Climate scholars within the School of Public Policy in the Ivan Allen College at Georgia Tech have joined more than 10,000 world leaders, business elites, environmental activists, academics and others convened in Copenhagen, Denmark December 7-18. The fifteenth annual Conference of Parties (COP15) meeting is debating the future of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

"COP 15 has been highly anticipated as it is intended to be the determining negotiation for a post-Kyoto agreement," explains Janelle Knox-Hayes, Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy (SPP). "The first phase of the Kyoto Protocol""a legally binding agreement which governs global carbon emissions""will expire in 2012. In order to allow governments enough time to prepare for implementation of a framework beyond the first phase, an ambitious new deal needs to be agreed this year."

Follow Knox-Hayes blog about the conference, her experiences there, negotiations, and her particular area of interest - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) - on the GT Climate Policy Blog at http://www.gtclimatepolicy.wordpress.com

Paul Baer, an internationally recognized expert on issues of equity and climate change and Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy, who has attended the United Nations international climate negotiations since 2000, is also attending the COP15 climate conference.

Co-author of the "Greenhouse Development Rights" framework, Baer proposes a fair global climate policy framework in which obligations are assigned on the basis of responsibility for historical emissions and ability to pay. Such a framework is not currently part of the structure of the UN global climate treaty that will be in negotiation at COP15 and Baer sees this as a major stumbling block for gaining cooperation on any treaty from developing countries. (See www.greenhousedevelopmentrights.org)

"Such a fair framework is not currently on the table at the COP15," said Baer. "The relationships between the rich and poor countries are steeped in distrust, and the industrialized nations have largely failed to meet their obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)."

Follow Baer's Tweets from the conference through http://twitter.com/paulgbaer