CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE
Photos: Scanpix
2009 - the year when the world comes to Denmark
If the world has a navel, it is Copenhagen. At least for two weeks in December, when heads of government, journalists, civil servants and interest groups from around the globe descend on the Danish capital. One issue is on the agenda: the planet’s climate problems MUST be solved.
By Christian Blomgreen
It is the last chance. Climate change is already in evidence worldwide, and it will only get worse in the future. Unless the climate summit in Copenhagen in December reaches a successful conclusion. Heads of government from all over the world will meet to hammer out an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which was initially adopted in 1997 in Japan.
At the meeting, officially designated COP15 – the 15th conference of signatories to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – attempts will to be made to get the world to collaborate on preserving the thin layer of atmosphere, land and sea which cloaks our planet and enables us to survive – at the same time as temperatures are rising and threatening to make the planet uninhabitable.
The world’s major governments have formally acknowledged that temperature rises have already begun, that – if not kept in check – can be catastrophic for human civilisation, and that they are caused by emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 from our power stations, factories and cars.
Obama is coming - maybe
Up to 15,000 representatives from around 200 countries are expected to convene in the Danish capital for one of the most important meetings in history. Around half will be from NGOs, a quarter will be journalists and the other quarter negotiators and civil servants. Hopefully many heads of state and government will also attend, with the USA’s President Barack Obama a possible front figure.
To arrange a summit of this magnitude makes huge demands on Denmark, and ministries, interest groups, the business community, universities, lobbyists and many others have worked for years towards making COP15 a success. Svend Olling is head of department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and responsible for the logistic planning of COP15.
“It is a huge undertaking. The last time Denmark hosted a major international summit was the European Council meeting in 2002. COP15 could be 20 times bigger. One of the challenges is that we do not yet know who is coming or the political seniority of the delegates. It gives us challenges in planning the security level,” says Svend Olling. To send the right signal, COP15 must be a green summit. So the delegates should as far as possible use public transport, but the organisers are looking for green solutions to everything.
“A good example is water for the delegates. The easiest thing would be to transport lots of bottles to the summit, but that is bad for the environment. In Denmark we have clean tap water and we must utilise it. But how do we communicate this to everybody, how should the water be served, who should do it, and how do we find the most environmentally-friendly disposable cups and so on. It quickly becomes highly complex,” says Svend Olling.
Public-private sector collaboration
One of the central players in the run-up to the summit is Climate Consortium Denmark, which is the official focal point for all Danish business-related activities in the period leading up to the UN Climate Change Conference. It is a public-private sector partnership between a range of business organisations and the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.
Finn Mortensen, the director of Climate Consortium Denmark, sees COP15 as a historic opportunity to brand Denmark as a climate-conscious nation.
“The eyes of the world are focused on Denmark, and we have every opportunity to demonstrate the technologies and solutions we have, so that the world around us can discover that with the right technologies, the climate challenge can be tackled. The solutions are here, we just need to communicate that they are also effective.”
Finn Mortensen points to cleantech in particular as a strong element for Danish climate-conscious branding.
“Denmark as a climate-conscious nation will have considerable power to attract foreign investments and workers specialised in climate-friendly technologies, and that can turn out to be a gold-mine for Danish research in the cleantech area and ultimately for Danish exports,” he says.
There are currently 500 companies involved in climate and energy technology. The sector employs a workforce of 32,000 of whom 21,000 are in the wind technology industry. Exports have more than doubled in 10 years, and today account for 9 per cent of total exports. With COP15 as a launch pad, Denmark hopes to increase its exports fourfold in the coming years.
Read on the next pages how various players are working to make COP15 a success.
Read more about the summit on http://www.cop15.com
Denmark takes the lead
Denmark is one of the few countries to have a Ministry of Climate and Energy, which focuses on reducing the country’s total CO2 emissions. Over the last 25 years Denmark has seen economic growth of 78 percent while total energy consumption has remained largely unchanged. It is the Danish government’s aim that the share of renewable energy in the total energy mix is doubled by 2025.
Source: Reuters and AP
Facts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
- Global warming is a reality – both sea and air temperatures are increasing.
- It is very likely that the temperature increases observed since the middle of the 20th century are anthropogenic. Temperatures will in all likelihood increase between 2 and 4.5 ºC – most likely 3 ºC by 2100.
- Sea levels will have risen between 28 and 43 centimetres by 2100, threatening low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean and countries with low-lying coasts such as Bangladesh and Holland.
Source: Reuters and AP
World Business Summit on Climate Change
The Danish think tank Monday Morning is hosting a major international summit in Copenhagen for several hundred business leaders from around the world on 24-26 May. It is an exclusive event where only specially invited participants can attend and take part in discussions aimed at providing recommendations and intelligent solutions to the climate problem. 30 global leaders in the categories of science, business and politics will speak at the summit, among others Al Gore and Richard Branson.
