How to seat 230 guests in a conference room of 150?

This autumn the Embassy hosted a number of events related to my policy areas so I had lots of opportunity to get a taste of co-ordinating a conference again, despite my having taken a vow in the spring that I would never do it again. But I was conferencing again. Partly self-inflicted as these events were in the planning for some time as a way of reinforcing our policy work.

Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that this is not what I long to be doing for living, and I also had to promise to my colleagues that I will not hold any conferences for a few months to allow them to recuperate.  Seriously, this season was a test of our teamwork and I was immensely grateful for my colleagues all over the Embassy who helped with their inputs. Until you have been involved as organiser, you tend not to recognise all the effort that goes into an event.

It started with a Geopolitics seminar in September which was part of a series with Freedom House, and ended with a climate change adaptation conference for local government with the Hungarian Climate Friendly Local Government Association. Normally event organisers fear that they will not be able to attract enough participants, we faced the counter problem this time: How to seat 230 guest in a conference room of 150? We had to ship extra chairs and experiment with a new layout. If it had not been for the nerves of our event guru, Daniel, I think I would have had a nervous breakdown.

Due to my excessive event schedule and other urgent admin, I have developed a considerable backlog in reading and keeping up-to-date with developments in climate science and policy. My inbox is so frightening that I am taking every opportunity to avoid it. Hence is this piece, as an excuse.

What do I need to read myself into? Various climate change related documents. Some are about the politics behind the international climate negotiations, others are about the economic and indirect impacts of the various “solutions” on offer.  This week the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is holding its conference in Poznan, Poland. The EU is also tabling its Climate and Energy Package at the December European Council. The outcome of these events will determine whether the countries of the world manage to secure an international deal needed to address climate change effectively. My job is to follow the UK’s and Hungary’s position at these talks and facilitate exchanges between experts and decision-makers to identify issues, argue for and against, and find common ground and compromise.

I know this is not too fascinating for somebody who does not have to concern themselves with these issues on a daily basis. I have read the findings of a research on an online news portal about how familiar Hungarian people are with climate change. Although we almost universally can quote a few clichés, very few are aware of all the dangers and the magnitude of it. I do not blame them. It can be depressing stuff, and it is also quite technically challenging.  I think that policy makers and governments should find better ways to express the problem and the solution, so that the general public can really feel part of the debate So far the international negotiations have progressed slowly, but through hard work and a spirit of compromise it seems that the recent EU Summit reached an important agreement on the main goals to be achieved by 2020. This gives us a good basis to press for a good deal for the world at next year's Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

To have a sense of why it is so difficult (and important) to reach an international deal, I recommend an article published on Hírszerző (in Hungarian).

But it is not all that gloomy. Most of the technology is already there. And competitive businesses do not wait for regulatory changes to make the shift to a low-carbon path.  This new reality is described by Lord Stern, the previous chief economist of the UK Government. He has recently argued that countries should address the economic downturn and climate change together. He says that economic growth is no longer correlated with increased green house gas emissions: there is no trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. A low carbon future will be the pro-growth strategy and only this approach will enable a country to emerge from the current crisis as a winner. Failing to do so and settling for a short-term fix will lead to repeating the downturn with more serious consequences. Procrastination is a thief of time and money.

If you want to lift your spirits though by seeing what fantastic technology we already have to solve these grave problems, I recommend watching two superb series on Discovery Channel. One of them is Nextworld the other is Discovery Project Earth. You will find very encouraging stories about what science can do these days to make this planet a better and safer place. The episodes are full of visually compelling graphics. They give brief and clear accounts of various innovations like how to grow vegetables on skyscrapers in quantities enough to cater for a large city.

We at the Embassy agree that everybody can do something to curb climate change. No matter how little the contribution is, it is important as it sets a new culture. Our Embassy Green Team has recommended a number of measures which management adopted so we walk the talk. These range from selective waste collection to using energy saving light bulbs and use of recycled paper throughout the embassy. We have also sponsored the creation of an Event CO2 calculator which we tested at an embassy conference in November and is now available on the Internet for anybody who wants to use it. Not only can you calculate the emissions generated by a given event, but our partner Energy Club can help the users with advice on how to offset their emission or reduce the emissions from operations in general. To offset the emissions of the conference, the Embassy sponsored green projects at municipalities who are members of the Hungarian Climate Friendly Local Governments. These included tree planting, solar panels installed on the mayor’s office or placing bike racks in the centre of the town.  You can access the calculator at http://co2.energiaklub.hu/

Kriszti Kocsis
Policy officer
11 December 2008