In from the Cold

I've finally got back in to the Bella Center. I waited for two hours this morning before being moved on - it was snowing and absolutely freezing. People from a Polish Radio station even interviewed me (I must have looked very cold!), but thankfully the Danish army was on hand with hot coffee. The UN has issued secondary passes to limit the number of observers during the last few days. Today, we're sharing a pass between four people, tomorrow there will be even more restrictions and on Friday only 90 people from ALL Non Governmental Organizations will be allowed in!

So on Thursday and Friday I won't be inside the conference, but will watch the live feed on the internet. You should watch too!

There is lots of talk of a big demonstration today so there are police everywhere outside the Bella Center - I know that lots of NGOs are planning on walking out to protest the lack of observer passes, and there are rumours that some groups are going to try to break in to the center.

Yesterday I saw a great speech by Rajendra Pachauri at Copenhagen University (that's two Nobel peace prize winners in 2 days!). He was really impressive and presented his information clearly - but there were lots of climate change deniers present. Lord Monkton (a former Thatcher adviser who sits in the House of Lords) stood up and accused Dr Pachauri of a massive global conspiracy! things got pretty heated - and it was really interesting to see how passionately some people oppose efforts to combat climate change. In the UK, the press treat climate change in a relatively sensible way, but in the USA the media coverage can be far more negative.

I also managed to see a talk by the US delegation - Republicans and Democrats on the panel both agreed that the Climate Change debate is unfairly influenced the media by a vocal minority on the right who want to derail efforts to the talks. What I don't understand is why moderate republicans don't get together for a joint press statement and say that people on the radical right are telling massive untruths which are harming negotiations.

On Monday there was a surprise announcement from Canada that they were going to make big cuts in their carbon emissions - everyone was a bit shocked. Sadly, it turns out that it was a hoax (they fooled the Washington Post) by 'The Yes Men' - a group who have made lots of false, but hopeful, statements on the behalf of polluting companies in the past. Take a look at some of their videos on Youtube .

I heard (though I wasn't able to get in) that there was a big meeting of world Mayors yesterday and Boris Johnson was there - one of my friends managed to get in to see Arnold Schwarzenegger who is here for a big meeting of Governors. World leaders started arriving yesterday - hopefully they will help speed up negotiations so that there will be a deal by Friday.

Now I'm off to see a speech by US Senator (and former Presidential candidate John Kerry). I'll let you know how it went later!