CBC Maritimes

'The Survival of the Fattest' by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot is currently installed in the harbour of Copenhagen

Of the 15,000 people gone to Copenhagen, the discussions are most pointed for the youngest. Models showing more extreme weather due to climate change reach into the years when they'll be adults and most of the politicians and scientists and industry representatives at the conference will be dead.
The Canadian Youth Delegation has traveled to Copenhagen to join with youths from all over the world to try to influence delegates to take strong action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
We spoke with Thea Whitman, a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation who's representing Nova Scotia in Copenhagen.
To hear her podcast from Copenhagen, click here.


From now until December 18th, plenty of people will be talking in Copenhagen about Climate Change. But how much will money be talking ?
Many players don't want governments to commit to anything in Copenhagen that would create rapid and permanent change to the carbon economy. Others - such as major environmental groups - do.
One of the means of communicating those positions is through lobbying.
To find out how much money has been flowing in the months leading up to the Climate Change Conference, we contacted Dave Leventhal. He's the spokesperson for the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, DC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group which tracks money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.


The expectations on delegates to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen range from the minimal to the impossible.
But as with all negotiations, the parties aren't equal and have different priorities. For instance, the interests of Canada - a northern, developed country with valuable fossil-fuel resources - differ from those of the Republic of Vanuatu, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific. Four years ago, 100 people there had to move from the coast to higher ground in what a UN Report called the first example of a village formally displaced because of modern global warming.
We asked : "What kind of agreement do you want from the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference ?"
Our guests were Meinhard Doelle, Director of the Marine & Environmental Law Programme at Dalhousie University and Michael M'Gonigle, EcoResearch Professor of Environmental Law and Politics at the University of Victoria.
To read Michael M'Gonigle's series of articles on Copenhagen in The Tyee magazine, click here.