Every night at 6pm, just when you think that all sense of reason is truly lost from the world of international negotiations, a peculiar ceremony pills a little humor back into the UN Conference Center.  The Fossil of the Day is an award commemorating “those who gave their lives, so long ago, so that we today could have the coal, oil, and other products made from their bodies.”  The award is given to the buggest “bonehead” of the day, the delegation that introduced the biggest roadblock to negotiations.  Tuesday, it was the G-77 ground who received the second place prize for seeking to receive CDM funding for natural carbon sequestration, rather than beginning other new, additional mitigation projects.  Ukraine completed a hat trick for the day, taking 3rd and 1st place for proposing that they commit to a 20% decrease in 1990 emission levels, which, for them, equates to a 75% increase from current levels.

With mermaid costumes, booing choruses, and it’s very own anthem, the Fossil of the Day tradition is an uplifting end to any long day of negotiations.  However it’s more than that.  It’s a fresh breath of stark honesty, a blunt acknowledgment of the ridiculousness of some of these proposals.  On the one hand, it is extremely refreshing and quite a relief to see that someone is calling the troublemakers out – that the international community sees through these agendas.  However, since it is clear that these inconsistencies do not go unnoticed or unacknowledged, it is worrisome that being called out on these facades is not enough to bring them to an end.

Since I arrived in Denmark, I have been impressed by how commonplace bicycling is. Bike lanes are ubiquitous. On the Cop-15 bus ride back to our hotel, I often notice traffic jams of bikes because there are so many bikers. This morning I saw little kids riding their mini bikes to school (it was cute). These two-wheeled friends are everywhere.

It wasn’t until a presentation on green building US technology this morning that I realized how significant this Danish transportation habit is. According to Roger Platt, of the US Green Building Council, Danes spend 90% of their lifetime indoors. Mr. Platt joked that Americans spend 90% of their life in their cars. The fact that 10% of a Danish lifetime is spent outdoors is impressive yet perplexing to me. As someone who is not particularly active outdoors, all morning I have been struggling to estimate what proportion of time I spend outdoors. I’ve resolved that it is “probably just not enough.”

Regardless, in the context of climate change policy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, these types of lifestyle difference are important to study. As a policy studies student, I am tackling this issue from a policy approach: What policies would we need to change  behavior in the US? Would adding bike lanes to most streets be enough? I doubt it. Americans love their SUV’s (or Priuses). Another significant concern with increased bike use in the US is theft. Two of my friends had their bikes stolen on our college campus in the past year. There’s a trust issue involved, which is interesting because most Danes in Copenhagen don’t lock their bikes. Friendly, right?

Clearly their are structural and cultural factors that help explain differences in international transportation usage. I think the Danes have it right. Change in America is certainly possible, but will progress one lane at a time.