Mark Alan Hughes, distinguished senior fellow at Penn's School of Design, will be posting a daily video blog from the United Nation's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, from Dec. 13 to 18. Hughes' dispatches will focus on the scene, the debate, the personalities at the conference, the issues, the side events and the lessons for Philadelphia. To follow the blog click here. Hughes, the former sustainability director for the City of Philadelphia, will also be Tweeting from the conference under the name markalanhughes.

Also representing Penn at the global conference is Ali Malkawi, director of the Penn-Tsinghua T.C. Chan Center for Building Simulation and Energy Studies, a global initiative seeking to create healthier, more productive energy efficient strategies leading to high-performance building and sustainable environments.The Chan Center recently issued a joint position paper with colleagues from the University of Delaware calling for a new recognition of, and role for, place-based strategies to achieve the national carbon reduction goals being negotiated in Copenhagen.

The research asserts that national goals and international agreements are insufficient without the participation of governments and organizations where crucial energy and environmental decisions and behaviors actually occur. Throughout the conference, Malkawi and Hughes will appear on numerous panels exploring urban de-carbonization strategies.