The show is on! The UN Climate Conference has started!

I arrived at the conference at an ungodly early hour in about this state:

A great start!

First on the agenda was a press conference with the norwegian Prime Minister and delegation. I’m not a professional journalist, as you might have noticed, but I think I managed to blend in. (Even though I suspect my retro leather backpack and extreme nervousness gave me away). They said a lot of vague things about increasing the Norwegian ambitions. I will have a closer look at what this means at a later point.

Even though today was the official start of the negotiations, there haven’t been a lot of negotiating. The state leaders stole the show:

Leader after leader spoke (with funny dubbed voices over the headset) about climate change being the biggest challenge of our time. We have to work together in solidarity and be nice to each other to get out of this alive.

I didn’t find all of them equally trustworthy though. USA just released a “non-paper”, which states that they want any notion of historical responsibility out of the agreement. Which means no compensation to the guilt-free developing countries, severely affected  by climate change. So much for “we embrace our responsibility to do something about it”.

Why people send out “non-papers” randomly, I don’t know.

The message from the “non-paper” made me even more depressed when I heard the speech of Micronesias president.

I wish all would listen to Micronesia.

Then I headed home, in the same state as which I arrived. I wonder what tomorrow might bring. See you soon.