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Copenhagen round up

road to copenhagen.jpgParties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are now meeting in Copenhagen to wrangle over the details of a new global climate deal — a potential successor to the Kyoto Protocol. See Nature’s Road to Copenhagen special and the Climate Feedback blog for more coverage.

Discussions continue to grind on in Copenhagen. Nature’s Jeff Tollefson notes that “the Danes have hit the pause button to try to design a new framework for breaking up the text into pieces rather than negotiating everything in the main plenary”.

Meanwhile Olive Heffernan reports that “the US could walk away from signing a deal on climate change unless China agrees to transparency on emissions reductions, according to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton”.

More heavyweight politicians are arriving at the talks as well. Hillary Clinton told the meeting the US would work towards raising $100 billion for developing countries to help them deal with climate change. Canadian PM Stephen Harper has turned up, as has Australia’s Kevin Rudd.

Poor old New Zealand Prime Minister John Key then found he had been unceremoniously dumped from a BBC show in favour of Rudd.

Also not having the smoothest start to his time was UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He and Al Gore took a wrong turn, live on camera. “We assessed the terrain and decided to move on,” says Gore after the pair – unlike the conference in general – easily corrected themselves and smoothly found the right way forward.

At least they’re not having as bad a time as the climate change skeptic who dressed as a polar bear and walked around with a sign reading ‘Where is Phil Jones?’*. He was attacked with a vegetable.

*Jones was the professor whose emails were hacked in the so-called ‘Climategate’ imbroglio.

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