COP-15, Day 8
Today was a day of “hurry up and wait”. Many Observers hurried to ensure their early entry into the Bella Center as it was the last day to do so without a secondary badge. Tomorrow, COP-15 is moving to a secondary badge system in order to dramatically reduce the number of NGO Observers. The Bella Center must stay under its 15,000 person building capacity and the number of NGO Observer delegations must be reduced to about 20% of their original size in order to make room for the additional staff requirements associated with government Ministers and Heads of State.
Starting tomorrow, all NGO Observers will have to have their original badges plus an additional secondary badge to get access to the Bella Center. On top of the issues presented by distribution of secondary badges, there was a mass of new people who were trying to get credentialed for the final week. By all accounts, it was a good idea to get to the Bella Center early today.
While those of us actually inside the Bella Center had hurried to be there, there wasn’t much to watch in terms of proceedings. Many negotiating meetings were cancelled as several developing countries effectively suspended progress for several hours. The press has been reporting extensively on these events. That said, things appear to be going forward again and it is likely that many delegations will be making up for lost time tonight.
While the actual negotiations were moving slowly, there was still a plethora of information to absorb as many Side Events were presented. It was also DOE Day” at the U.S. Center, highlighted by an address from DOE Secretary Chu. In his presentation, Secretary Chu announced an initiative called “Climate REDI,” which stands for Climate Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative. The purpose of Climate REDI is to help speed up the deployment of renewables and other clean energy technologies in developing countries. You can read more about it yourself at http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8394.htm.
