United Nations Climate Change Conference

Copenhagen 2009

BETA

Copenhagen protesters acquitted

Thursday, 02 September 2010 11:59 |

Source: Sydney Morning Herald - AN AUSTRALIAN woman arrested and charged with organising illegal activities during last year's Copenhagen climate summit has been cleared by a Danish court.

Greenpeace 'shuts down' Arctic oil rig

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 15:33 |

Environmental campaigners slip through security boats to scale Cairn Energy oil rig in dawn raid

Greenpeace claims to have shut down offshore drilling by a British oil company at a controversial site in the Arctic after four climbers began an occupation of the rig just after dawn.

The environment campaigners said the four protesters evaded a small flotilla of armed Danish navy and police boats which have been guarding the rigs in Baffin Bay off Greenland since the Greenpeace protest ship Esperanza arrived last week.

The rigs are operated by the Edinburgh-based oil exploration company Cairn Energy, which last week prompted world-wide alarm among environmentalists after disclosing it had found the first evidence of oil or gas deposits under the Arctic.

Several multinational oil companies, including Exxon. Chevron and Shell, are waiting for permission from Greenland to begin deep sea drilling in the Arctic's pristine waters.

Campaigners claim this led to a dangerous rush to exploit one of the world's last major untapped reserves in one of its most fragile locations. The US Geological Survey last year estimated there may be 90bn barrels of oil and 50tn cubic metres of gas across the Arctic.

The campaign group said: "At dawn this morning our expert climbers in inflatable speed boats dodged Danish Navy commandos before climbing up the inside of the rig and hanging from it in tents suspended from ropes, halting its drilling operation.

"The climbers have enough supplies to occupy the hanging tents for several days. If they succeed in stopping drilling for just a short time then the operators, Britain's Cairn Energy, will struggle to meet a tight deadline to complete the exploration before winter ice conditions force it to abandon the search for oil off Greenland until next year."

The occupation comes after a nine-day stand-off between Greenpeace and the Danish navy, which has sent its frigate Vaedderen to the area, deploying elite Danish commandos on high-speed boats to patrol a 500m exclusion zone around the rigs.

Last week the Danes warned the Esperanza it would be forcibly boarded and its captain arrested if it breached the security zone. After Greenpeace launched its helicopter to take photographs, the security area was extended to include a 1,800m high air exclusion zone.

Greenpeace argues that the Arctic drilling programme is extremely perilous because of the sea ice and intense weather conditions in the region, and claims it is one of the 10 most dangerous drilling sites in the world. The Baffin Bay area is known as "iceberg alley". Last week, it filmed a support vessel trying to break up an iceberg using high pressure hoses.

It says the risks posed by this operation go "far beyond" the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; in the Arctic an oil spill would destroy the region's vulnerable and untouched habitats, while the cold water would prevent any oil from quickly breaking up. Any emergency operation to tackle a disaster would encounter huge technical and logistical problems in such a remote area.

Cairn Energy was targeted by climate protesters who occupied the grounds of the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters near Edinburgh last week. Cairn's offices in the city centre were smeared with molasses to symbolise oil.

The company argues it is there at Greenland's invitation, to help bolster and strengthen the island's economy. It also insisted its drilling operations obeyed some of the world's strictest environmental and safety regulations. "We've put procedures in place to give the highest possible priority to safety and environmental protection," it said.

It emerged last week that BP had withdrawn from applying to join in the Greenland oil exploration programme, a direct consequence of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Sim McKenna, one of the Greenpeace climbers on board the Cairn rig, said: "We've got to keep the energy companies out of the Arctic and kick our addiction to oil, that's why we're going to stop this rig from drilling for as long as we can.

"The BP Gulf oil disaster showed us it's time to go beyond oil. The drilling rig we're hanging off could spark an Arctic oil rush, one that would pose a huge threat to the climate and put this fragile environment at risk."

Morten Nielsen, deputy head of Greenland police, said the four protesters would be arrested and prosecuted. "The position of the Greenlandic police is that this is a clear violation of the law, the penal code of Greenland. The perpetrators will be prosecuted by the Greenlandic authorities," he said.

"But what we intend to do, how and when, is an operational detail it wouldn't be smart to advise Greenpeace about."

