For those groups and citizens that were unable to find an outlet for their research, opinions, and concerns at the COP15 in the Bella Center, there are, thankfully, other venues in the city able to serve them.  In fact, the Bella Center has a capacity of 15,000, and more than 45,000 people have registered so far; in the next few days more and more NGO observers and journalists will be excluded from the Bella center as important political figures arrive for the final sessions.  Where can the overflow activists and observers head to?  Events such as the Klimaforum.

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As the news has been heralding, the Bella center is filling to capacity.  Yesterday, we stood in line for three hours to register as NGO observers.  Once we were inside, though, it certainly was a sight to behold.  The Bella center is actually a mash-up of the actual convention center and numerous temporary buildings linked into a single complex.  There are halls with booths for NGO groups, meeting halls, open public spaces, and offices for delegations, NGOs, and IGOs (intergovernmental organizations).  The pubic spaces are regularly the scene of seemingly-spontaneous protests, while numerous talks, seminars, and side events are held in meeting rooms off of the public halls.  As observers, we get to sit in and interact in these side events, hosted by NGOs or UN bodies, and interact with the range of attendants in the center.  The range of humanity is impressive, from legions of bright-eyed organizers to delegates from every single country; there are even rock-star moments when figure like Al Gore and Bill McKibben grace the halls.  And the actual talks that are supposedly deciding the fate climate change?  They are hidden away in meeting halls where few, if any, observers are allowed to enter.

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When scientists and policy-makers go searching for the source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the finger is almost always pointed at developed nations.  This blame is not without reason, and the goal of these developed countries must now be to quickly shift their economies from a base of fossil fuels to carbon neutral energy.  The discussion of this transformation usually centers around two areas: carbon mitigation and renewable energy development.  Carbon mitigation involves the continued emission of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, the capture of the emissions at the point of release, and final sequestration of that carbon dioxide; there is even interest in sequestering carbon dioxide that was released by past industrial activities.  The other promise of technology in a post-Copenhagen world is in the development of renewable energy, such as wind, solar, and and geothermal.  As we have seen from the current renewable energy industry, a mix of public and market development will have to guide these technological developments, but they are nonetheless essential as developed economies continue to globalize.

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