Available here

I am trying to get a question about HFC regulation by the Montreal Protocol into the Avaaz crisis phonecall with Gordon Brown. It may help if others submit my question too.

HFC regulation could be taken over by the Montreal people. It would be a very similar job to regulating CFCs - a job which they have already successfully done. This would very likely work effective and efficiently, now. But the Montreal Protocol people want a clear statement from COP 15, and ministers and leaders are unlikely to be sufficiently well informed. Thrusting this at Gordon Brown's face today might actually make a genuine difference. So, if you could go to the Avaaz site and re-submit my question, I'd really appreciate it. And do forward to anyone else who cares and might bother.

More background. (if this is not open access I can email it to you).

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My question
HFC regulation under the Montreal Protocol

With talks near deadlock, there remains one fairly easy option that would make a real difference.

Will you push for a strong statement from COP 15 that they would like the Montreal Protocol body to take over regulation of HFC emissions, under the amendment proposed by Micronesia and Mauritius?

Background: HFCs are highly potent greenhouse gases. They are also short-lived, so reducing their emissions would have immediate benefits. If unchecked, they may account for 45% of radiative forcing by 2050. The Montreal Protocol has been exceptionally effective at reducing emissions from CFCs - similar gases, produced by the same utilities. They have the expertise and experience. They are taking seriously the option of moving into HFC regulation. But they would prefer a strong statement from COP 15 supporting this action. Please work to provide one.

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Thank you

Tags: climate geekery

When you joined me last we were waiting for a session to start. After three hours of waiting, they were finally ready to start - and thought it best to chuck all the NGO observers out first.

So, now, after a busy and interesting afternoon of side events, you join your correspondent again. This time, we are discussing Annex I countries' commitments going forward under the Kyoto protocol. (Annex I countries, as you will be aware, are those countries that were defined as being `developed' back when they Kyoto protocol was drawn up).

This is a `contact group' - which means it's in a smaller room. It also means, as far as I can see, that something actually gets done. I've been pottering into a few dull little working groups for the last week; I always seem to miss this one, the interesting one, as it has a tendency to be postponed after I think I've arranged my side events round it. None the less, I do think it's been meeting for the last week.

So we have a nice table of developed countries, and their commitment to emission reductions in the period 2013-2017. Let's have a look at it.

Nothing left to do but fill in the blanks? This key and vital blanks; the heart of the agreement.

You'll be glad to hear which column we're discussing, then. That's right. We're still discussing the first column. We genuinely just spent 20 minutes discussing the name change from `European Commission' to `European Union' - although Sweden (EU presidency) just emphasised that, for these purposes it was simply a name change.

You couldn't make this up.

Edit: Fail; I meant the name change from `European Community' to `European Union'. Yes, I do know the difference. Still, at least I didn't hold up an important international meeting for 20 minutes with my own unimportant confusion.

Tags: climate geekery, rant

Background on the Simon Singh / Chiropractic debacle.

Now:Sense About Science has joined forces with Index on Censorship and English PEN and their goal is to reach 100,000 or more signatories in order to help politicians appreciate the level of public support for libel reform.

The petition is here.

Tags: news, science

Today's climate change action suggestion: call Gordan Brown. He wants you too; it might be faintly helpful.

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I should have been blogging about what's going on here, but to be honest, a lot of the time I have no idea. After an hour or so of plenary sessions in which absolutely nothing happens (as in, the conversation has not even moved on to Agenda item I), we decide our time is better spent in the interesting-sounding side events. There we sit through hours of detailed discussion of financing mechanisms, and emerge blinking, to hear that there has indeed been action and drama in the main discussions - but that nobody seems quite sure what. So we turn to the bbc news website.

Last week was clearly the chilled warm-up act. We would breeze through security in a mere 10 or 20 minutes, take a sip from our water bottles to prove they didn't contain explosives, and carry on into this magical wilderness of aircraft hangers. But this week, not only are the ministers turning up (Ed Milliband was hanging out a few metres behind me half an hour ago), but the number of NGO observers seems to have more than doubled. From tomorrow, access only to NGO observers with one of a limited number of special passes (Oxford are running a lottery for us). And we queued for an hour in the ~1 degree Danish morning to even get at security.

Rather worryingly, there were others in the queue around us with the pink badge of `Parties' to the conference. In other words, members of national negotiating teams.

Having made it in, this morning, we're hoping to sit in on some real action in the plenary session - 'open-ended informal consultations to address major issues requiring political guidance'. It was meant to start an hour and a half ago. We were early and have good seats, but now can't leave to forage for lunch - we'd never get back in. We're told there's a delay, but not why.

The answers we cannot find on the ground, of course, can be sought from the bbc - according to Richard Black it is a row over whether these issues should be debated in this forum. But I really hope the problem isn't that delegates are stuck in the queue outside.

Tags: climate geekery, news