On 17^th November, a group of us from Young Friends of the Earth met with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in the UK. We met Peter Betts, the head of negotiations at Copenhagen. Coming away from the meeting, we were left with the main message of hope; that we should still have high expectations for Copenhagen.

We had many questions for the UK negotiators at DECC. We asked how the UK are going to meet the 80% cuts in emissions by 2050. Katie Elliot from DECC (who had previously herself worked for Friends of the Earth) urged us to the read the government’s ‘Low Carbon Transition Plan’ to see their policies and plans for reaching those targets.

When we asked about the expected outcome, the representatives from DECC told us that a ‘political’ deal was expected but this would have legal consequences; it would be handed to lawyers to make it legal in 1 or 2 months. Peter Betts told us that we should not be influenced by the recent media to lower our expectations, and there was still hope for Copenhagen so we must remain optimistic.

They also signalled their support for developing countries and said the EU would walk out of any deal that is bad for the most vulnerable countries. All these words were positive and we hoped they would be fulfilled and turn into concrete action. However, as we were leaving the building, we noticed that the DECC building is ‘F’ Energy Rated, which reminded us the UK has an extremely long way to go, beyond words and targets. We hoped Copenhagen will be the first step.