Last Friday morning, I stepped off the plane in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15). My role at the Copenhagen climate conference is as a policy mentor and coach to 12 youth delegates from 7 Midwest states. They make up Expedition Copenhagen, traveling with polar explorer and global warming eyewitness Will Steger. I had reviewed all the negotiating positions of individual countries like my own, China, Japan, Canada--and important blocks of countries, the European Union, the Alliance of Small States, the G-77 developing nations. I felt prepared to track the formal negotiations of the conference. What I was unprepared for was the remarkable intensity and focus of the youth delegates I would meet that night.

[Reposted from Fresh Energy Blog]