Attention must be earned at the busy venue of COP15, as Reportage enviro Danish Correspondent, Jeppe Funder, discovers.

Chanting errupts from within the Bella Centre as protesters try to get their message across. Image: Jeppe Funder.

On the wide bridge spanning the huge main hall of the Bella Centre, the venue of COP15, TV crews have set up improvised studios and are chatting with live guests about today’s events, protests and perspectives on the conference. The usual stuff, coupled with the ever-increasing Obamania and the countdown to the arrival of the powerhouse president of the US.

Chanting breaks from beneath the bridge. The shouting is so loud that the host of the afternoon news on Danish television signals the sound guy to turn her ear piece volume up.

“Climate change is now. Climate change is now.” The chanting can be heard all over the conference main floor. Eight African American protesters dressed in colourful outfits are chanting the words again and again, repeatedly putting their hand above their heads and reaching for the ceiling, jumping up and down and moving around in a circle, hands on shoulders.

TV news crews and photographers hurry to the scene from all directions and soon the chanting crew of eight is surrounded by more than 20 cameras. The photographers in front kneel to get the perfect picture, the ones in the back are high on their toes stretching their cameras up as high as possible, hoping to land a good shot. Five minutes after it started it’s all over again and the chanting crowd begin giving interviews to the reporters.

The main floor of the Bella Centre is alive and buzzing. This chanting is a reoccuring event taking place every 15-20 minutes. The end result is the same each and every time. Cameras high and low, flashes, chanting, singing and dancing.

Beside the main hall is the NGO area. When delegates have passed through the airport-tight security with metal detectors and access-card scanners, they are confronted with an avalanche of more than 200 NGOs in special booths set up to get their messages across to delegates: “Go Nuclear”, “Wind is the solution”, “Some call it mangrove forest, we call it land-protection.” These are just some of the countless messages, slogans and posters that litter the conference. Badges and t-shirts free for all.

In the COP15 world inside the Bella Center in Copenhagen, attention is not something you get, it’s something you have to claim.