Hanna Hallin, the president of LSU, said in her welcome speech at the conference opening that we can be "provocative and constructive" over the course of this weekend. Well, let be me a bit provocative in my coverage of the first sessions of the conference and I'll hope that the organisers won't get angry with me (especially since I'm borrowing their laptop to type this post).

And so in this critically provocative spirit, I want to point out to some moments in the otherwise very interesting and (sometimes) inspiring keynote presentations, that I personally found myself in disagreement with. Like, for example, when Hanna herself said "climate catastrophes are fair, because they hit everyone equally and don't discriminate on basis on race, religion, or country". Well, let me (and the chairman of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, who also made this point in his speech on a videolink from New Delhi) disagree with that. It is a known fact that the current state of climate politics is full of inequalities of different kinds and suffers from lack of ethics. See, the today's situation is mostly the developed countries' responsibility, but those who will suffer the most from the consequences are actually those who are least able to deal with them. That is to say "poor countries" and poor people in "rich countries". Not very fair, is it?

Then Stefan Henningsson, WWF's strategy analyst, repeated the point of the Sweden's Environmental Minister Andreas Carlgren that this country's emissions have decreased by 9 per cent compared with 1990 levels and that Sweden successfully managed to decouple economic growth and the greenhouse gases emissions. Inside, I was protesting, but fortunately there was another speaker (namely, Carl Mossfeldt of Tällberg Advisors) who pointed out to a clear fact that Sweden's emissions didn't decrease (as one might believe when looking at the domestic production processes, and not counting in international sea and air traffic) but were displaced to the developing countries. When one analyses increased consumption in Sweden, taking imports into accounts, it becomes apparent that the emissions have actually grown by almost a third from 1990 levels. I think it's important to know not to make false claims about non-existent "success stories".

The deputy mayor of the city of Örebro, Gabriella Blomgren, a young leader herself, however passionate and determined to make a difference, made a funny comment about how she always try to carry her laptop with her instead of using paper notes. To help climate, of course. Well, maybe she didn't consider all the electricity produced to power her laptop (even though in Sweden half of it comes from hydro and roughly another half – from nukes). And that paper can be a good stock of carbon, especially if it's recycled paper and the one that is going to be recycled again when discarded. It's nice to see Gabriela's passion, but it's good to be on the right track and have your facts straight.

Then, after the opening ceremony we had a keynote presentation by Dr. R. K. Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC and the man who shared Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore last year. I have to say that I really liked his presentation! By the way, by having him on video link instead of in person, the organisers saved 697 kg of CO₂ emissions, but Dr. Pauchari himself was mostly happy for his back that didn't have to suffer from another long-distance flight. He said that he has to fly so much around the world, that he got a sore back and a scalp infection (because of which he had to wear a hat during his presentation). Well, let's wish that more organisers of similar events will utilise opportunities of video conferences, instead of contributing to increasing air traffic, right?

Among some interesting facts that he mentioned was how consumption of meat contributes greatly to climate change and how he himself is a devoted vegetarian. He said that advising to eat much less meat might not be a very popular idea in many countries around the world, but that alone will make the planet – and ourselves! – a lot healthier. That really pleased me (kudos to Dr. Pauchari!) and made me wonder (for the hundredth time, probably) why environmental or climate conferences like this one are not completely meat-free (there was chicken served at lunch and bacon during coffee break, but the vegetarian alternative – let's give the organisers a due credit – was great, including even very tasty soy tsai and some crazy green beans that I never ate before, but – oops, I digress here!) Something to think about in the future, I guess… We'll see what will be served at the buffet dinner with the Mayor of Örebro two hours later tonight.

One important thing that Dr. Pauchari said was that the window of opportunity to take necessary actions on climate might be as narrow as only 7 years from now. The radical measures must include:

• Putting price on climate, through taxation and carbon trade


• Enforcing regulation for energy efficiency (especially in buildings)


• And enacting major changes in lifestyles and patterns of behaviour

And so he was talking a lot about technologies (the need for technology transfer from developed to developing countries) and about changing lifestyles, but nothing about the role of population size and population growth. So decided to seize an opportunity and ask the question that my organisation back home (Hållbart universitet in Lund) has commissioned me to raise (thanks, Elias!). Dr. Pauchari agreed that the population growth is an important issue, but even more important are consumption levels, that are currently out of check and totally unsustainable (there are not enough planets to satisfy it). Speaking of measures of population control he pointed that while some "draconian measures" might work under less democratic regimes, in genuine democracies the only way must be through: education of young girls, raising status of women and giving more rights to women in general and over decisions over reproduction in particular, and encouraging young families to have fewer kids. Thus, a strong emphasis on education.

Then he was talking about initiative for "One Billion Lights" – to provide 1,6 bln people currently living without access to electricity and other modern forms of energy with affordable and sustainable (solar + CFL) lighting solutions. Again I felt funny when he spoke about CFLs (aka energy-saving light bulbs) for Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia, while right there, in the big conference hall where we were sitting, I counted 432 (I'm a freak, I know) old incandescent light bulbs in five huge lamps over our heads plus couple of tens incandescent light bulbs in smaller lamps. I wonder who runs the congression centre, whether it's municipality of Örebro or some private entity, but didn't those guys figure out that they could save lots of money and CO₂ emissions by replacing those light bulbs? I wondered if any other "leaders of tomorrow" in that hall noticed those light bulbs of yesterday and if any of them were feeling as strongly about that as I did. (update: my cool roommate Gustav have later confirmed that he was)

Well, enough of criticism for today, and let me assure you that informative, exciting and inspiring things that happened at the conference's first day have greatly outweighed those moments that I described. Kudos to the organisers and participants!

I hope to be able to tell you more about the first and the following days later, like for example about the very energising and pretty radical presentation of Carl Mossfeldt, that totally blown me away. So, keep checking this blog for more updates from me and other bloggers.

Sincerely yours,
Oleg, live from Örebro :-)