 - Question on water conservation and water protocol that is way to long and complicated to reproduce, it's basically on aquifers.

7:24 - Charest: Quebec uses watersheds, they're better. Water sharing is a long-standing issue between Canada and US, and there is a real anxiety in Canada who are worried about the Americans putting in a pipe and taking all our water.

7:27 - Vajjhala has no idea how to pick up after the comment on the US making a big pipe to take water "this is a concern that we've never heard before", she and Charest are having a laugh about it.

7:28 - Quadri "does this big pipe extend to Mexico?". The answer to the longest question ever is turning out to have very little to do with the question.

7:29 - Cooperation on water issues is very important, especially now climate change is becoming so important.

7:34 - And we're out of time so that's a wrap.

Climate Summit of Mayors

3:00 - well this room is standing room only, the speakers are:
Ritt Rjerregaar (Lord Mayor of Copenhagen)
Amos Masondo (Johannesburg)
Rakesh Mehta (Delhi)
Robert Doyle (Melbourne)
Marcelo Ebrard (Mexico City)
Antoni Villaraigosa (LA)
Barbel Dieckmann (Chair of World Mayors)
Bertrand Delanoe (Paris)

I'm going to apologize in advance, I'm in the back corner so I can't see the name plates of whoever's speaking, so I wont always be able to attribute statements.
Update from after the fact: Big thanks to the lady who was sitting beside me who was able to keep track of the mayors and tell me who was talking, this was especially helpful as the list we were given at the beginning didn't exactly match up to who ended up speaking.

3:03 - Mayors are committing to a reduction of 30-40% by 2020 and they think if they can do it then countries can certainly do it

3:05 - If things continue how they are, then we will see cities that will be/have to be eliminated because of climate change

3:06 - A lot of the solutions for climate change is city oriented, recycling, public transit, infrastructure for electric cars, etc. It is also an easier environment to pull people together because they live close to one another and can work cohesively.

3:15 - "do you think that if we can bail out the auto companies the insurance companies and the banks we can find the 100 billion dollars per year we need to save the planet?"

3:18 - Mayor of Melbourne talking about the fires that raged through his state that got earlier this year and while that got world news coverage the week that proceeded it did not. The temperature was so hot for that week that building systems failed, public transport systems failed, etc.

3:21 - Don't worry about what they sign at the end of the week, because they will sign something, but we are already doing what they are talking about (Mayor of Melbourne)

3:23 - (Mayor of Johannesburg) More resources need to be available at the local level because action has to happen at the local level. This fight will be won or lost depending on what happens at the local level.

3:26 - (Mayor of Seattle - Greg Nicolas) Climate change is a local issue

3:27 - (Mayor of Seattle) Assumed that it was a federal issue and that someone was already dealing with it. Then in 2005 when there was no snow in the winter they had no water in the summer because they depend on the snow on the mountain for water. He realized that it was a problem because the US government hadn't signed onto Kyoto, that's why his city signed on. Now 1016 US cities are signed on Kyoto.

3:30 - "We made it safe for the current congress and president to take this issue up seriously" Mayor of Seattle on the 1016 cities that signed onto Kyoto

3:31 - (Mayor of Delhi) Cities create carbon footprints and therefore have to deal with that. Many cites have already taken up this challenge.

3:32 - (Mayor of Delhi) Challenge in front of us in in terms of transportation, air quality, etc.

3:35 - "The challenge in front of us is how do we sell this to communities, especially the poorer communities" Mayor of Delhi, mentions specifically the challenge of getting people to conserve energy and use public transportation

3: 39 - "Without local governments there will be no solution to climate change" Chair of World Mayors

3:41 - (Chair of World Mayors) Hopes that references to the importance of local governments in the current draft will remain in the final draft

3:48 - "We are not discussing the differences between boarders, counties, states, we are discussing the future of the global community" Mayor of Mexico City

3:49 - (Mayor of Mexico City) Local governments need to be involved in the negotiations because they are discussing things that cities are already doing

3:50 - (Mayor of Nantes) Cities are at the heart of the problem, but also at the heart of the solutions. We know that countries will not meet their climate change goals without the cities.

3:54 - "If cites are empowered and given the right resources then we deliver on our commitments" Mayor of Nantes

Gender and Climate Change

Early this afternoon Iceland hosted an interesting session on gender and climate change. The basic thesis of it is that women must be included at the group at the table at all levels because women have different experiences with climate change. Their argument is this is because women make up the largest section of the worlds poor, and climate change will effect things like agriculture and water among other things which are of pivotal importance to those women.

