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December 2009 – Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

December in the Climate change debate

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. Everything else the international climate change process has done this year – ranging from preparatory workshop meetings early in the year, to UN-sponsored negotiations in on three continents, to smaller-scale negotiations on the sidelines of the G8 summit, the APEC meetings, within the Major Economies Forum, and behind closed doors in national capitals – has all been prelude to Copenhagen’s Conference of the Parties.

Expectations from Copenhagen

Opinions about what to expect from Copenhagen vary widely. Those views will no doubt be reflected in what we think will be many dozens of interviews with the most influential policymakers, expert observers, and key environmentalists that will be posted to the Climate-Change.tv site, many times within 24 hours of when they take place. Continue checking with Climate-Change.tv during December to stay up to date.

Show time with the Kyoto Protocol

The 15th Conference of the Parties gets underway on Monday, Dec. 7 with the final hopes for finalising a post-Kyoto treaty this year hanging in the balance. Unlike recent meetings in Bonn, Bangkok, and Barcelona, work not completed in Copenhagen cannot be pushed back to the next meeting on the schedule.

Despite that, hopes are dimming that a complete treaty ready to be taken to national legislatures for ratification will emerge from Copenhagen (though some parties still hope leaders in the high-level at the end of the summit will be able to produce a miracle agreement). But there is no doubt that by the time the Copenhagen talks conclude at the end of the Dec. 18 session the world will know a great deal more about the level of ambition from the countries involved in the agreement that will go into force when the Kyoto compliance period ends in 2012.

Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate change official, spoke with Climate-Change.tv about what must happen leading up to the Copenhagen talks and during the actual negotiations in the Danish capital in order for a successful outcome to be in the cards. You can listen to the de Boer interview, which was recorded during the last round of negotiations in Spain, by clicking here.

Copenhagen represents another important milestone for us at Climate-Change.tv. It will mark our one-year anniversary: we started recording interviews with key players in the climate change debate a year ago, at the COP in Poznan. One of the strengths of our site is providing what we call “video snapshots” of the process at various points along its progression. Interested? Take a look at our slates of interviews from Poznan by clicking here. The Copenhagen talks are likely to leave work to be done in 2010, but a glance at some of the Poznan interviews is also evidence of how far the process has come in 12 months.

Lastly, don’t forget to stop by to say hello if you are in Copenhagen. We’ll be filming every day of the conference with two separate teams. Just look for the familiar Climate-Change.tv logo.