Today marks the first day of the Copenhagen summit. I’ve scrolled through my twitter feed and my rss in search of breaking news to share with you, but truth be told, the interweb is decidedly quiet today. From all accounts, the conference opened on a decidedly optomisitc note, with the release of a report from the UN Environmental Programme that suggests the world is not to far off from curbing the impacts of global warming.
The folks over at Time Magazine have published an interesting piece on 5 things to watch for at Copenhagen, most of which is just speculation on the roles that various countries could play (which has been discussed ad nauseum here,) and the potential for a monitized carbon economy.
WIth two weeks to go in remains to be seen whether or not a climate deal will be reached. Some of suggested the a failure at Copenhagen could be viewed as a success. For now I’ll let Yu Quintai, China’s top climate negotiator, have the last word:
“The final stage is here with us. Rather than describing it in optimistic or pessimistic terms, we need to focus on the substantive work before us. The reason I am not using the word optimistic is that from the proceedings today you must have recognized that the parties are still pretty much wide apart, particularly on some of the critical substantive issues.”
It seems a climate deal is still an ocean away. Literally.
