News

Bellona’s programme in Copenhagen

(III: Golden Days)

Publish date: December 5, 2009

Written by: Tone Foss Aspevoll

Translated by: Charles Digges

Bellona’s programme of activities at the UN Climate Summit has of today been approved and will include 64 seminars and meetings at the Bellona pavilion at Copenhagen’s Bella Centre, where the climate negations will be taking place. Norway’s Environment and Development Minister Erik Solheim and Norway’s chief climate negotiator Hanne Bjurstrøm will open the pavilion on Copenhagen’s main square, Rådhusplassen, on December 7th.

Bellona today laid forth a lush programme of activities that it will host during the Copenhagen Summit. The summit, known COP15 (for Conference of Parties). begins on Monday, Dec 7th and runs though December 18th.

In cooperation with a number of international organisations, Bellona has arranged a total of 64 side events and meetings to take place at the Bellona Pavilion at the Bella Center in parallel to the negotiations.

Well-known names to attend Bellona events

A host of international and Norwegian environmental and political heavyweights will be participating in Bellona’s side events. Among them are:

• Gro Harlem Brundtland, UN special envoy on climate change, and former Prime Minister of Norway

• Wangari Maathai, 2000’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Green Belt Movement head

• Nobou Tanaka, head of International Energy Agency (IEA)

• Larry Schweiger, President of the US-based National Wildlife Federation

• Erik Solheim, Norway’s Environmental and Development Minister

• Jose Maria Figueres, President of the Global Observatory and member of the Club de Madrid group of former heads of democratic states

• Marina Silva, former Brazilian environmental minister, and noted rainforest advocate

Click here to download Bellona’s full programme of COP15 side events. Streaming video of Bellona’s side events will be accessible beginning December 7th at www.bellona.no.

Ministers of state to open the Bellona Pavilion

On December 7th, the HopengardenLIVE future city will also open on Copenhagen’s main square, Rådhusplassen.

Bellona is an official partner with the UN, the Copenhagen Municipality and the Danish Foreign Ministry, and is the only environmental organisation to have its own pavilion at Copenhagen. The following is the opening day programme for Rådhusplassen on December 7th.

12:00 – Opening of HopenhagenLIVE

18:30 – Official opening of the Bellona pavilion “101 Solutions,” with the participation of Norway’s Solheim, negotiator Bjurstrøm, as well as Bellona President Frederic Hauge and Statkraft’s Ragnvald Nærø.

19:00 Opening of HopenhagenLIVE with the participation of chief UN climate negotiatior Yvo de Boer, Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard, and former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland

19:00 Bellona and partners open their Green Room at Café A Porta.

The Kallinika to set sail

Bellona’s sailboat, the MS Kallinika will sail from Oslo on Dec 4 and will be docked in the area at Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s central port, during the summit.

Some 25 of Bellona’s employees from Oslo, and several more from its offices in St.Petersburg, Brussels and the Washington will be taking part in the summit.

Bellona’s Press Contact in Copenhagen:

Tone Foss Aspevoll, Bellona’s Head of Information: +47 91 72 02 67; tone@bellona.no