Read more on http://www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com
Bright Green Exhibition
The Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) is a lobbying organisation for 11,000 Danish companies. During COP15, DI is holding a large-scale exhibition ’Bright Green’ at Denmark’s national stadium Parken in Copenhagen, where up to 150 Danish and international companies will present their green technologies.
“There are already many technologies that can overcome some of the greatest climate challenges. Companies would like to show this to prepare the ground for the political negotiations,” says Jens Holst-Nielsen of DI.
The exhibition takes place on 12-13 December during the break between the two weeks of the COP15 conference.
Read more on http://www.brightgreen.dk
Guide to Danish solutions
One of Climate Consortium Denmark’s most important projects is the internet portal EnergyMap.dk, launched in March as Denmark’s international portal for climate and energy technologies. Interested parties from all over the world can see on the portal what Denmark offers in the climate and energy area. Up to 200 Danish companies, educational centres and research institutions will present their solutions and knowledge on the portal.
In parallel with EnergyMap.dk, another major project has been launched – Energy Tours. It aims to ensure that the many business-related and political delegations expected to visit Denmark in the months leading up to COP15 are offered the best and most relevant visit programmes with the opportunity to meet Danish players in the relevant sectors.
Read more on http://www.energymap.dk and http://www.energytours.dk
Working behind the scenes
JKL Group is one of the Nordic region’s leading lobbying companies which is working behind the scenes to handle the political interests of a range of companies. Among its customers are several energy and transport companies, all of which are very interested in COP15.
“There is a hive of activity at the moment. COP15 will lay down tracks into the future, which provide opportunities for our customers to make some enormous forward leaps. We are working on introducing the right ideas for politicians and on ensuring that our customers will be heard. The summit occupies Denmark’s consciousness a great deal because it is a nationally prestigious project, but we can also feel great interest at our offices in the other Nordic countries and Brussels,” says Nikolaj Bøgh, manager of JKL Group.
Climate attachés in key countries
To keep track of how the climate debate is developing around the world in the run-up to the COP15 conference in December 2009, the Ministry of Climate and Energy has posted climate attachés in five key countries: USA, Brazil, South Africa, India and Russia.
The attachés form part of the local embassy team, but are exclusively engaged with climate and energy issues and cover the whole region in which they are stationed. Their tasks include identifying the most important players, gathering knowledge and establishing collaborations with relevant local players.
Universities hold summits
The Danish educational sector is also joining the climate wave.
At the beginning of March, the University of Aarhus hosted the “Beyond Kyoto” conference, which was attended by US energy secretary Steven Chu, the former Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the current UN special envoy on climate issues and many other prominent decision-makers. The following week, the University of Copenhagen held the “Scientific Congress on Climate”, where several Danish ministers and internationally acknowledged scientists were on the platform.
Security under control
Bullet-proof limousines, surveillance, room security and a lot more besides will be needed for COP15. So the police and the Danish Security and Intelligence Service are hard at work to ensure that security will be optimal before, during and after the summit.
“It is clear that an event like the climate summit is associated with major security challenges. In that connection, it is the Danish Security and Intelligence Service’s task continuously to assess the threat in relation to the event. Based on this threat assessment, the relevant security measures are initiated. This is carried out in close collaboration with Copenhagen Police,” says the head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, Jakob Scharf.
As a point of principle, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service does not comment on specific security issues or on how it handles specific security tasks.
“In general however, PET is responsible for bodyguard protection in relation to a number of the delegates as well as securing certain localities that are used in connection with the summit,” says Jakob Scharf.
Hotels are fully booked
It would not be a good idea to go on an impulsive visit to Copenhagen in December, because the COP15 organisers have booked every hotel room within a 60 kilometre radius of Copenhagen. A quarter of the rooms are in Malmø and Southern Sweden. In addition, all hotels from Skåne in southern Sweden to Odense on the island of Funen are fully booked for the whole of November.
Other events worth noting
April 28-30: Cleantech Forum XXII, Radisson SAS Scandinavia, Copenhagen http://www.cleantech.com/cleantechforum/ copenhagen09
May 26-28: Nordic Bioenergy, Aalborg Congress and Culture Centre, Aalborg (northern Jutland)
http://www.nordicbioenergy2009.com
September 8-9: Nordic Climate Solutions, Copenhagen
http://www.nordicclimatesolutions.com
September 14–16: Risø International Energy Conference, Copenhagen http://www.risoe.dk (calendar and news)
October 12–14: Copenmind, Copenhagen Forum of Research, Innovation and Technology
http://www.copenmind.com
This page forms part of the publication 'FOCUS DENMARK 01/2009' as chapter 2 of 11
Version 1.0. 15-04-2009
Publication may be found at the address http://www.netpublikationer.dk/um/9311/index.htm
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