Speaking from the island's capital, Nuuk, Nielsen confirmed that the police had rescue vessels close by the protesters in case any fell into the water, which was only a few degrees above freezing. He denied the police and navy had been outwitted by the protesters setting off at dawn.

"We have to evaluate the downside of any interception," he said. "The highest value we have to preserve is life and if the result of intercepting the Greenpeace activists would bring the police or for that matter the activists' lives in jeopardy, we are not going to intercept right now."

In a separate development, two protesters on trial in Copenhagen for terrorism-related offences during the UN climate summit last December have been cleared. Of the nearly 2,000 people arrested, a small number which includes 13 Greenpeace activists, are still awaiting trial.

The original charges facing Natasha Verco and Noah Weiss included organising violence and significant damage to property and carried a maximum 12-and-a-half-year sentence. Those charges were subsequently reduced to less serious offences, but today a court in Copenhagen cleared the pair entirely.

Verco, who was arrested while riding her bike near the Copenhagen lakes and held in prison for three weeks, said: "I'm so happy, it's so wonderful... The whole experience has been appalling, terrifying, something I never expected. To be imprisoned for three weeks on the most ridiculous accusations, and then to have to wait for nine months to be acquitted, it's made me see Denmark very differently."

Severin Carrell

Bibi van der Zee

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Leading article: Three degrees is at least one too many

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 02:00 |

It is fittingly ominous that 2010, year of the next big climate change conference, has been the hottest in recorded history. The heat rises inexorably yet the world dithers and looks away. None of the excitement that surrounded the opening stages of the climate summit at Copenhagen last year looks like materialising this November at Cancú*in Mexico.

Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to win fight against global warming

Monday, 30 August 2010 22:17 |

Critic of climate scientists, 'Skeptical Environmentalist' set to declare global warming a chief concern facing world today

The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.

Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN's climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published in September, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes.

Examining eight methods to reduce or stop global warming, Lomborg and his fellow economists recommend pouring money into the research and development of clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power; and more work on climate engineering ideas such as "cloud whitening" to reflect the sun's heat back into the outer atmosphere.

In an interview with the Guardian, he said he would finance this investment through a tax on carbon emissions that would also raise $50bn to mitigate the effects of climate change, for example by building better sea defences, and $100bn for global healthcare.

His declaration about the importance of action on climate change comes at a crucial point in the debate, with international efforts to agree a global deal on emissions stalled amid a resurgence in scepticism caused by rows over the reliability of the scientific evidence for global warming.

The fallout from those rows continued yesterday when Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, came under renewed pressure to step down after an independent review of the panel's work called for tighter term limits for its senior executives and greater transparency in its workings. The IPCC has come under fire in recent months following revelations of inaccuracies in the last assessment of global warming provided to governments in 2007 – for which it won the Nobel peace prize with former the US vice-president Al Gore. The mistakes, including the claim that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035, prompted the launch of a review of the IPCC's processes and procedures by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an organisation of the world's science bodies.

The IAC said that the IPCC needed to be as transparent as possible in how it worked, how it selected people to participate in assessments and its choice of scientific information to assess.

It was Pachauri who once compared Lomborg to Hitler, but he has now given an unlikely endorsement to the new book, Smart Solutions to Climate Change. In a quote for the launch, Pachauri said: "This book provides not only a reservoir of information on the reality of human-induced climate change, but raises vital questions and examines viable options on what can be done."

Lomborg denies that he has performed a volte face, pointing out that even in his first book he accepted the existence of man-made global warming. "The point I've always been making is it's not the end of the world," he told the Guardian. "That's why we should be measuring up to what everybody else says, which is we should be spending our money well."

But he said the crucial turning point in his argument was the Copenhagen Consensus project, in which a group of economists were asked to consider how best to help spending $50bn. The first results in 2004 put global warming near the bottom of the list, arguing instead for policies such as fighting malaria and HIV/Aids. But a repeat analysis in 2008 included new ideas for reducing the temperature rise, some of which emerged about half way up the ranking. Lomborg said he then decided to consider a much wider variety of policies to reduce global warming, "so it wouldn't end up at the bottom."

The difference was made by examining not just the dominant international policy to cut carbon emissions, but also seven other "solutions" including more investment in technology, climate engineering, and planting more trees and reducing soot and methane, also significant contributors to climate change, said Lomborg.

"If the world is going to spend hundreds of millions to treat climate, where could you get the most bang for your buck?" was the question posed, he added.

