The City of Copenhagen
Copenhagen: Host city of UN Climate Change Conference
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-02 21:49
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HELSINKI: The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place from 7 to 18 December in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, with the international community seeking agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Xinhua reporters visited the city at the end of November to check the pre-session atmosphere of this famous Nordic city.
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About 3,000 journalists and correspondents have already arrived in the host city and more are expected.
Participants are committed to sorting out a new arrangement for tackling global warming and its impact beyond 2012, when existing commitments under the Kyoto Protocol expire.
Bella Center, the venue of the conference, situated in the city's south, is among Europe's leading exhibition and meeting centers, with a total capacity of 20,000. A giant wind turbine, the symbol of Bella Center, stands in front of the building, whose main entrance is decorated with a full-size fan blade.
In keeping with its upcoming role, Bella Center, originally built in the high-energy consumption tradition of the past, has been seeking to green its operations by exploring measures to minimize environmental impacts and maximize the efficient consumption of raw materials, water and other energy resources.
With a "Green City" reputation, Copenhagen has been actively tapping ideas to cope with climate change. In March of this year, Copenhagen's municipal administration outlined its ambitious intention to become the world's first carbon-neutral city by 2025. On the ground in the square at City Hall, this carbon-neutral goal is strikingly written on a big footprint.
Also well-known as "Cycle City", over a third of residents here commute by bicycle on weekdays to office or school. The number cyclists is impressive and the Copenhagen City Museum has promoted this with an exhibition to display the city's history "on bikes" and its long cycling tradition.
Prior to next week's global summit, Copenhagen has launched a series of such campaigns to promote the summit and publicize knowledge of environmental protection, according to the city's authority.
The world's largest container shipping company, Copenhagen-based conglomerate AP Moller-Maersk, offered an exhibition in the square of the downtown pedestrian street by using a remodeled container as an exhibition platform.
The exhibition contributes to raising public awareness about the impact of climate change and the urgent need for environmental protection, by telling visitors in vivid and intuitive ways that a single 15km drive to the electronics store in a neighboring block emits much more carbon gases than the entire sail from Asia to Europe.
In the famous King's New Square, located in downtown Copenhagen, there are 16 creative and colorful models of the Earth, which attractively draws people's attention.
These are "Cool Globes", presented by the Art and Environmental Exhibition, in an effort to stimulate the public to get involved in carbon emissions reduction and energy saving, even in small ways, to prevent the global climate from further deterioration.
On the other side of the square, a large-scale photo exhibition "100 Places to Remember Before They Disappear" grabs the attention of citizens and tourists.
The photos show 100 places on earth facing the risk of disappearance within next few generations due to climate change and other influences from human activities, to warn people that living conditions will be dramatically changed as a consequence of climate change.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is by far the largest international conference held in Denmark. It is reported that the Danish Parliament approved 83 million euros (125 million US dollars) specifically for the security of the conference, with assistance from neighboring countries such as Sweden, Norway, Germany and Belgium being prefered to strengthen security.
