First Day in the Bella Centre

An intense but wonderful day, all day.
Up at 6am in the dark, thankful for the seamless internet connection here, even allowing the comfort of ABC as background music.
8.30am out the door with my empty backpack to catch Bus 4A to Bella Centre, chatting animatedly in broken French about drought and agriculture with 2 Moroccans.
9.15am Walked past the huge CO2 bubble that encourages us all to reduce our emissions and joined my first queue for the day, this one outside the fence, entertained by a Burmese demonstration for Aung San Su Chi, a Polish trio handing out tree seeds and a quartet from Climate Action Newtown singing "Come On Aussie, c'mon" and waving placards calling on KRudd to get a real target.
10.15am Moved through the gate, coinciding with a cool electric vehicle, and joined my second discussion on Australia's recent tumultuous politics, the demise of the CPRS, the rise of scepticism. Glad for a chance to explain the CPRS is under fire from both directions as a flawed instrument. Invited to a side event where Mark Lewis, Global Carbon Markets from Deutsche Bank will speak on Australia's CPRS.
11am-ish join my third queue, this one inside, and conversation turns to forest carbon and improvind land degradation with a Brazilian consultant. Then meet Lily, Peruvian lawyer working with indigenous peoples to preserve their rights and their forests and gain recognition of heritage and traditional knowledge.
12 midday inside the Bella Centre proper and spend an hour talking and walking my way through some of the exhibits - Woods Hole, Oxfam, Global Water, Pacific Islands.
1pm Experience intense local global warming in the Niels Bohr room crammed to capacity listening to a panel of IPPC scientists explain Assessment Report AR4 and proposed process and timelines for AR5. Detailed update on the 'leaked emails' from East Anglia. Most significant for me to learn of IPPC Special Reports on renewable energy sources and extreme events, signalling a progression from justifying the science behind climate change towards analysing the solutions, including the capacity for renewables to contribute to Mitigation.
2.30pm spill out gasping for fresh air and have lunch with Peter Wood from ANU who's following the metrics of country targets being put on the table. Spend a little time finding my way around the vast complex warren of exhibition halls, document centres, offices for BINGOs (business), ENGOS (environment), Farmers, Indigenous, Local Govt, TUNGOs (trade unions), RINGOs (research?) ad Women & Gender... then the Plenary Halls where the actual formal intergovernmental negotiations are taking place. Late afternoon find a cup of coffee and fall asleep on a bench for half an hour.
6pm awake, wide awake for my first Fossil Awards - Australia accepted 2nd prize on behalf of the Umbrella Group for proposing carbon capture and storage as a valid clean development mechanism; Ukraine won two: 1st prize for the worst emission target in the world (20% from 1990 = 75% increase from current) and 3rd prize for?.
6.30pm Divide my time between a fascinating session run by the US Natural Resources Defense Council on China's efforts to reduce its emissions intensity, and Climate Action Network International's Stronger Southern Voice, where I hear for the first time about the 'Danish Text' leaked to the Guardian, raising the ire of developing countries as much for its lack of due process as for its content.
7pm First CAN (Climate Action Network) briefing, highly impressed as ever by Georgina Woods, International Coordinator of Climate Action Network Australia.
8-10pm Fascinating session on biodiversity - Nick King, from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, led a panel discussing climate change adaptation, agriculture and food security. Passionate call from Cary Fowler from the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Rome, warning against a false assumption that agriculture will take care of itself with crops somehow automatically adapting in time to maintain productive farming systems. Current 174 pages on Longterm Coooperative Action (LCA) has less than 1 page on agriculture... General call for UNFCCC (Framework Convention on Climate Change) and UNCBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) to work in concert.
11pm 'home' via train to Norreport & late night bus to Norrebrogade.

Thus endeth Day 1! My only regret is a mislaid camera, presumed stolen, with photos to bring all the above words to life.. c'est la vie.