After the analyses, five economists were asked to rank the 15 possible policies which emerged. Current policies to cut carbon emissions through taxes - of which Lomborg has long been critical - were ranked largely at the bottom of four of the lists. At the top were more direct public investment in research and development rather than spending money on low carbon energy now, and climate engineering.

Lomborg acknowledged trust was a problem when committing to long term R&D, but said politicians were already reneging on promises to cut emissions, and spending on R&D would be easier to monitor. Although many believe private companies are better at R&D than governments, Lomborg said low carbon energy was a special case comparable to massive public investment in computers from the 1950s, which later precpitated the commercial IT revolution.

Lomborg also admitted climate engineering could cause "really bad stuff" to happen, but argued if it could be a cheap and quick way to reduce the worst impacts of climate change and thus there was an "obligation to at least look at it".

He added: "This is not about 'we have all got to live with less, wear hair-shirts and cut our carbon emissions'. It's about technologies, about realising there's a vast array of solutions."

In a quote for the book launch, Pachauri - who once likened the author to Adolf Hitler - said: "This book provides not only a reservoir of information on the reality of human induced climate change, but raises vital questions and examines viable options on what can be done."Despite his change of tack, however, Lomborg is likely to continue to have trenchant critics. Writing for today's Guardian, Howard Friel, author of the book The Lomborg Deception, said: "If Lomborg were really looking for smart solutions, he would push for an end to perpetual and brutal war, which diverts scarce resources from nearly everything that Lomborg legitimately says needs more money."

ends.

Björn Lomborg

Juliette Jowit

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Lomborg wants $100bn climate fund

Monday, 30 August 2010 22:17 |

Exclusive 'Sceptical environmentalist' and critic of climate scientists to declare global warming a chief concern facing world

• Climate change voice who changed his tune
• Rajendra Pachauri under pressure to stand aside

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes.

Examining eight methods to reduce or stop global warming, Lomborg and his fellow economists recommend pouring money into researching and developing clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power, and more work on climate engineering ideas such as "cloud whitening" to reflect the sun's heat back into the outer atmosphere.

In a Guardian interview, he said he would finance investment through a tax on carbon emissions that would also raise $50bn to mitigate the effect of climate change, for example by building better sea defences, and $100bn for global healthcare.

The fallout from those rows continued yesterday when Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, came under new pressure to step down after an independent review of the panel's work called for tighter term limits for its senior executives and greater transparency in its workings. The IPCC has come under fire in recent months following revelations of inaccuracies in the last assessment of global warming, provided to governments in 2007 – for which it won the Nobel peace prize with former the US vice-president Al Gore. The mistakes, including a claim that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035, prompted a review of the IPCC's processes and procedures by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an organisation of world science bodies.

The IAC said the IPCC needed to be as transparent as possible in how it worked, how it selected people to participate in assessments and its choice of scientific information to assess.

Although Pachauri once compared Lomborg to Hitler, he has now given an unlikely endorsement to the new book, Smart Solutions to Climate Change. In a quote for the launch, Pachauri said: "This book provides not only a reservoir of information on the reality of human-induced climate change, but raises vital questions and examines viable options on what can be done."

Lomborg denies he has performed a volte face, pointing out that even in his first book he accepted the existence of man-made global warming. "The point I've always been making is it's not the end of the world," he told the Guardian. "That's why we should be measuring up to what everybody else says, which is we should be spending our money well."

But he said the crucial turning point in his argument was the Copenhagen Consensus project, in which a group of economists were asked to consider how best to spend $50bn. The first results, in 2004, put global warming near the bottom of the list, arguing instead for policies such as fighting malaria and HIV/Aids. But a repeat analysis in 2008 included new ideas for reducing the temperature rise, some of which emerged about halfway up the ranking. Lomborg said he then decided to consider a much wider variety of policies to reduce global warming, "so it wouldn't end up at the bottom".

"If the world is going to spend hundreds of millions to treat climate, where could you get the most bang for your buck?" was the question posed, he added.After the analyses, five economists were asked to rank the 15 possible policies which emerged. Current policies to cut carbon emissions through taxes - of which Lomborg has long been critical - were ranked largely at the bottom of four of the lists. At the top were more direct public investment in research and development rather than spending money on low carbon energy now, and climate engineering.

