Well after queuing at the Bella Center starting at 4:30 this morning for when registration opened at 8 (I wasn’t even the first one in line) I did make it in today just before 9. While we can’t get in to watch the negotiations taking place there are a lot of side events put on by NGOs and different countries involving discussions of any issue related to climate change you could possibly imagine.While I did spend most of the day at those sessions I also attended at debate on climate change hosted by CNN and YouTube, the official version of which you can now find on YouTube. Given the problems when I attempted to liveblog it on my BlackBerry I will be bringing my computer tomorrow so I will actually be able to liveblog things.I also had an opportunity to spend a while chatting with Bloc environment critic, Bernard Bigras, about if there’s the political will in Canada to do anything on climate change, the challenge of selling environmental policies to a public that says it wants action on climate change but doesn’t want to pay for it, and what our approach should be on the tar sands. It was a very interesting, non-partisan discussion.The welcoming ceremony for the world leaders and Ministers was also tonight. Among the key-note speakers was Ban Ki-moon, Connie Hedegaard (president of COP-15 and Danish environment minister, Prince Charles, Yvo De Boer, and the Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen.I will be back at the Bella Center tomorrow for what will probably be the last day that NGOs are allowed to enter, so look for updates then.
