Dr. Anita Halvorssen, who teaches the "Law of Sustainable Development and Trade" and "Global Climate Change Law and Policy" at the Sturm College of Law, is in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week as part of the University of Denver's Ved Nanda Center for the Study of International Law (and accredited by the American Society of International Law) coverage of the UN Climate Change Conference, which runs from Dec. 7-18, 2009.The following is her second post from the meeting:
Arriving at the the NGO accreditation queue at 6:40am, I finally got into the Bella Center building at 8:40am and two and a half hours later I had my badge and secondary card which you need to access the events at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-15).
There are lots of events going on at the same time at COP-15. First, I attended the Contact Group for the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA). The latest draft text of AWG-LCA was presented by the Chairman of the Contact Group and was commented on by delegates of nation states only. The text has been whittled down from 188 pages to 7 pages. The draft text will not be a clean text by the end of the day (meaning it will have some of the disputed text in brackets) but will be presented to the COP-15.
I spent some time on a presentation by some scientists from Norway that have published a report on the melting of snow and ice in the polar regions due to climate change and its impacts on the regions - the forecast is not promising. The sub-national groups tackling climate change in the US and Canada - twenty-three states and provinces in all - gave a good presentation of how they have taken action without waiting for their respective governments to act.
Sub groups in the US and Canada giving their presentations.
Dr. Halvorssen, second from left, and members of NGOs from Germany, Norway, South Korea, Spain, and the United States.
Photo of attrium where conference participants eat and relax.
South American participants.
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