He added: "This is not about 'we have all got to live with less, wear hair-shirts and cut our carbon emissions'. It's about technologies, about realising there's a vast array of solutions."

Despite his change of tack, however, Lomborg is likely to continue to have trenchant critics. Writing for today's Guardian, Howard Friel, author of the book The Lomborg Deception, said: "If Lomborg were really looking for smart solutions, he would push for an end to perpetual and brutal war, which diverts scarce resources from nearly everything that Lomborg legitimately says needs more money."

• This article was amended on 31st August 2010 to remove an accidental duplication of the quote from Rajendra Pachauri.

Juliette Jowit

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Fires, Flooding, and Climate Finance: Is there enough fast-start funding?

Friday, 27 August 2010 11:59 |

Source: The Huffington Post - The World Resources Institute recently released updated estimates of the "fast-start" climate mitigation and adaption commitments rich nations made to poor countries after the Copenhagen summit.

Revealed: why failure of climate summit would herald global catastrophe - 3.5°

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 02:00 |

The world is heading for the next major climate change conference in Cancun later this year on course for global warming of up to 3.5C in the coming century, a series of scientific analyses suggest. The failure of last December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen means that cuts in carbon emissions pledged by the international community will not be enough to keep the anticipated warming within safe limits.

Lomborg: $100bn a year to fight global warming

Monday, 30 August 2010 22:17 |

Exclusive 'Skeptical Environmentalist' and critic of climate scientists to declare global warming a chief concern facing world

The IAC said the IPCC needed to be as transparent as possible in how it worked, how it selected people to participate in assessments and its choice of scientific information to assess.

He added: "This is not about 'we have all got to live with less, wear hair-shirts and cut our carbon emissions'. It's about technologies, about realising there's a vast array of solutions."

Juliette Jowit

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Climate Aid Reaches $30 Billion Goal, But Is It New?

Friday, 27 August 2010 11:59 |

Source: Reuters - Aid promises from rich nations to help poor countries slow global warming are reaching the $30 billion goal agreed in Copenhagen but analysts say much of that is old funding dressed up as new pledges.

The Champions League draw – live

Thursday, 26 August 2010 18:08 |

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Group A

Internazionale
Werder Bremen
Tottenham Hotspur
FC Twente

Group B

Lyon
Benfica
Schalke
Hapoel Tel-Aviv

Group C

Manchester United
Valencia
Rangers
Buraspor

Group D

Barcelona
Panathinaikos
Copenhagen
Rubin Kazan

Group E

Bayern Munich
Roma
FC Basel
CFR Cluj

Group F

Chelsea
Marseille
Spartak Moscow
MSK Zilina

Group G

AC Milan
Real Madrid
Ajax
Auxerre

Group H

Arsenal
Shakhtar Donetsk
SC Braga
FK Partizan

5.49pm: Ole Gunnar Solskjær is introduced and crowns Diego Milito the Club Forward of the Year, making it a clean sweep for Inter players. Now for the final pot, then we can all get on with our lives.

5.46pm: So, Tottenham are in with Werder Bremen, Inter and AN Other, while Rangers get Manchester United and Valencia. Dust off those battle of Britain headlines. Mancunians will be reaching for their tin hats - remember what happened the last time Rangers visited Manchester in a European football competition? Yikes. They're lovely fans, mind. Just misunderstood.

5.40pm: Hold on to your hats Spurs nad Rangers fans. Your time has come ...

5.37pm: And in another sensational upset, the winner is ... Wesley Sneijder. "Can't they do all this in silly frocks and tight trousers like Eurovision?" inquires Gary Naylor. "All the managers could be lumped together in one big room with a roaming camera to catch Jose just as he sees RM drawn with Inter. Such an approach would be excellent outreach towards football's much ignored gay demographic, so it would tick a box too."

5.35pm: So, two pots down and two to go - the next one stars Tottenham Hotspur and Rangers. Time for some Club Midfielder Award action. Gianfranco Zola makes his way on stage to present the gong.

More evidence that football started in 1992, writes Matthew King. "I've been reading today about how Spurs will be thrilled to finally entertain the big clubs of Europe at White Hart Lane like Real, Barca and Bayern Munich. What? Like the early-mid 1980s then?"