The first presenter is from Ghana, to explain their approach to including women in climate change discussions. In Ghana 70% of agriculture is produced by women and 53% of fish provided by women. Meaning any changes in these sectors has a huge impact on women aside from the obvious impact it has on the economy. They also have women's groups who have taken responsibility for restoring and conserving forests.

An interesting point the presenter made was that women are the one's in the best position to help with population control. One of the concerns here this week has been the impact of the worlds ever-growing population on climate change.

She concluded by saying that if these negotiations were being conducted by women that the deal would have been done already. It got a big laugh from the room, and goes back to the idea that the involvement of women in politics would make the whole process run more smoothly. I'm still not sure if I completely buy into that idea.

The second presenter was male and also from Ghana. He was a government official and went through the different committees they have on climate change, from communications to reforestation/forest restoration to agriculture, etc. and how they ensured that there was equal representation of men and women. Also, a number of committees have women as their president, and any with a male president have a women as a vice president (and visa-versa). Apparently a key member of their negotiating team is their female vice-president who has been at COP-15 since the kick off last week. He concluded by making the point that they are working to increase the number of women on their negotiation team for future COP meetings. It's very interesting to hear all the effort they are going into to get a 50/50 male/female split as much as possible when in Canada it's a big deal that the Liberals are only ensuring that 33% of their candidates are women.

The final presenter was from an organization that deals with gender equality and women in climate change with a really long name that I didn't entirely catch. She spent a while talking about how women are negatively effected by natural disaster, with examples, before stating that unfortunately women are often the ones with the solutions on climate change but are less likely to be involved in working on the solutions. She then touched on the same issue that the first presenter did regarding population control and women's role in that, also pushing the important tie between that issue and educating women.

At the moment gender equity has been included on the (very long) draft document that is currently being negotiated. It will be very interesting to see if that makes it into the final agreed-on document.

Before the Q&A session started the general conclusion was given that gender equality and women's involvement with climate change matters go hand-in-hand. It's certainly a very interesting point, and overall a very interesting session, though I think it is more applicable to African and other third-world nations than developed countries.

Green Growth and Green Jobs

While the media’s focus is on the negotiations, a lot of the conference here is about presentations from governments and NGOs on many different environmentally friendly things that have worked when they have been implemented.

This morning I attended a seminar put on by the Austrian government who have over the past 10 years been investing in the green technology sector.

The panellists were:

- Isabelle Pilmon (Austrian Chamber of Commerce)

- Mauel Graf (Global 2000, Austria)

- Gernot Wagner (EDF, New York)

The presentation started off with a brief overview from an Austrian government official; in 2008 there were 5% employed in the environmental technology sector. The growth rate in the green sector has grown 12% over the past couple of years, despite the recession. The plan right now is to have 20% working in green tech sector by 2020 and they are currently on track for that.

An example of the importance of the investments in the green tech sector can be seen in the town of Guessing, which has had a biomass power plant since 2001 and is now 100% energy-autonomous. This has lead to a substantial number of green jobs and also created eco tourism.

From Isabelle Pilmon’s presentation:

This sector has had increasing has linear growth in the demand for the environmental technology, and also in investment. The green tech sector currently makes up 4% of the Austrian GDP. This is expected to continue increasing rather rapidly as there is also an every emerging market for this technology. Especially as the more the world looks at reducing carbon emissions the bigger the demand for this market will become, and it will become a big part of the economy if countries do seriously address the issue of climate change.

From Mauel Graf’s presentation:

Since developed countries should be aiming to reduce GHG emissions 40% by 2020 that will create incredible growth in the green tech sector. By investing in the green tech sector not only will we meet our environmental targets but it will create 250,000 to 750,000 jobs by 2020. Also, the creation of the new jobs in renewable energy will be 7 time higher than the loss of jobs in the Coal and Nuclear Industry. However there needs to be subsidies to get the market started off, and we should be removing the subsidies from oil and gas companies and transferring them to the green tech sector.

