Posts Tagged ‘Government Delegates’
“The U.N.’s ‘Bali High’ .December 2007 witnessed 15,000 climateers and media descend upon the paradise island resort of Bali for the 13th annual U.N. global warming meeting. The reason for much jet and limo travel — and other prodigious greenhouse gas generating activity associated with such a mega-conference — is relatively modest: setting the agenda and timeframe for a post-Kyoto treaty. Sure seems like something that could have been handled in a less carbon-intensive way — either by Internet and video conferencing or, if meeting is necessary, somewhere in North America or Europe where most key attendees are based.
The 15,000 politicians, activists, MPs, journalists, and civil servants from 180 countries who traveled to Bali for the talks emitted between 60,000 and 100,000 ton of carbon dioxide, according to estimates. This is not far short of what a country like Malawi or Chad emits in a year, the UN said yesterday. The greatest emissions resulted from flights to and from Indonesia, but extra air conditioning and car travel during two weeks of meetings added significantly to the carbon budget.
While all UN delegates and most European government delegates had their flights offset with financial investments in ‘schemes’ which buy up greenhouse emissions, it is not known how many other attendees tried to lessen their impact.”
They might have scored some credibility points by organizing their meetings for tele-conferencing. Committee/breakout sessions….etc.
The same way that many large corporations do it!
Face it….. they could have done things differently…..while helping the environment AND $$$Millions!!
Actually, I do have experience with large conferences. The media….I believe… has considerable experience using the internet.
Do you think for a moment that a 15,000 video-conference can’t be organized?
Well Crabby…. I guess you told me!! I didn’t realize that the fossil-fuel industry had published the Bali-Conference-pollution observations!
In any event, judging by the defensive nature of some of the responses, the Bali-Conference-pollution issue was/is a sensitive issue.