5.28pm: "I'm not too worried about your comments regarding Spurs so far but if you dare to suggest we'll end up finishing 8th in our group after our inevitable decline midway through the competition I'll be very cross indeed," writes Adam Jones. Right, eyes down for more draw, it's off to pot No2.

5.26pm: "Do you think Lineker looks a bit annoyed that he's just drawing letters and teams?" asks Jordan Hackney. "The complicated system here is slightly reminiscent of Alan Partridge's Soccer Metre from the day today.

5.25pm: Again, no surprises. The winner is Maicon, from Inter. "Mention of Zubizarreta's niece reminds me that I went to school with his nephew, a charming fellow called Daniel Mar Molinero who wound up producing b-sides for singles from Gareth Gates second album," writes Ben Hendy. "I'm not sure if being a Spanish goalkeeper's nephew or having that career is the bigger claim to fame, frankly."

5.23pm: Wow, what a rush. That's the first pot done with, a remarkably slow process. I'll continue adding the teams in that block there, but first it's time to dish out the award for Club Defender of the Season. Germany's Andreas Brehmer is doing the honours; I have never worked with his niece.

Group A Inter, Werder Bremen, Tottenham Hotspur, FC Twente

Group B: Lyon, Benfica, Schalke, Hapoel Tel Aviv

Group C: Manchester United , Valencia, Rangers, Bursaspor

Group D: Barcelona, Panathinaikos, Copenhagen, FC Rubin Kazan

Group E: Bayern Munich, Roma, FC Basel, CFR Cluj

Group F: Chelsea, Marseille, Spartak Moscow, MSK Zilina

Group G: AC Milan, Real Madrid, Ajax, Auxerre

Group H: Arsenal, Shakhtar Donetsk, SC Braga, FK Partizan

5.14pm: Sorry, I forgot they have to go through the usual nonnsense about fair play, irregular betting patterns and all that, before explaining the rules of the draw. Here's an email from Philip Genochio. "David Payne's email is quite the most witless thing I've read on this site," doing David a grave, grave injustice, considering some of the tripe I've contributed over the years. "And, unlike him, I've read a lot on here. Will you be putting him back once you've got the hook out of his mouth, or putting him out of our misery? As for Spurs qualifying for the group stages... I'm fully expecting the Italian, Spanish, German et al press to make a beeline to White Hart Line to learn more about these plucky underdogs. You know, in the same way you lot have been patting Blackpool on the head for the last few weeks. Expect stories about how, legend once has it, Spurs had a meagre two points from eight games a few season ago, yet here they are battling against the likes of Barca, Inter, Bayern etc."

5.12pm: Surprisingly, no. Right, here we go ...

5.11pm: Gary Lineker takes to the stage to help them begin the draw. Will he make a joke about his resemblance to the trophy? Will he?

5.10pm: Julio thanks God for his award. "I'm always taken aback by comments such as those by David Payne, 4:51pm," writes JT Lawley. "What do people expect when they see your name at the top of the MBM? We all know you love football but hate everyone who plays it, commentates on it, watches it, organizes it, or has any other passing interest in it. I fully expect you to call me a bollocks for this, by the way, but isn't that the point?" I would never use such language in a minute-by-minute report. It's against Guardian policy, I'm told.

5.08pm: Club goalkeeper of the year award goes, unsurprisingly, to Brazil's Julio Cesar. "What happened to the good old days of drawers with Trevor Brooking and Peter Shilton picking the FA cup ties, dropping balls and then sucking their teeth and shaking their heads with wry smiles when they draw Man Utd v Leeds?" asks Matthew King. "All over and done with in 10 minutes with a bit of low-carb banter and they had 64 teams to handle. UEFA are rubbish. Imagine how they'd do a tombola at a school fete."

5.06pm: Barcelona legend Andoni Zubizarreta comes on to present the Club Goalkeeper of the Year Award. I worked with a niece of his once. Nice girl.

5.05pm: Part one of the Uefa club footballer of the year, as voted by the managers of the 16 managers who reached the knockout stages of last year's tournament. Like I said, don't make any plans.

5.03pm: "Listen, Spurs fans are nothing if not realistic," writes Rob Kempton. "We're going to come second in our group and qualify, sack Redknapp (for only coming second), and Mourinho will take us to the final. Nuff said." I think there's a very good chance Spurs could win or come second in their group. Imagine those celebrations - with David Bentley leading from the front with a big bucket of Cristal, despite having played no part in any of the matches.

