"The Greatest Debate on Earth” from Copenhagen was the world’s greatest

Everything fell nicely into place late on Thursday afternoon in Radio Denmark’s new concert hall, Koncerthuset, and at the weekend over 300 million households around the world will see some of the most important figures from the UN’s climate summit conference discussing the climate challenges we face.

Has the summit conference collapsed in failure? Have groups of countries walked out in protest? Will President Obama show up?

In the hours leading up to "The Greatest Debate on Earth" on Thursday afternoon, rumours were rife in the climate conference centre and many of them were quickly picked up on by the media and conveyed to the waiting world. The prospect of President Obama participating in the final conference session on Friday remained equivocal when at a press conference on Thursday morning, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "The President is planning to come tomorrow. Obviously, we hope there will be something to come for."

The five participants who took part in the televised panel discussion were thus in uncertain circumstances as they took the stage at Koncerthuset and the ensuing debate was clearly marked by the uncertainty surrounding the shape of any final draft text agreement, with the result that the major countries gave only guarded comments and were careful not to promise too much on camera.

"Clearly it was always going to be difficult to achieve any specific promises or accords in a debate of this nature, with no immediate formal agreement in prospect," commented Nicolai Sederberg Rottbøll, analysis manager with Copenhagen Capacity and head of Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster's secretariat, shortly after the debate concluded. "Yet the debate is still of great significance to the summit conference and the whole of Copenhagen, as it once again has served to turn the focus on Denmark and the technological opportunities we can provide in efforts to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide."

Information is important
Stephen Sackur, regular host of BBC's Hardtalk TV programme and who also hosted the debate, proved an impressively committed and dynamic presence who endeavoured to draw out as many specifics as possible from the panel participants. For instance, he put the question whether a binding treaty would actually make any difference to the melting of the ice caps or if politicians were truly committed to implementing fundamental changes in their home countries.

"Stephen Sackur was very well prepared and did everything he could under the difficult circumstances caused by the pervading uncertainty as to the outcome of the summit conference," added Nicolai Sederberg Rottbøll. "And even with the lack of any significant commitments from the participants, in my opinion the debate was a success. It gives a great many people all over the world the opportunity to see and hear for themselves, in more or less unedited form, the varying views and arguments behind the somewhat entrenched stances that have characterised the summit conference. And in such an important context, this type of information is incredibly important."

The panel participants were Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, South African enviroment minister Buyelwa Sonjica , Mexican President Felipe Calderòn,  President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, Sweden's Prime Minister and EU Chairman Frederik Reinfeldt.

The debate was the result of cooperation between Radio Denmark, BBC, Copenhagen Capacity and Wonderful Copenhagen tourist organisation.