Photo credit:
Flickr, flequi
There's a lot of exhaust blowing about COP15's super-sized transportation footprint. Why? Climate change conference-goers arrived in Copenhagen in C02-emitting style--in at least 1,200 swanky limos and 140 private jets--to talk about reducing global C02 emissions. Whatever happened to walking the walk?
"We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfill the demand," Majken Friss Jorgensen, of Copenhagen's largest limousine company, told the Telegraph. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."
How many limousines in Jorgensen's fleet are electric or hybrid? Only five, also according to the Telegraph. Even the Danish government can't afford more than a handful of alt fuel cars; the taxes are too steep.
To the 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world dignitaries converging in Denmark's capital city right now explicitly to unravel the global warming riddle, I say: Show me. Don't tell me.
Set the example by personally making the lifestyle sacrifices (carpooling, public transport-riding, heck--hoofing it!) that we all must make to preserve our planet. You have 11 days left to make it right. The world is watching.
On the upside, more than a few VIP COP15 politicians have greened their rides. In a world first, bullet-proof limos carting bigwigs to and from the summit are chugging on 85 percent bio-ethanol fuel. The Danish gasoline-biofuel blend cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 84 percent. But it's still gas.
How hard is it to hitch a ride on Copenhagen's public transportation system, posh limo riders? After all, it's billed as "the main component of transportation" for COP15 participants, free to anyone with a conference badge. Why not skip the polluting sky and road miles altogether and teleconference from home?
Nah. It's too easy for attendees to burn fuel, alternative or not, thanks to COP15's official carbon offset fix-it, a climate project in Bangladesh capital Dhaka. Conference organizers claim the offsets will "make the conference effectively climate neutral." Effectively. Basically. Whatever.
Come back soon for a taste of COP15's illustrious menu. I hope you like caviar, scallops and foie gras. I also hope it's sustainable.
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I thought the same thing yesterday about the teleconferencing -- what a great example that would have been, and at least a THOUSAND times greener than flying on even a commercial flight, but instead they're putting environmentalists in the awkward position of making the same points as Sean Hannity. Ridiculous.