5pm: Hosts Melanie and Pedro take to the stage of the Grimaldi Forum and announce the grim news that the Champions League draw will be interspersed with guff pertaining to last season's player of the year. Don't make any plans.

Not long now: Sky have just cut to footage of a dark stage with nobody on it. That's always a good sign. It's the Champions League draw equivalent of their Footage Of An Open Door With Nobody Walking Through It that they use for the unveiling of a new manager at a particularly big club.

Jordan Hackney writes: "Do you think Richard Keys might have waxed the upper part of his chest to be able to get away with the no tie, open shirt approach?" he asks. "Also is there the possibility of seeing Nick Collins on the beach getting ice cream in his moustache or will he be backdropped by luxury yachts in a harbour? All in HD of course." I'm not sure what they're dragging all these hairy men out for when they could press Charlotte Jackson and Georgina Thompson into service.

4.56pm: Incidentally, David's wrong - Barcelona, being from a different country to Madrid, can of course be picked in the same group as them. Well if there was any justice in the world it'd be possible.

4.51pm: "Re. Tottenham's qualification. That's quite the most charmless thing I've read on this site," sniffs David Payne, piercing the roof of his mouth on the barbed hook. "Not nice, not funny, and not accurate. Celebrating finishing 4th is entirely reasonable these days, and has been the established aim of the club for some time. Also, clearly we're not going to get a group with Real and Barça. They can't play each other. Expect better from you, frankly." That's me told. Imagine how outraged David would be if I'd put a cat in a bin.

An interview with Jose Mourinho on Sky: "Me ... me ... me ... myself ... I ... me ... me ... for a team like Inter, year after year, out ... out ... out ... out ... out ... to reach that semi ... beat them at home ... scoring three goals ... playing against them in Barcelona with 10 men ... for me ... self- esteem ... me ... me ... me ... me."

4.48pm: "Shame it's football not scrabble," writes Gary Naylor. "The Pot Four cannon fodder would stand a chance then."

4.45pm: "Holding off the challenge from Fenerbahçe last year, Bursaspor won the league for the first time last year - so exciting times ahead for them in the Champions League," writes Nazim Dikbas, who originally wrote in to correct my avant-garde spelling of "Buraspor". "They have already won their first two league games this season (one against Galatasaray in Istanbul, 2-0) and they have an intelligent and level-headed coach in Ertuğrul Sağlam. Wishing them all the best. I actually support Trabzonspor, so just two hours to go for another sensational home-win... fingers crossed." Sensational? You're only playing Liverpool, who are without Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, among others, and about to buy Paul Konchesky. "Routine", would be the adjective I'd reach for.

In the Sky Sports News studio: Simon Thomas in the chair, with guests Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Charlie Nicholas.

Kicking back over in Monaco: Richard Keys and Andy Gray.

4.35pm: After all their over-the-top celebrations for finishing fourth in last year's Premier League, it was disappointing to see Tottenham qualify for the group stages as this time yesterday, the sight of their players and fans wiping copious amounts of egg of face last night, was a far more amusing prospect than the sight of them getting landed in a group with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Rubin Kazan. But they've qualified now and it's nice to see a new English team contesting group stages that can often verge on the interminably dull.

The draw begins at 5pm ... or thereabouts. And probably ends some time after 9pm. Here are the rules, with the bits that are either too complicated or boring to explain presented in convenient Let Somebody Else Do It hyper-link form.

The 32 teams who have qualified are split into four pots depending on each club's Uefa coefficient. Every group will contain one team from each of the seeding pots, though no club can play a side from their own country and there are further procedures - which you can view here - determining the exact placing of each contender.

Pot 1

Internazionale
Barcelona
Manchester United
Chelsea
Arsenal
Bayern Munich
AC Milan
Lyon

Pot 2

Werder Bremen
Real Madrid
AS Roma
Shakhtar Donetsk
Benfica
Valencia
Marseille
Panathinaikos

Pot 3

Tottenham Hotspur
Rangers
Ajax
Schalke
Basel
Braga
Copenhagen
Spartak Moscow

Pot 4

Hapoel Tel Aviv
FC Twente
Rubin Kazan
Auxerre
CFR Cluj
FK Partizan
MSK Zilina
Bursaspor

Minute-by-minute report

Barry Glendenning

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