by Dr. Donna Charlevoix, GPO Climate Research Campaign Coordinator
Today is the official opening of the conference.
There are a lot of meetings and presentations going on concurrently and so it is difficult to get a full sense of everything that is happening. This photo taken from one of the many halls within the Bella Center gives you a feel for the magnitude of this event.
The formal aspects of the meeting including things like adoption of the conference agenda, election of officers, and reports of various committees associated with the Conference of Parties. There are actually four formal meetings taking place here: Conference of Parties (COP), Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA), and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). As you can see there is a lot to keep track of. It’s not surprising that the meeting is usually just referred to as COP-15 rather than all of the above!
Today started with a Welcoming Ceremony after which the meetings of the four groups listed above began. At the same time these formal meetings occurred, many smaller presentations were given in many locations. Most countries in attendance have a designated space for which they can provide information and presentations. The photo here is a large space highlighting work of Denmark (the host of the conference).
Other countries have meeting space that is within different halls of the conference center. The United States has a presence for the first time ever! Tomorrow I will be presenting an overview of GLOBE and highlighting student research. I will also conduct a short overview of some of the NASA Earth Observatory data on Science On a Sphere. The imagery I will show is the same as on the soon-to-be-released Earth System Science Poster.
I spent much of today exploring the conference center and talking with many of the groups who are here to share their work on climate and climate change.
My discussions with many of them focused on how we can connect their work with that of the upcoming Student Climate Research Campaign (SCRC). The SCRC will not only provide new learning activities around climate, but help you make connections with local groups and organizations who are working on climate issues of local relevance to you.
Tomorrow is my presentation of all the great work GLOBE has been doing over the past 14+ years. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s report on the presentation and more updates on the conference.
