Being willing to make the time and pay the cost of going to a two week conference shows commitment and dedication to attempting to persuade the world to halt climate change by limiting emissions. This passion can affect the delegates too as the presence of people who care about what happens puts pressure on the delegates to give them at least some of what they have come for.

The delegates should not be affected in any way by those who are outside. They should simply be representing the national interest to the best of their ability regardless of any distractions.

It is often the NGOs that are among the most vocal critics of governments while still being a respectable and authoritative voice. They can counter government attempts to claim not so much needs to be done by publishing 'official' statistics. They criticise when governments are not doing enough or if they go back on a promise, this helps prevent backsliding both during and after a conference and commitment.

They may provide a voice giving an alternative view but they are not effective. Governments regularly dont keep to their commitments and no ammount of heckling by protesters and NGOs will make them.

Leaders should pay attention to any protest no matter how big or small, if there are only a minority in Copenhagen they represent a much bigger number who could not come or who agree with the protesters but do not have the same passion to to express their views in protests.

No matter how many protesters there are in Copenhagen they are only going to be a tiny proportion of the world's population. Any individual country can easily say that these protesters do not represent the people in their country. leaders of democracies should pay no attention to them as that would mean they were paying attention to a tiny minority not their country as a whole. Big protests back at home should be more effective.

There is no option but to keep protesting. If leaders retreat behind fencing then the protests need to be bigger and louder to be noticed.

These large protests at conferences and the often associated violence and arrests have been happening at too many conferences and events. The leaders retreat behind barbed wire and ignore the protesters while the people seeing the protests over the TV think 'not again' rather than looking at the reasons behind the protests.