In Frenzied Copenhagen, Crucial Climate Talks Begin

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


COPENHAGEN—There was no calm before the storm. At least not over the last few days, not in Copenhagen. The climate change conference begins for real this Monday morning, but the deluge—of information, of people, of noise of all sorts—swept into the city days ago.

Downtown, the wide sidewalks are jammed. Visitors ascend to street level at the central train station, rolling suitcases and opening maps. In bars and restaurants—I noticed this more once a bartender pointed it out—foreigners stare blankly at the Danish coins in their hands and try to figure out how much they’re paying.

Aside from the permanent medley of neon signs—this city might be quaint, but it’s commercialized too—climate-related posters and banners are everywhere. Most advertise Hopenhagen LIVE, a package of concerts, educational pavilions, and a giant illuminated globe in the City Hall Square (the event must have a serious advertising budget). There are posters too for climate-related rallies, concerts, expos, and art exhibits. And booklets, pamphlets, leaflets—whatever—stacked in abundance. The ubiquitous public climate-change art seems designed to provide inspiration or moral orientation. But there’s so much of it that it sort of runs together. 100 Places to Remember Before They Disappear, an outdoor photo exhibit at Kongens Nytorv square, is stunning, but I don’t know how many delegates will take the time to visit installations such as this.

A completely separate event, the Klimaforum09/Peoples Climate Summit offers a 48-page guide to its sessions. The Summit, which skews toward the down-with-capitalism crowd, will unfold at a posh downtown sports venue. According to the U.K. Telegraph, Copenhagen “officials” hope that the venue’s climbing wall, swimming pool, and bowling alley will keep the radicals engaged downtown so the grownups at the U.N. conference can stay focused. (One group has threatened to break into the main conference site and “take over” for a day.)

At that main conference site, Copenhagen’s Bella Center on the edge of the city, still more crowds gathered. On Sunday afternoon, an unattended suitcase led police to close entry and exit points and call in a bomb squad. The situation proved harmless, but it kept a crowd of delegates, NGO representatives, and media members waiting in the cold for about an hour.

Around the same time, organizers announced that the center was running into “capacity constraints”—34,000 people want to attend and the space holds only 15,000. The announcement introduced a quota system for NGOs and  the press; only 3,500 media members would be allowed. I’ll find out Monday morning exactly how conference organizers plan to handle this and other last-minute issues. Like whether to merge the AWG-LCA and AWG-KP negotiating tracks.

I haven’t mentioned the policy jargon. AWG-LCA stands for Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Acion; AWG-KP is the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol. Then there’s the MRV—measurement, reporting, and verification goals. You get the point—it’s a busy, confusing place, even before the conference begins.

Anyone who signed up to negotiate, or lobby negotiators, or report on them, should know by now that the climate problem is fraught with complexity, and so is the conference convening to address it. Nobody said this would be simple. I can’t help but wonder how folks will find a measure of clarity amid the noise.

This story was reported for Grist as part of the Copenhagen News Collaborative, a cooperative project of several independent news organizations. Check out the constantly updated feed here. Mother Jones’ comprehensive Copenhagen coverage is here, and our special climate change package is here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate