The arrival on mass of representatives from NGOs, journalists, business people and government officials has literally collapsed the entrance to the Bella Center, the heart of the Copenhagen Climate Conference. Inside, the African nations are applying pressure to achieve binding agreements.
Luis Merino was warned by fellow Spaniard Ramón Fiestas, General Secretary of the Spanish Wind Power Association (AEE): “be prepared to queue and get cold”. Fiestas was referring to the difficulties faced by anyone trying to obtain accreditation and enter the Bella Center where many of the official events of the climate conference are being held. Maximum temperatures reached just zero degrees in Copenhagen on Monday: bearable if one is walking around, but practically torture when waiting in a queue for up to five hours without moving more than 100 metres.
These conditions where what Merino found on his arrival in Copenhagen yesterday, and all before reaching the front of the queue and finding the doors closing and being told to come back tomorrow. At that moment, hundreds of indignant and desperate people from all over the planet started chanting to be let in and some even produced banners saying “And they call this efficiency”. Not even the free coffee being handed out by wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas, was enough to satisfy the unhappy crowd.
Copenhagen is grid-locked. Even a few days ago, the conference centre had to close the accreditation desk when the number of journalists reached 5,000, declaring that the Bella Center could not hold more than 15,000 people. This was seen as a random gesture for all those left out in the cold, considering over 45,000 attendees had registered for the event, and shows that Denmark had severely underestimated the interest the summit would generate.
Africa tires of talk
One of the lines of negotiation being explored in the COP15 is to extend the Kyoto Protocol in the event that a new agreement is not reached. However, this “second Kyoto”, which maintains the obligation to cut emissions for rich countries, is being blocked by a number of countries including Australia and Japan. An Australian NGO even warded off the cold outside the doors of the Bella Center by criticising the attitude of its government, which does not want to lose export revenues since it is the largest exporter of coal in the world.
Yesterday, also saw the African nations present at the talks joining forces with the support of the G77 developing countries and leaving the negotiations after criticising the developed countries’ unwillingness to discuss obligatory emission cuts.
Wind industry offers a solution
Ramón Fiestas is in Copenhagen along with the President of the AEE, José Donoso, and a group of representatives from the Spanish wind energy industry including Acciona and Iberdrola Renovables, who took part in an event organised by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). According to the GWEC, wind power could achieve up to 65% of the emissions reductions pledge by industrialised countries.
"Wind power is rapidly emerging as a key technology towards a low carbon, resource efficient green economy," said Achim Steiner, UN under secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), during the joint press conference of the UNEP and the GWEC in Copenhagen. In the GWEC's most ambitious scenario for wind energy development, wind could produce 2,600 terawatt hours of power and save 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2020.
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