COP15 Day 2

To make sense of all the information coming out of the COP15 confence in Copenhagen, Flow will be running a series of daily blog entries to keep you up-to-date on the latest news from the largest climate change event in the world. Today is day two of the 12-day conference.

Certainly today’s most talked-about Copenhagen moment was US President Barack Obama’s announcement that greenhouse gases would now be considered a health hazard, giving the Environmental Protection Agency the power to to regulate industrial emissions. Given the difficulties of negotiating domestic GHG regulation (let alone on the global scale that the Copenhagen delegates are tackling), the fact that a single body in one of the world’s largest two emitters has the power to drastically affect industrial policy is a major coup. But while the US is certainly one of the most looked-at participants in the conference, it joins 191 other countries in the conference’s meetings.

Among others, today’s meeting topics include “China and the world: Solving climate change through practical, on-the-ground collaboration,” “Trade liberalisation and its role in technology diffusion: A look at the renewable energy, buildings” and “Developing Country Implementation Strategies and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs)”. Every day of the confernece also includes a variety of side events, including an update from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on its renewable energy reports and a four-part series on low carbon scenarios in Denmark, France, Germany and the UK. Renault’s Zero Emission Transportation – Taking a Step Towards the Future in Copenhagen, will be taking place in parallel with the conference today, highlighting zero-emission vehicles.

COP15 Day 3