IPS' list of COP15 side events and parallel events organised by, involving or of relevance to Arctic and Indigenous Peoples:

5-6 December, IIPFCC (Indigenous Caucus) preparatory meeting; EEA, Kongens Nytorv 6.

7 December, 16:00, WWF Arctic Tent, Youth Day, Presentation by Arctic members of Canadian Youth Delegation, Nytorv.

8 December, 16:30, WWF Arctic Tent, Indigenous Peoples' Day, Nytorv.

10 December, 10:00 - 12:00, Foreningen NORDENs Ungdom, Arktiske folk om klimaet (The climate according to Arctic Peoples), People’s Climate Forum, DGI-byen (by the Main Central Station), Venue 3.

10 December, 18:00: “Making the Declaration Work”, IWGIA book launch, Danish Polar Centre, Strandgade 102.

12 December,12:00 – 13:00, Opening of the Riddu Riddu Lavvu, Presentation of the Ealát project featuring Dr. Robert Corell and Saami youth, the World Reindeer Herders Association and International Center for Reindeer Husbandry, North Atlantic Qua

12 December, 12:00, Opening of the Greenland Representation In the Eye of Climate Change exhibition, North Atlantic House, Strandgade 91.

12 December, 12:00, Opening of the Arctic Venue, organised by the Danish Energy Agency, North Atlantic House, Strandgade 91.

12 December, 10:00 – 20:00, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, organised by IWGIA/Tebtebba, Danish National Museum, Ny Vestergade 10.

12 December, 20:00 - 21.30: Inuit Circumpolar Council side event at the COP15 venue, Using Inuit (indigenous) traditional knowledge in climate change decision making, Bella Center, Niels Bohr room.

13 December, 12:00, Arctic Venue breakout event, the Riddu Riddu Lavvu, North Atlantic Quay.

14 December, 13:00 - 14:30: Danish/Norwegian/Melting Ice side event at the COP15 venue, Melting snow and ice: A call for action, Bella Center, Niels Bohr room.

14 December, 16:00, Saami/Greenlandic performance mixing Joik singing and mask dancing, the Riddu Riddu Lavvu, North Atlantic Quay.

15 December, 15:00, Saami/Greenlandic performance mixing Joik singing and mask dancing, the Riddu Riddu Lavvu, North Atlantic Quay.

16 December, 11:00 - 15:00, Inuit Circumpolar Council parallel event at the Arctic Venue, Inuit and Arctic Indigenous Peoples' Day, North Atlantic House.

16 December, 12:15, Saami/Greenlandic performance mixing Joik singing and mask dancing, the Riddu Riddu Lavvu, North Atlantic Quay.

17 December, 14:45 - 16:15: Arctic Athabaskan Council side event at the COP15 venue, Caribou, people and resiliency in Arctic North America, Bella Center, Victor Borge room.

The 15th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened on Monday, 7 December 2009. Concurrently with COP15, the 5th session of the Kyoto Protocol parties (CMP5) as well as sessions of Subsidiary Bodies and Ad Hoc Working Groups also take place in the Bella Centre.

