So, the conference has begun!  With much fanfare and pages of newspaper coverage.  Not much in the way of discussion happens on the first day - there’s just a lot of speeches as countries outline their starting positions.  The Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (who write reports on the latest climate science) reminded everyone about all the scary stuff going on - melting glaciers, more powerful hurricanes - you know the drill.

There was a promising development from the USA - their Environmental Protection Agency has announced that (shock horror!) carbon dioxide is a danger to human health.  This means they can get on with regulating emissions from those industries that produce a lot of this “dangerous” gas, without having to wait for laws to be passed by Congress.  Some people reckon this might allow President Obama to sign up to a high-level political agreement.

The Saudi Arabian negotiator tried to insinuate that the science of climate change isn’t settled.  Of course it isn’t - science does not settle!  But it produces evidence, and there is a lot of evidence to support the idea that the climate changes we’re observing at the moment are due to the activity of me and you and our 6 billion neighbours.  I mean, how much evidence do these “deniers” want to see?  A wise friend of mine (alright, my Dad) likes to use this analogy: imagine your child suddenly becomes very ill.  95 doctors tell you she has leukemia.  5 doctors tell you she probably doesn’t have leukemia, and even if she did it isn’t their fault, and even if it is their fault, it’s too late to do anything about it now.  Whose advice do you take?

Young people have been reminding the negotiators just who they are negotiating on behalf of.  Yesterday a bunch of youth delegates performed an energetic (and pretty groovy) “flashdance” outside the plenary hall (that’s the big main conference room), calling for strong action and climate justice.

Things so far aren’t looking great, especially as there’s now some hoo-hah about a leaked document. Turns out some rich countries have been drafting a secret agreement that would allow their people to emit twice as much as people from poorer countries in 2050.  That’s kind of like me eating a load of chocolate cake, and then you saying you want some chocolate cake too, and then me telling you “ok, you can have some chocolate cake, but only half as much as me because I’ve already eaten loads of chocolate cake”.

So: that global climate change deal doesn’t seem to be in sight just yet.  If you’re looking for something to try and speed it along, you could try this campaign from 38 degrees to get Europe to commit to cutting its emissions by 30% by 2020 (at the moment they say only 20%, which is nowhere near enough) - it’ll only take a few minutes, and it’s a bit urgent so I’d recommend it.