As politicians, delegates, and activists arrived in Copenhagen yesterday, they were greeted with melting polar bear ice sculptures, giant spinning globes highlighting recent climate disasters, and large billboards of an unflatteringly digitally aged Obama from the year 2020 that reads: "We could have stopped catastrophic climate change…we didn't."
While many in the US still doubt the very existence of man made climate change thanks to a stunningly successful PR campaign by the the fossil fuel industry, Copenhagen is taking it seriously with negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference focusing on how to mitigate it and adapt as thoroughly and quickly as possible. Those negotiations hit a snag yesterday as word got out of a draft climate agreement that would place a large share of the carbon emission burden on developing nations. The Guardian reports that the draft agreement would:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Delegates from developing countries who have seen the draft were pissed off.
Meanwhile, outside the conference activists are busy preparing for a week of major protests highlighting the fact that world leaders are no closer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions than when international negotiations began fifteen years ago. During those years, greenhouse gas emissions have risen faster than ever while attempts at carbon trading has allowed the biggest polluters to buy the right to destroy the environment at the expense of those most vulnerable to climate change.
Meanwhile, in the Christiania Freetown, a semi-autonomous neighborhood to the north of downtown Copenhagen, an alternative climate forum is being held in a big blue circus tent just half a block away from an open air hash and marijuana market. This climate forum, called the "Climate Bottom Meeting" tackles the climate change issue from the ground up with workshops on sustainable cities, eco-village initiatives, and radical non-profit oriented solutions to the environmental and economic crisis. Check it out here.
In other news, Danish sex workers have offered their services to stressed out UN climate negotiators for free during the length of the conference as a protest against discrimination by Copenhagen City Hall. At least there's that.
More updates from Copenhagen tomorrow.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2009.