Reports from the Poznań climate conference: Bleary eyed

The delegate from Uganda announced: “These presentations are very good, normally I sleep through them.” I had been fighting (and winning…) the urge to fall asleep as well.

Climate Libations: What are delegates doing at Poznan?

John Hepburn, writing on his blog “Rooted”, tells RushPRNews that while the first week of the talks are coming to an end, the 30-strong Australian delegation has remained resolutely silent during most of the sessions.
“According to my contacts on the ground at the meeting, the Australian delegates have hardly said a word — apart from suggesting time-wasting agenda changes,” Hepburn said.

“You have to wonder why the Australian Government paid for 30 people to go on this junket — flying business class, being put up at the Sheraton — if they weren’t going to discuss the issues that were on the agenda?” Hepburn asks.
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“But what seems to be happening at the meeting is that the countries that want to delay action on climate change are talking down the possibility of success,” Hepburn told us. “If they can stall the process at Poznan, it will make it all the more difficult to reach an agreement at Copenhagen at the end of 2009, and then they can get away with delaying action on climate change for another few years.”

This does not look good. Hepburn is also reporting that the Australian delegates are hiding in the bar and contributing very little of substance.

The Poznan Climate Conference « Robert Kyriakides’s Weblog

I do not think that any major climate change conference attended by virtually every country in the world has been the subject of such low expectation and such little publicity as the conference now going on at Poznan in Poland, which is being attended by delegates from 190 countries.