Fun Facts About the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference Summit
Updated on December 7, 2009
Fun Facts About the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference Summit
- Diplomats from over 191 nations will convene in Copenhagen Denmark.
- A total of approximately 15,000 to 20,000 people are expected to attend the opening ceremonies. Hotels have been encouraged to offer "environmentally friendly hotel rooms" and attendees have been asked to drink tap water instead of bottled water.
- A study by Canadian scientist Martin Hocking shows that making a paper
cup uses as much or more petroleum or natural gas as a polystyrene, or "Styrofoam", cup. The paper cup requires .55 megajoules to manufacture and the polystyrene cup requires .20 megajoules.
- The UN Copenhagen Climate Conference Summit will last 2 weeks, from December 7, 2009 through December 20, 2009.
- United States President Barack Hussein Obama plans to attend near the end of the conference, which is thought by some to be an indication that an agreement will be struch by then.
- Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, asserts that "the evidence is now overwhelming" and that the world needs to act now.
- The U.N. Environment Program released a study on December 6, 2009 indicating that although industrialized countries have pledged to reduce emissions, the pledges fall short of the goal to keep average temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Conference President Connie Hedegaard favors raising money from public and private sources, then channeling that money to poor countries.
- Wikipedia describes Connie Hedegaard as "a Danish politician and public intellectual" and asserts that she has an MA in Literature and History.
- US President Barack Hussein Obama has proposed that US emissions in 2050 will be 83% below 2005 levels. According to George Will's December 2009 column in the New York Post, those levels will be roughly equal to US emissions in 1875.
- Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, offered last week that India should
reduce its carbon emissions by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 as compared to
2005 levels.
- Tesla
Motors will host test-drives of their all-electric vehicles at the the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference Summit.
- According to Fox News, The United Nations calculates the conference will create approximately 40,584 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, roughly the same amount as the carbon emissions of Morocco in 2006.
- Airliners taking off from Denmark during the conference will use the "green departure" strategy, which allows then to fly directly to their most efficient cruising altitude.
