The latest round of UN climate talks are underway here in Bonn.
I came across this “beggar” outside the swish hotel in Bonn where the conference is taking place. I think his motto says it all:

I’m feeling rather envious – or at least I’m getting itchy feet.
My colleague Stefan Nestler is on his way to the North Pole via Spitzbergen.
Mind you, he’s with an expedition that’s walking, skiing and towing all the necessary rations and equipment on their sledges.That is going to be quite a feat.
His Nordpolblog (in German, but there will be great pictures, I’m sure) looks fantastic.
Visit the North Pole Blog
Meanwhile, I have been doing conference duty here in Bonn, following the UN Climate Secretariat meeting trying to make progress towards an agreement to be signed in Copenhagen in December.
Fred has posted a comment asking what I think of all these conferences and their chances of success, and Obama’s role.
Well sometimes I think these giant meetings (more than 2 and a half thousand people at the UN meeting here until April 8th) produce enough “hot air” to raise the temperature of the planet considerably. But if we don’t get all the major players to agree on binding commitments, we have no chance.I don’t know if they really need that many people. And a bit more video-conferencing would save a lot of travel emissions.
Talking to the delegates to the UN meeting, I certainly get the feeling the change of US administration has given a boost to morale and the feeling that we might get there somewhere after all. But there are those who warn against expecting too much.
Let’s give the guy and his team a chance. And let’s see what comes out of this round of talks, and Obama’s special climate summit in April.
Meanwhile, I’m off on a break until after Easter. I’ll leave you with another link to the latest iniative by the online community connect2earth. They’ve launched a new campaign, supported by celebrities like Skandar Keynes (from Chronicles of Narnia – ha! bet you were wondering when Narnia was going to come in to it. Jack, you probably thought it would involve the lion…)
They want to encourage people to debate with the world’s top environmental experts. Check it out yourselves, here’s the link:
Join the green online community?
Check the Ice Blog again around April 14th please!

I’ve just come back from Copenhagen, where I spent a few days with a transatlantic group of journalists and climate change experts (scientists and business people).It was part of a study tour devoted to Energy, Climate and Oceans – Impacts on the Global Economy. One of the people we talked to was Lyyke Fries, the new Danish Climate and Energy Minister, who took over while her predecessor becomes EU Commissioner. “The Copenhagen hangover is over”, she told me, and said she was happy that the Copenhagen Accord was going to be a springboard for the next rounds of negotiations in Bonn and Mexico this year. She was presenting the targets entered on the UN list by the deadline (a flexible one, as UN climate chief Yvo de Boer stressed in January) as a successful step forward. At the same time she admits freely that the EU was sidelined in the creation of that accord and is trying to work out how to regain a prominent position in the climate process. She also refers to the “new world order” emerging, with countries like India, China and Brazil at the forefront.So it’s hard to believe the hangover is really over for Denmark or the EU, to mention but a few.
We also visited the Copenhagen office of Greenpeace. You won’t be surprised to hear that they have a different view of the Copenhagen Accord.
More about that and some of the interesting views put forward by North American experts and journos in the next couple of days.

…are particularly likely to be female, poor and living in developing countries, says the International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN.
More info on the IUCN website

The organisation used the Poznan conference, now into its 2nd week, as a platform to launch a training manual aimed at policy- and decision-makers, to make them take gender into account in climate change strategies.
The training manual

Apologies for a couple of weeks of silence from your Ice Blogger. Amongst other things, I’ve been finding out about the effects of climate change in areas known for their warmth and sunshine, rather than ice and snow.
You might expect the blogger to be at Poznan. But, believe me, there are plenty of other journalists there to keep the world up to date on the hours… and hours… and hours… of negotiations – and the problems of reaching an international concensus.
During a trip to Australia, I found myself in one of the world’s 34 “biodiversity hotspots” – South-West Australia. WWF, Conservation International and other groups have come up with a list of the places on earth worthy of special protection, because they have the highest concentrations of biodiversity. SW Australia is one of them.
In its capital, Perth, I paid a visit to “Panda Cottage” on Herdsman Lake.

It’s the headquarters of WWF for SW Australia. It’s a beautiful setting, with herons, spoonbills and a wide variety of birds amongst
paperbarks and other trees, reflecting on the water in bright sunshine. There is also a large population of tiger snakes. “Watch out, there’s one living just outside the door”, says Paul Gamblin, WWF Programme chief for WA.

There is an amazing variety of wildlife and plant life, for an area on the outskirts of a sprawling city.But I found out from Paul that this little idyll is subject to tremendous pressure – typical of the whole of this region of Australia. The water is actually quite badly polluted. The whole area of SW Australia has suffered from clearance for agriculture and settlment . In fact a dramatic 93% has already been lost. Now, climate change poses the next challenge. Nobody knows exactly which scenario will actually become reality. But rainfall patterns have already been changing. And wetland areas like this one are under pressure.
You can hear the interview with Paul Gamblin on the Living Planet website:
Climate Change and SW Australia on Living Planet
More info also at:
WWF Australia