From Gernot Wagner’s presentation:

We can’t sell the green tech sector by talking about climate change, we have to sell the sector by selling the idea of more jobs. This should be an easy sell given that we’re currently in a recession. For example, at the moment all the windmills are currently manufactured from steel in China instead of using already existing steel miss in North America that have being shut down during the recession. Also, businesses innovate all the time and we should be directing that innovation into the green tech sector, and maybe get fossil fuel companies to start thinking of themselves as energy companies. Finally it has been shown over and over in many different countries and in California that implementing a cap and trade program, or even starting the process of introducing the legislation for it has been shown to create an incredible jump in the number of green jobs.

Recap of Day Two

Well after queuing at the Bella Center starting at 4:30 this morning for when registration opened at 8 (I wasn't even the first one in line) I did make it in today just before 9. While we can't get in to watch the negotiations taking place there are a lot of side events put on by NGOs and different countries involving discussions of any issue related to climate change you could possibly imagine.

While I did spend most of the day at those sessions I also attended at debate on climate change hosted by CNN and YouTube, the official version of which you can now find on YouTube. Given the problems when I attempted to liveblog it on my BlackBerry I will be bringing my computer tomorrow so I will actually be able to liveblog things.

I also had an opportunity to spend a while chatting with Bloc environment critic, Bernard Bigras, about if there's the political will in Canada to do anything on climate change, the challenge of selling environmental policies to a public that says it wants action on climate change but doesn't want to pay for it, and what our approach should be on the tar sands. It was a very interesting, non-partisan discussion.

The welcoming ceremony for the world leaders and Ministers was also tonight. Among the key-note speakers was Ban Ki-moon, Connie Hedegaard (president of COP-15 and Danish environment minister, Prince Charles, Yvo De Boer, and the Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

I will be back at the Bella Center tomorrow for what will probably be the last day that NGOs are allowed to enter, so look for updates then.

CNN + You Tube Debate

As one of the side events here at COP-15 CNN is hosting what they're calling a You Tube debate. It will be starting momentarily and I will be liveblogging it then.

Alright, massive problems with live blogging on the BB so here it is with edits all in one post.

2:00 - apparently these questions have been submitted on you tube over the past few month

2:03 - Now I shall butcher the spelling of the names of our panelists Evan Bur (UN environment working group) Darrel Hanna (actress, environmentalist) Thomas Friedman (new york times) Bion Lonburg (skeptic)

2:07 - are the world leaders serious about dealing with climate change?
EB- they're recognizing that its important given interest in it but still a question of how committed they actually are

2:09 - climategate question, should we actually do something if the issue doesn't actually exist?
TF acting on climate change is like buying insurance, acting in case anything happens

2:15 - will countries be punished if they don't meet their kyoto targets?
EV - moral policing, governments being held accountable by the ppl DH - should be legal mechansim TF - should treat it like a race

2:21 - Kofi Annan (sp?) via satellite to respond to a couple of videos

2:25 - does Africa have a loud enough voice on the climate change issue?
Short answer is no, suggests that all the poor countries need to band together on the climate change issue as they are all vulnerable.
Follow up from host: is Africa to do enough to help itself?
Some are, gives examples.
DH - everyone needs to do their part and be conscious of their own emissions

2:30 - irradiation and poverty seem to go hand in hand are ppl acting on both?
Political will is not yet there, need transfer of green technology. Aid money can't be replaced by climate change subsidies.

2:33 - Annan is now off and we're back to asking questions of the panel

2:37 - Is human selfishness stopping us from actually takling climate change and what do we do about that?
TF - give incentives for acting on climate change
DH - americans consumers need to learn to be producers to drive the issue
BL - people won't go for anything that involves paying more
EB - its a process, it won't happen over night

2:42 - why are taxes the answer, and why do we have to pay those?
TF - gas price driven by gas companies so would rather have tax that goes to thing we want to invest in
EB - tax will have too much backlash, poluters need to pay, cap and trade better

2:51 - what decision can we make in our everyday lives to protect the environment?
DH - get off fossil fuels if at all possible

2:54 - now we have a guy dressed as a pirate asking about why these conferences are restricted to leaders where ppl can't have their voices heard?
TF - people actually need to show they actually really care
BL - people have bigger concerns than the climate
Now we're talking over one another

3:04 - kid wanting to know what we're going to leave his generation?
EV - hopefully not a runaway problem out of control

3:05 - q from audience on population control
TF - need to make sure all people have access to family planning

3:07 - are you optimistic that it will actually happen?
EB- yes
LB- only if we tackle this in a different way than we have been