Tiny island nation of Tuvalu roars at COP15 today

Published Wednesday, 9th December 2009

Editor’s note: Greenbang will be providing daily dispatches and ongoing updates from the climate change talks in Copenhagen, and is covering the conference virtually to keep our carbon footprint low.

Following are developments from today’s events at the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen:

Negotiations were temporarily suspended at the request of the nation of Tuvalu to give delegates time to resolve a dispute over climate goals behind the scenes: several island nations and poor African countries had said they want a maximum temperature rise goal of 1.5 degrees C and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations stabilised at 350 parts per million, while developed countries and fast-growing developing nations like China, India and South Africa want a goal of 450 parts per million.
South Africa was today announced as host of the COP17, the UN’s 17th climate conference to be held in 2011.
The WWF today released its Copenhagen Deal Barometer, which measures the likelihood of a “fair, ambitious and binding” agreement coming out of COP15. The barometer provides regular updates from experts at the meetings and news about the latest carbon reduction committments being made by key countries. As of Day 3, the barometer assesses the talks as being “Off-Track.”
Numerous countries have so far earned the Climate Action Network” “Fossil of The Day” awards for being among the previous day’s three worst performers at the COP15 negotiations. Day 1 awards went to all industrialised nations, with Austria, Finland, Sweden, Saudia Arabia and Canada being singled out for special notice. Day 2 awards went to Ukraine (both 1st and 3rd place) and industrialised non-EU countries. Today’s Fossil of the Day winners: Canada and Croatia, which shared 1st place, and Russia. A first-ever “Ray of the Day” award also went to the island nation of Tuvalu for “its bold proposal to discuss a legal outcome from the Copenhagen summit.”
Fifty young people from the US broke into a climate denier gathering being held in Copenhagen at the same time as COP15 and rushed the stage during live broadcast coverage to display a banner calling for “Clean Energy Now.”
US climate negotiator Todd Stern arrived in Copenhagen and fired back criticism at China, whose lead delegate had called the US’s emissions reductions targets unremarkable.
WWF is providing live and on-demand webcasts from the climate talks here.
The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme today unveiled its Climate-Change Index, a visual representation that tracks global changes in carbon dioxide, temperature, sea level and sea ice. The index shows a steady rise since 1980, the first year for which the index was calculated, with just three one-year downward trends. All three of those down years — 1982, 1992 and 1996 — happened after volcanic eruptions: El Chichon in Mexico (1982), Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines (1991) and Montserrat in the Caribbean (1996). The index will be updated annually.
US House Representative James Sensenbrenner will lead a delegation of Congressional Republicans to Copenhagen next week to protest President Barack Obama’s expected pledge in support of a strong deal on climate change.