 With the announcement of U.S. President Obama that he will attend toward the end of the conference, the whole discourse on the climate negotiations and the possibility of reaching a renewed international agreement shifted from a pessimistic to an optimistic note. Suddenly, the prospect of merely reaching a political declaration instead of sealing a binding deal was described by commentators as not such a bad result after all. A few days later, the leaking of the so-called Danish Text made the new-found spirit of optimism evaporate and brought the climate summit into disarray. The leaked text, to paraphrase outraged developing countries, is a blatant expression of rich countries covert machinations – within the so-called ”circle of commitment” - to shift the balance of obligations in their own favour and abandon the Kyoto Protocol’s principle of historical debt. Perhaps these lightning fast developments testify to the catastrophic nature, not so much of climate change itself, but rather of the ways in which it is being dealt with. The Danish COP15 organisers and the UNFCCC secretariat expect more than 15.000 delegates of the approximately 200 parties to the convention and the more than a thousand organisations admitted as observers. 14.000 are expected to be nominees of observer organisations alone while approximately 3500 journalists have been accredited to the conference. This means that the Bella Centre will be reaching its absolute maximum capacity should all participants decide to be present at the premises at the same time. The UNFCCC secretariat has announced that a system will be set up to monitor and regulate the participation of each organisation.
Outside of the conference venue itself, clustered around the city centre, numerous parallel events are taking place. On the North Atlantic Quay area, the Riddu Riddu Indigenous Peoples Festival has put up a huge laavu, i.e. a traditional Saami tent, that will serve as a venue for various events and performances, e.g., a Saami/Greenlandic group giving a performance that mixes Saami Joik singing with Greenlandic mask dancing. The Riddu Riddu Lavvu organizers invite Indigenous COP15 delegates to use the lavvu for their own events. If you are interested in using the Riddu Riddu Laavu for an event, you can contact and coordinate with the Indigenous Peoples Secretariat. In the adjacent North Atlantic Building, two exhibitions, ”In the Eye of Climate Change” and the ”Arctic Venue” organised by the Greenland Government and the Danish Energy Agency, respectively, will be open to the public during the COP period. Both of these events opens on Saturday, 12 December, while a closed preview of the former attended by his Royal Highness Crown Prince Frederik will take place the day before that. In the DGI town near the main central station, the Peoples’ Climate Forum have organised an event that almost matches the COP itself with respect to extent of programme and number of participants. The outcome of the various workshops, panel discussions etc. that make up the PCF will be a declaration expressing the hopes, ideas, and visions of citizens groups and social movements from all corners of the planet. In one of the central city squares, Nytorv, WWF has set up their Arctic Tent which aims at giving the people of Copenhagen and COP delegates a taste of the Arctic by having scientists youth, Indigenous Peoples, politicians, artists, and adventurers present various views on the theme of Climate Change mitigation. From an Indigenous perspective, perhaps the busiest time will be the weekend in between the two COP weeks, in particular Saturday, 12 December. In addition to the above-mentioned activities on the North Atlantic Quay, the IWGIA/Tebtebba organized Indigenous Day panel discussion event will be held during daytime in the Danish National Museum, whereas in the evening of that same day, the Inuit Circumpolar Council will be hosting a side event, i.e. inside the COP15 venue in the Bella Centre, on Traditional Knowledge in Climate Change Decision Making.

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The first Senior Arctic Officials (SAO) meeting of the Arctic Council under the Danish Chairmanship was held in Copenhagen on November 12-13, 2009. Over 200 participants came together for two days of intensive discussions on a wide variety of issues important to the Arctic.
SAO Chair, Ambassador Lars Møller noted in his opening speech that there was a steadily increasing amount of activity in the Arctic. To address the huge challenges, Lars Møller said, the council brought with it from its previous ministerial meeting an ambitious agenda in the form of the Tromsø Declaration. The initial phase of the meeting, unorthodoxly, included the screening of working copies of two films presenting the AMAP organized Greenland Ice Sheet  (GRIS) and Arctic Cryosphere (SWIPA) projects. The GRIS film will also form part of a high profiled side event at the upcoming COP15 entitled Melting Snow and Ice to be attended by the Danish/Greenlandic and Norwegian foreign ministers as well as by former US vice-president and Oscar winner Al Gore. Apart from COP 15 and the SWIPA project, the SAO agenda comprised, i.a., discussions of the work with establishing new Task Forces on Search and Rescue and on Short-lived Climate Forcers, maintaining and strengthening observing and monitoring initiatives, and International Polar Year Legacy initiatives such as the The Oslo Science Conference to be held in June next year. The Aleut International Association Executive Director Victoria Gofman made a presentation of the Bering Sea Sub Network (BSSN) that was implemented by AIA as an International Polar Year project under the auspices of CAFF and with the participation of 6 indigenous Bering Strait communities. Thanks to a 3 million dollar grant from the US National Science Foundation, Ms. Gofman explained, Phase 2 of this project will be carried out during the next 5 years and will involve 10 communities on either side of the Bering Strait. Measures to identify potential gaps and to eliminate duplication of work were treated in a section dedicated to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Arctic Council. Various initiatives to strengthen the political role of the Arctic Council, enhance information exchange among the council’s stakeholders, and to develop guidelines for communication and outreach were presented by the chair during this section Japan was welcomed as an ad hoc observer of the Arctic Council. Japan has applied for permanent Observer status, however, until its application can be processed in connection with the next Ministerial meeting, it will join the existing group of Ad Hoc Observers to the Arctic Council. In the evening of the first SAO meeting day, Second Secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Copenhagen, Ms. Emi Mashiko, attended a meeting with the Permanent Participant to discuss how Japan as an Observer and the Permanent Participants can benefit from each other’s work within the Arctic Council. The meeting also saw status updates by and on a number of non-Arctic Council groups and projects such as the Danish Arctic Megatrends study, the Arctic Governance project, the 4 (i.e., Arctic, Barents, Baltic, and Nordic) Councils of the North, as well as the University of the Arctic. The next Arctic Council SAO Meeting will be held in Illulissat, Greenland on April 28-29, 2010.