Germany ended up with an extra parliament building in Bonn, which was planned and under construction when the Berlin Wall came down. They decided to build it anyway and the Bundestag actually met here a few times before moving to Berlin. The building, featuring transparent glass architecture to symbolize open government, now serves as a conference center.
We attended a conference on Media and the Environment, sponsored by Deutshe Welle, Germany's counterpart of Voice of America. However, the content of the conference was based on the assumption that journalists must advocate in favor of action to combat climate change, rather than approach the story with the idea that there may be more than one side to it. A few of the workshops offered tips on how to deal with climate change "skeptics."
After working in the Maldives for several years, I have come to be skeptical of the whole issue. There is no hard evidence that the low-lying islands of Maldives are "sinking" due to rising sea levels, although the Maldivians held an underwater cabinet meeting to publicize their alleged plight and plead for a "fund" to deal with their problems. I attended an interesting session with academics who had studied coverage of the climate change issue in developing countries and was encouraged to see that the trend is toward blaming China and India for high pollution output, rather than bashing the US.
However, I met plenty of people who are convinced that it's the developing world's "turn" to pollute because the industrialized countries did it for 200 years, and on top of that we should PAY them to do so while we strip our economies down to the bone.
Europe, and Germany in particular, have led the way in reducing emissions, which was relatively easy for them to do when all the smoke-belching factories of the Communist bloc shut down. Europe also leads in developing green technology, so when they preach the gospel of climate change, there is a direct economic incentive to do so.
One thing the climate change crowd is good at: traveling around the world to have meetings, despite the insane carbon footprint of people flying to the conference!
Just to clarify my own position, I'm in favor of reducing pollution because it's the right thing to do for future generations.
Michael Lippin, a Washington-based reporter for Voice of America, is perhaps the hardest working person in our RIAS group. He reported on the environmental conference and other EU issues for VOA's international audience, in contrast to most of the others in the group who didn't have an assignment from their home news organizations. It was different in 2001 when a lot of the people in my group were filing broadcast reports. That's a sad commentary on the fact that US news organizations don't do enough these days to keep Americans informed about global developments and why programs like RIAS are so badly needed. 
Michael photographed and interviewed Erik Betterman, the head of Deutsche Welle and a member of the RIAS board. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Betterman, who has spent some time in the US and understands American media very well. He was kind enough to introduce me to the representatives of the Deutsche Welle Akademie, which conducts highly respected media training programs all over the world. I've benefitted from the resources on their website in the past and it was great to connect with the people behind the effort. I would welcome any opportunity to collaborate with DW Akademie in the future.
