The invited speakers included only ‘climate skeptics’, people who oppose the Kyoto Protocol. Three speakers were connected through a video link from Paris and Copenhagen, which were not even at the conference. The message that the Chairman wanted to relate to the press was clear: there are some scientists who challenge the scientific and economic basis of the Kyoto Protocol. In the view of many participants this was not reflected by the majority of the scientific presentations at the conference. Participants felt disappointed that their voices were not represented in the panel invited to the press conference.

Apparently there were not many mainstream papers and news agencies that picked up this report in the evening or the next day. Some participants commented that no news is better than the news that the Chairman will allow to be passed to the press. Izrael and other climate skeptics have stepped up their pressure during open mic sessions to challenge the underlying consensus to act against climate change.

This conference is full of surprises: during the day on Wednesday, one of Putin’s high level advisors addressed the plenary unexpectedly and posed 10 questions to the audience. Most of his points were text-book anti-Kyoto Protocol and many questions had been resolved two years ago in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. It is discouraging that the Russian administration takes the climate change doubters’ outdated comments for face value and does not listen to the sound science that is accepted in the scientific community.