Copenhagen 2009: The carbon footprint

Today sees the start of the UN Climate Change Conference, where diplomats from 192 nations take part in the best and perhaps last chance to protect the world from the disasters of global warming, in what has been dubbed the most "important climate change summit in history".

But as the UN tries to cut the carbon emissions of every nations on the planet, what about the summit's own carbon footprint?

With almost 20,000 delegates, activists and reporters expected to converge on the Danish capital some experts are forecasting the 12 day conference, and all the activity surrounding it, to produce 41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent" - roughly the same as what Morocco produced during the whole of 2006.

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41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent"

Although the official footprint figure will not be released until 11 December, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is convening COP15, has already tried to estimate the likely emissions.

The figure of 41,000 tonnes is split into two parts: international travel and local emissions from hotels and transportation venues. Add to this the 900km of computer cable reportedly being laid for reporters, the 50,000 square miles of carpet, 200,000 meals being served and 200,000 cups of coffee and the UN climate change summit takes on a whole new perspective.

So, is it fair to say that because all these world leaders and diplomats are coming together to do something good, they expected the rest of us to fail to notice the carbon they were kicking out along the way? Well, when you consider the numbers it's hard to defend them.

One has to ask if it is entirely necessary for Copenhagen's airport to expect 140 extra private jets on its runway, and hundreds of limos to be driven to Denmark to make up the fleet of 1200 needed to transport the do-gooders from luxurious-place to luxurious-place.

Significantly less emissions than Bali summit

Surely some of them get on okay? Can't Nicolas Sarkozy pick up Gordon Brown en route in his private plane? Or what about Austria's Niki Berlakovich swinging by Germany in his electric car to collect Angela Merkel?

And why all these separate limos? Why not round all the attendees up on a couple of buses running on carrot juice...?

Well, maybe not, but you get the point.

But there is more to this story. 41,000 tonnes is an awful lot of carbon dioxide, but compare this to the 2007 conference held in Bali and it doesn't seem so bad. Two years ago the 15,000 attendees were estimated to have emitted more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions of the African state of Chad.

"Ambitious climate project in Bangladesh"

And the UN has taken steps to offset the carbon created by supporting an "ambitious climate project in Bangladesh", which will see old, heavily polluting brickwork factories in Dhaka replaced with 20 new energy-efficient kilns, as reported by the Guardian newspaper.

COP15 carries with it an immense amount of responsibility, and with many experts predicting that the year 2020 is the point of no return for our warming climate, this may indeed be our last chance to reach a comprehensive global treaty on carbon reductions. It is way too early to write this summit off as a failure - even though many of the attendees have expressed little optimism - but one waits in hope that 41,000 tonnes will be worth it.

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