Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awards scholarships to young people from emerging and developing nations. They spend time in Germany working with organizations or studying at universities, gaining expertise on how to improve climate protection in their home countries. GLOBAL IDEAS met up with one of these scholarship holders: Kristy Pena Munoz, an environmental engineer from Mexico. She's an expert on biogas extracted from sewage sludge.

The COP16 climate talks in Cancun have entered the final stretch, but the prospect that the conference will conclude with a substantial agreement is more remote than ever. Generelly there's a sense among participants that there's increasing urgency to the issue of climate change – and a degree of astonishment at the declining importance of the topic in the media and in public perception – no matter if it's in the US or across the pond.

Among those, that are most vociferously campaining for rapid action on climate change is 350.org, a global network of pressure groups and NGOs. We talked to 350.org's Mexico coordinator Marcelo Quintanilla, who believes that there's been too much talk but that  the Cancun conference nevertheless offers a big chance for change.

Second, there's Dave Jones who works to "raise the environmental IQ of America" – the chosen tagline of his science-based communications agency StormCenter – dedicated to driving the urgency of climate change home to a US public increasingly unfazed by the issue. At the Cancun climate talks he runs a multimedia display in the US pavilion to educate visitors about the impact of climate change. Just two findings are: The oceans have measurably warmed down to depths of 300 meters and storms won't necessarily become more frequent but very much more destructive, he says.

At the UN climate conference in Cancun we talked to water expert Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm of the Inter-American Development Bank. The expectations may be low for the present round of climate talks, he told us. But there is something noticeably positive about the COP16 conference: For the first time – and other than only last year at the Copenhagen talks – there's unanimous agreement that climate change is real and that humans are responsible for it, he told us.

With the media focus on all the political bickering over a new climate deal at the COP16 conference, it's easy to lose sight of the very real concerns that people from all over the world are trying to bring to the attention of delegates at the Cancun talks. Their messages are urgent, sometimes simple and – some would say – occasionally simplistic. But never boring.

Meet Sri Sri Soham Baba, who's come to Cancun with a message that is certainly clear. Listen to what he told GLOBAL IDEAS about it:

In the first of our encounters with participants at the UN climate conference in Cancun, we talked to Kevin Buckland of 350.org, a grassroots organization. Its mission: to mobilize the public to counter global warming with "solutions that science and justice demand". At the Cancun talks, Kevin presents the "Fossil of the Day" award. It's handed out daily to countries that represent the biggest stumbling block in the official climate negotiation sessions on that day. Winner of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place on Day 1: Canada, because the Canadian government is rolling back or inhibiting meaningful climate protection in several areas.