Ken Cloke's Diary - Day 3

Copenhagen Diary:
Reflections from Inside the Climate Change Conference
by Ken Cloke

Entry 3: Monday, Dec. 7, 2009

This morning we began. The MBB team met early in a room we were able to secure – everyone is working beautifully and some UN staff complained that there are so many people in MBB who seem to be responsible for different things! Excellent!

The mood here has shifted significantly, and the prevailing opinion seems to be that President Obama’s decision to speak to the delegates in week 2 rather than week one is a sign that an agreement might actually be possible. Given the current optimism on reaching an agreement, it seems unlikely that we will be able to convince the delegates to add mediation to the treaty language. They are focused on the few issues they have to resolve to get an agreement, and we will have to think about how to encourage them to use mediation to make their agreements stick going forward.

The new President of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) is a Dane, Connie Hedegaard, and she is completely determined to produce an agreement. She said: Dear negotiators! This year, you have had weeks of extra negotiating time. Since June, you have worked with negotiation text. Preparations have been unparalleled! … Therefore: Compromise! Agree! Find concrete solutions! Use every skill available to pave the way for ministers and leaders to finalize the deal!

The process being used here is roughly meditative and broadly based on consensus, and altogether it is a remarkable exercise in international political decision making, including all the difficulties, inefficiencies, and remarkable break-throughs that we so often experience in mediation.

Listening to the delegates, one hears indications of small concessions and willingness to move forward, and as flawed and insufficient as these measures are, there is no disagreement about the consequences of doing nothing. These consequences were described in detail this morning. They include:

• Disappearance of sea ice
• Greater frequency of hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation
• Increase in tropical cyclone intensity
• Decrease in water resources in semi-arid areas including the Mediterranean Basin, western United States, southern Africa and north-eastern Brazil
• Eventual elimination of the Greenland ice sheet, and resulting rise in sea level of about 7 meters (about 23 feet)
• 20 to 30% of species at risk of extinction if average global warming exceeds 1.5 to 2.5 degrees C
• Heavy rainfall in some areas and far less in others, including the Monsoon season
• Increasing acidification of the world’s oceans, leading to a massive die-off of marine life
• Significant life threats to at least 20% of the world population, or about 2 billion people

In short, the science of global warming is “unequivocal” and clear in its minimal anticipations. In order to avoid these consequences, global CO2 emissions need to peak no later than 2015, a mere 5+ years from now.

Our MBB team has been circulating throughout the conference, meeting people and talking about why mediation and other conflict resolution techniques can help. We are scheduling a press conference and will issue a statement in which we volunteer to mediate any disputes that arise during the conference.



To describe the scene here, it is like a small city, with thousands of diverse people milling about. There are indigenous people from around the world in national dress, lots of young environmental activists, scientists, and delegates. The building is beautiful and somehow contains us all without seeming to strain doing so.

Some sessions are only open to delegates, which leaves the NGO representatives milling about, talking to each other, and seeking openings to express their views. There are four nearly separate groups in attendance. As you enter, there are a variety of commercial entities; then there is a large hall filled mostly with NGO representatives, especially from environmental organizations; then there is the press, all in a room of their own; and finally, there are the delegates, with offices and meeting rooms separated from the others (see photos). It is almost like a class society, but with semi-permeable boundaries between them, allowing us to move somewhat between them.

The press, of course, is everywhere. I was interviewed on Italian television and by an environmental group, with more interviews planned for tomorrow and Wednesday with Danish television and with the UN itself. We have a banner too (see photo).

A brief history might be useful: The international response to climate change began with adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, with a set of actions to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and there are now 194 parties. In December, 1997, the 3rd COP meeting was held in Kyoto, resulting in a Protocol to the UNFCCC known as Annex I, that committed industrialized and developing countries to set emission reduction targets. The US did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, though 190 countries did. Since then meetings have taken place in Montreal, Bali (creating the “Bali Roadmap”), plus pre-Copenhagen meetings in Bonn, Bangkok and Barcelona, though little progress was made.

We are already getting exhausted with two weeks to go, but have lots of members just arriving, handing out lots of fliers and speaking to the delegates, many expressing agreement with our aims. We made a good start, with lots to do before it ends. I will send more tomorrow.

Love to all,

Ken