COP 23, Day 0: Travel Adventures

This begins our blog series about the Swarthmore delegation’s experience at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Bonn, Germany.  The COP is a yearly conference that has been held every year since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was created in 1991 (this year is number 23, hence COP 23). We’ll be talking more about various aspects of the UNFCCC and the goals of COP 23 in the upcoming days, but we wanted to start with a brief travel update.

We made it! After a red-eye Lufthansa flight with not enough legroom and little sleep, we (students Aaron Metheny and Kyle Richmond-Crosset, and Professor Jennifer Peck) arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at about 7am Sunday.

We had some logistical difficulties, including a baggage claim scare and missing the stop on our train from Frankfurt to Bonn (note to Week 2 delegation: it turns out there is a stop between Frankfurt and Cologne!), but we eventually made it to Zur Post, a small, delightful hotel about 4km from the city center in Bonn. We found a great Greek restaurant nearby for lunch and then promptly took three-hour naps.

In the afternoon, we took public transit to the Bula Zone (where the deliberations, meeting, and negotiations will take place) to get our registration badges, and then we sat down for dinner at a yummy Asian restaurant in the city center. Altogether, a very successful first day, and we’re looking forward to the start of a busy week!

If you’re particularly curious about a specific idea or topic, or there’s an event you want to hear more about, post a comment and we’ll see what we can do.

-Kyle Richmond-Crosset