Related Blog Posts - COP15-HE

by Sarah Brylinsky, Sustainability Education Coordinator, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, Dickinson College

Should we be disappointed, or hopeful?

It was the question on everyone’s mind as the professors, administrators, and students who had spent two weeks in Copenhagen learning from and influencing the negotiations of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) flew home to celebrate the holidays, reflect on the outcome and process, and prepare for work ahead in 2010.

From a political perspective, there is much work yet to be done. The intent of the conference was to complete legally binding negotiations on a new international agreement as the Kyoto Protocol winds to a close in 2012. The aim was lofty -- to create a new agreement be reached, one which surmounts the difficulty of balancing cost-effectiveness with equitable policy architecture and generates enough consensus to come into effect as a long-term solution to mitigating and adapting to climate change.

The first two "Live from Copenhagen Q & A calls" are now available for listening and download. Our first call occurred at 3pm eastern on Tuesday December 8th and focused on initial perspectives and how to follow and use the negotiations process. We had a few recording errors, in particular, the abrupt ending due to an internet outage. Our apologies.

First Live from Copenhagen Q & A Call

Second Live from Copenhagen Q & A Call

Guest blog by Kelly Rogers. This item appears in Dickinson College's COP15-HE RSS Feed

This semester at Dickinson I took a course about Comparative Law. All semester we studied the differences and similarities between legal systems of different nations. One author we read, Patrick Glenn, suggests that by studying an individual nation’s legal systems and traditions, one can uncover “truth.”
Since I have been at the Cop-15 here in Denmark, [...]

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by Sarah Brylinsky, Sustainability Education Coordinator, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, Dickinson College

As the world turns to watch climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this December, institutions of higher education are paying particular attention to the potential for translated educational opportunities and institutional reform. Eight college and university delegations will be attending the UNFCCC 15th Conference of the Parties, contributing 300 students from American institutions in addition to the more than 500 American youth and 3,000 international youth expected to participate. Student and institutional delegates are attending as researchers, observers, teachers, administrators, and climate activists focused on finding new roads to sustainable development and education.

College and university participants will be blogging, twittering, and reporting on lessons and developments of the COP15 through live Q & A calls, making information and updates accessible to the broader higher education sustainability community (See all of the ways to stay connected during the COP15 negotiations below). Their observations and experiences will provide lessons on how to create timely and aggressive climate reduction commitments, re-think institutional policies for economic and environmental savings, and use the reduction of campus greenhouse gas emissions and resource-intensity as a model for sustainability education.