My initial impression of Copenhagen and the conference is overwhelmingly positive and that there will be a well thought out consensus outcome, not a last second deal that will be ignored by the major players.

I talked with two people today I will be following up with:

– Ted Maclin, a Doctoral student from University of Georgia composing an ethnographic study of the workings of the World Wildlife Federation at the conference, following up his previous work at another UN meeting. He is doing lots of  research in the field of event ethnography, and how the social networks which are built during meetings like COP15 can create a significant amount of change on the micro-systems level leading to eventual macro-level changes. This is something worth looking into as while the conference outcome may not be the optimal one, the thousands of people who return home with new insight and social ties/networks to be utilized in furthering local environmental goals in so many different places that it can potentially make up the difference.

– Kimberly Hill, the deputy director of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice. She wishes to meet up with us at some point to discuss the conference and Michigan.

There were more and would like to let everyone know their names but I cannot recall them and do not want to attribute the wrong names to the wrong people as I am currently working on close to zero sleep since Saturday morning.

I am now headed back to the Bella Center to find the person in charge of media for the Alliance for Climate Protection at the conference. I’ll do another entry about that, and include some pictures if I get any.

Written by ADAM ELLSWORTH.

For more info on today’s proceedings as things happen, follow The Guardian’s COP15 First Day Live Blog here