There is so much going on here in Copenhagen. It is exciting to hear all the different things people are doing and being creative in the most amazing ways. It feels like everyone is here, participating in some way and there is much hope in this city now referred to as Hopenhagen as well as despair as various proposals are being considered and being laid by the wayside.
I heard Steven Chu, our Secretary of Energy earlier today talk about what the US will do to meet this challenge and the President’s commitment. He, as the scientist he is, also gave examples of just how we would do this in the US. He ended with a message for the need to fix this problem because there is only one earth, we have nowhere else to go.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN IPCC since 2002, had a message that a major transformation is within our reach: an opportunity and an exciting journey, a transformation that would bring us close to nature. His big message: global emissions in the aggregate must peak no later than 2015 and costs of taking these steps are much cheaper than the alternative. Will we have an agreement that heeds this advice?
Besides talking to countless people that are doing innovative things in industry, at Bright Green I met John Holdren (advisor to President Obama for Science and Technology/ Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and his wonderful wife Cheryl. As always happens, here as elsewhere, you keep running into folks that you know or folks who know people you know!
An evening debate at the Klima Forum, the People’s Forum was an interesting mix of mostly women from Green Parties representing Australia, Canada, Germany, France (the only male), and Marina Silva of Brazil (formerly environmental minister and now Green Party candidate for President.) The magic number is no more than 1.5 degrees centigrade increase and no more than 350 PPM (350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere.) Can we get an agreement that will assure of this?
There are endless possibilities for partnerships, learning and linking opportunities and just great ideas for rainforest partnership and the work we are doing. And, while we are at it, we hope that the nations will all get together to come up with an agreement with integrity and real targets. After all, in the words of Secretary Chu, we have only one earth; There is nowhere else to go.
Tags: COP15, Copenhagen
