Copenhagen update

So we’re finally here. Copenhagen. The climate conference. The final effort to find a global deal to succeed the Kyoto protocol and give the world a chance to combat climate change.

Or rather we’re not. We’re close, but in attempting to register this morning we found ourselves standing alongside thousands of other people in a very long queue which didn’t move. The UN appear to have been trying to register 25000 people for an event with a 15000 capacity. Indeed it’s so crowded that the rumour is that tomorrow even registered delegates will be subject to rationed access to the main conference venue.

So we (myself, Cathy Peattie and Rob Gibson from Holyrood’s Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee) have decided to come straight to the Scottish event and will try to register later. We’ve been hearing so far from Stewart Stevenson (hmmm…) and now he’s being joined by Duncan McLaren of FoES, Scottish Human Rights Commissioner Alan Miller and Ian Marchant of Scottish and Southern Energy, all of whom talk better sense.

I’ll be here for the rest of this week, before taking the sleeper home from Copenhagen on Friday night, so I’ll be sending updates during the week whenever I can find a handy wifi connection. I’m also blogging at the Daily Record, and of course Tweeting the whole thing.

Meantime I’ll leave you with a lovely snap of a turbine whizzing past the train window, which was taken by Graeme who also took the overland route – he started in Edinburgh and our journeys converged at St Pancras. Together we probably saw more wind turbines on one long train ride than exist yet in the whole of Scotland.

1 Comment

1. Patrick,

   That’s a lovely artistic photo of a windmill. Enjoying your reports.

   Andy

   Comment by Andy Wightman — December 17, 2009 @ 1:41 am