Poznan: on the ground
“Heard it’s dark and rainy” a fellow traveller wrote in an email to me Friday, as I was finishing up preparations for the trip. Toss in a few logistical issues, including some long commutes from out in the suburbs, and you get a sober assessment: “People are not having fun.” So I wasn’t terribly surprised when I arrived this morning to find Poznan dark and rainy. To be fair, the sun has since made a brief appearance, and it’s not exactly cold. But Bali it’s not.
And I can’t yet testify as to people having fun or not, but I guess that’s not really the goal here. As for myself, I’m still recovering from a long transatlantic flight to Munich, which offered little in the way of sleep but plenty of time to catch up on reading, followed by a quick connection in a prop plane into Poznan.
I wasn’t the only Washingtonian on this particular itinerary - spotted a pair of Republican congressional staffers on the plane, representing Joe Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. I also bumped into staff representing a pair of Democratic senators. All are here to watch, listen and learn, and the Democrats might even end up reporting back to President-Elect Barack Obama’s team, as requested by Obama himself.
So. I’m going to head over to the conference centre now to get my feet on the ground, but first a quick update on a related note: French President Nicholas Sarkozy failed to reach a deal yesterday with Eastern European leaders, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, on the next phase of the European Union climate plan (BBC, Reuters)
Sarkozy will get another chance later this week, but his term as EU president is up this month. After that it goes to Czech President Vaclav Havel, who is mostly famous these days for his antagonism toward not only climate regulation but frequently the EU itself. His ascendancy to the six-month rotating post isn’t likely to halt discussions, but it could make them more difficult.
