D3 - mixed messages

Tried a new way to the conference today - caught a different bus through the burbs to the Malmo South station. Saves about 20 mins, but replaces the pleasant walk through Malmo Centrum with a warehouse landscape - IKEA, BAUHAUS, lots of BIG car dealers...

At least the fog has nearly lifted - we could see the horizon while on the bridge across the Kategaat (sp?). Encouraging that the horizon consists of a distant grey line, punctuated by dozens of wind turbines - all good!

To business. Yesterday I mentioned that you can get meaningful, concise summaries of the proceedings from a number of sources. The best is: ENB http://www.iisd.ca/climate/cop15 and their side event summaries - add /enbots/ to the above link.

GetUp! has a beaut video report coming mostly daily. Use a little of your monthly bandwidth allowance and tune in to
http://coptv.getup.org.au/2009/12/09/coptv-episode-1-welcome-to-cop15/

Climate Action Network - of which AuSES is a member - does ECO: http://www.climatenetwork.org/eco

and a group of folks staying at my hotel in the wilds of Malmo do Outreach: try media.stakeholderforum.org

Now, I'm writing this while in the opening plenary of Wednesday morning. whereas the previous photos were in the narrow "Karen Blixen" room, I'm now in the
"other" plenary room, "Tycho Brae" - a wide one (see snap). This is where the actual "Conference of the Parties" (COP) meets, and is chaired by the Danish environment minister, Connie Hedegarde (sp). Yvo de Boer is saying that next week there will be 110+ official country delegations at the COP, and some will have more than 100 people in tow, as well as their own PR types (and spooks?). Therefore they are reluctantly looking to whether they will have to close off our open access to many of these sessions. Understandable, but regrettable.
Connie has just announced that COP17 *may* be hosted by South Africa, and there is a desire that COP18 be in Asia...

Tuvalu has just delivered a brilliant speech - very positive, and well-thought out. A great mix of pathos and genuine goodwill. Much applause 8<))

The story so far: CONFUSION! (at least for me! - although that adds to my adventure!).
There was much flak about a leaked Danish Govt briefing paper that revealed that a deal would be done "almost at any cost". Of course this eliminated many of the troublesome Parties, and it's leaking is a bad sign for "Transparency". Hopefully that little adventure is now in a dead end, and we can get on with a 192 country negotiation...

My summary to Muriel included the following (although I've amended it a bit):
"There is obviously serious interest in the Tech Transfer challenge/problem - but the real elephant is who's going to pay? There is a major source of unease about the demands of the LDCs (backed by China+G77, and AOSIS as well as the African Group, and others) about Annex 1 countries (that's "us" - "the west" or "the north")
(a) reducing its emissions realistically, legally-bound and tangible (MRV) and
(b) stumping up with the 8-10 Bn (Euros or Dollars depending who's talking) that everyone agrees is required PER YEAR, for Mitigation, from next year to 2012, before we ramp up to the 100-150 p.a. that everyone agrees is needed by 2020.

Climategate seems to have been relegated (rightly) to a sideshow, and there is no question that Renewable Energy is accepted as the answer - perhaps with a little nuclear and a lot of gas...

Hardly telling you anything new, I'm sure.

No sight of the coal lobby though - I guess Australia and Brazil are [considered to be] a long way away."
[and of course, Australia goes about it's own business, regardless, judging by what I can see of the ABC.net.au and Oz media websites.]

That's probably enough for now. More later.