Sunday, November 30, 1997
By Lee Poston
Daily Diary Archives
Greetings from Kyoto, host of the Climate Summit, or as it's more
affectionately known, the Third Session of the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
--that's UNFCCC-COP3 to you and me.
My name is Lee Poston, Communications Manager at WWF-US.
Between now and Dec. 10, my co-author Andrew Kerr, WWF-European
Coordinator, and I will bring you all the highlights, lowlights and general
bunk from one of the most highly anticipated environmental conferences
in years. We'll try and shed a little light (and a little light-heartedness) on
the conference --our only regret is that we weren't here early enough
to give you a report on one of the more intriguing pre-conference
events, AKyoto Yancha (naughty children) Festa 97.

Left to right: me, Peter DeBrine and Marijke Unger at the beginning of our flight.
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So what is this conference about? Well unless you've been
living in a cave for the past couple of years, you've probably seen or
heard all the media coverage about global warming. For more
information on this, follow the links. The Kyoto conference is the third
annual UN Conference to address the issue, and the one that's been
tapped for a binding international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. The first one was held in Berlin in 1995 and the second one
in Geneva in 1996.
A little aside is necessary here to point out a significant, if not
ironic, fact about your co-authors --we were both born in
Wolverhampton, England, in the heart of the Midlands and birthplace of
the Industrial Revolution. The region is known as the ABlack Country
because at the height of the industrial revolution the sky and landscape
were often black from pollution. So as Andrew likes to say, we work
on global warming as penance for the sins of our birthplace!!

Here's a photo of us (a little less chipper) at the end of our 17 hour flight.
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WWF has about 35 delegates here from the US, UK, Japan,
Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Ecuador and
Malaysia who can speak Spanish, French, English, Japanese, German,
Danish, Dutch, Vietnamese and Tennessean (my particular expertise
after living there for 13 years). Over 5,000 participants are expected
representing governments, NGOs (non-government organizations such
as WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth) and various
communities from over 170 nations.
Over the next two weeks, we'll bring you daily updates from the
negotiations, including insights, anecdotes, inside information and just
plain funny goins'-on. We'll also include photos of the people and places
in Kyoto. I've included a couple to get you going--they feature three of WWF's
intrepid travelers, l to r, me, Peter DeBrine and Marijke Unger at the
beginning of our flight, followed by one showing us a little less chipper
at the end of our 17-hour total flight. Enjoy, and see you tomorrow.
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