It’s the 17th, the icy and snowy world of Copenhagen is truly cold.
Entering the Bella Center early in the morning, I bump into a clearly exhausted Connie Hedegaard rushing around, who seems to be a completely different person to the young, freely spoken, and relaxed minister of last November’s interview with Chinadialogue. The woman that yesterday stepped down from her position as president of the COP15, still needs time,it would seem, to extricate herself from the past few days of difficult and arduous negotiations.
The pessimistic and heavy atmosphere is getting stronger and stronger, and the conference is due to finish in less than two days, but the negotiations still have not made any noteworthy progress.
Some rumours say that the reason Hedegaard resigned half a day early is because of the great pressure that America created in the negotiations.
Apart from the multiple and long Chinese style overcrowded queues at the conference registration, another major characteristic of COP15 is the confusion between truth and rumour.
Canada’s carbon reduction goals were 90 times bigger in rumours, and everyone hoped that the rumours would become truth, but very quickly they became disheartened by the clarification from the Canadian government.
The conference started going crazy as early as the second day due to the news of a "Danish Text" , up until the 16th when it was verified by the Danish President that there was this kind of text, then China’s representatives and other advanced Chinese specialists showed a strong opposition to this "proposal that fell down from the sky." But until today, the truth about the "Danish Text" is still in suspense, and the specific contents are still unknown.
Furthermore Western Media have been reporting that China demonstrated in certain negotiations at dawn on the 17th that "China cannot envision reaching an immediate, operational accord out of the negotations here."
Very quickly, China’s Environmental Representative Yu Qingtai denied these media reports. He pointed out, that at this time, there are many kinds of rumours, a few nations have already started creating rumours, and that this attention will influence China.
But the widespread pessimism of every countries’ representatives to the results of the negotiations is indisputable.
Starting from today, only 200 of the more than 20,00 NGO workers will be allowed to enter the Bella Centre. After yesterday’s large-scale demonstration and small-scale arrests, and despite the host nation arranging two more venues for their activities, there are still lots of people today protesting outside the conference.
Most of the world leaders have already arrived in Copenhagen, perhaps they will be able to change the tide.