The Clean Industrial Revolution

It is like being in another world when arriving into Copenhagen for the global climate climate summit this week.  On the connecting flight I had from Zurich to Copenhagen on Monday morning, the IATA (international airlines association) issued a pamphlet to every passenger on there goal of reducing emissions by 50% by 2050.  Apparently everyone who flew into Copenhagen on any flight got this pamphlet over the 2 weeks.  Then I read a full-page ad in the IHT from Coca-Cola calling for strong action at the Copenhagen talks – with a campaign called Hopenhagen. Yes Coke wants strong action. Times are changing indeed when reading this before I even get to Copenhagen.

Now being in Copenhagen and having great expectations, I regret coming at all.  The Copenhagen Diagnosis team had a press conference at 11:30am on Tuesday. We thought we’d head out to the conference centre to register.  Heading out there with Matt England, we got to the centre at ~1pm on the Monday.  There was about 100 people in a que out the front which seemed fine – well, that’s what I thought. Although this was supposed to be a que, it actually was a place to stand and go nowhere for hours in freezing conditions with no communication or ability to know if you would ever see people get let in, let alone yourself get in.  This que after a couple of hours turned into a mosh-pit with some people being there for 7 HOURS – then it turned ugly with the police a very restless and cold crowd of delegates shouting, chanting and pushing. At one point the crowd parted like the  Red Sea – and Al Gore slide past on his way out. It was a freezing disaster and I was not prepared for it – after 2 hours in the mosh-pit I went home and hoped tomorrow morning would be better. How wrong was I.

My friend, Michael Molitor and I got out to the conference centre at 7:30am on the Tuesday and the line was already about 200m.  By the time they opened the doors, the line was apparently 3km! We had no chance to get in for our press conference at 11:30am- but we tried desperately, calling everyone from the head press officer of the conference to a friend in the UNFCCC executive. The thing is, the mosh-pit was filled with state government/city officials, ngo’s, press and all types of high-flyers. Saw NYTimes columnist Thomas Friedman in the line and let him know his next column: If the UNFCCC cant organise a conference, then how on earth can we expect them to help negotiate a global new deal on climate change!

Some of our scientists got through (another Stefan Rahmstorf waited 8 hours in the line!) and we were able to have the Copenhagen Diagnosis press conference – which I watched online from my hotel bed! With much hope I am heading home from Copenhagen deflated and frustrated, not at just our experience, but also the horrible impasse between haggling nations trying to do their best to not cut carbon emissions unless others do it!