Opening of Copenhagen Climate Exchange

Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009. Copenhagen. The Copenhagen Climate Exchange opened today at Øksnehallen, in the center of Copenhagen, in the week before the official COP 15 meeting. I am here working with the Climate Sustainability Platform, which involved a great mix of speakers reprsenting NGOs, academics and business groups from India, China, Senegal, Maldives, France, Norway, and others as well as myself and CitNet member Gail Karlsson from the United States. The four-day program involves morning to night workshops, focusing especially on the linkages between climate change and sustainability and examining the kind of changes needed in the production and consumption systems at the root of the climate change problem.

For the opening, I gave the presentation "Climate sustainability: From Rio to Copenhagen," examining the timeline and trends since 1992, noting the parallel international discussions and discourses on climate change and sustainable development, leading to the current debate and decisions regarding what will and will not be done in the coming decade and beyond.

The rest of the day was followed by a stream of workshops and presentation, primarily focused on the COP theme of "adaptation." Other events on Thursday at the Climate Exchange.