Crikey‘s man at Copenhagen, Matthew Knott, writes today:

Pity the friendly folk at the American Geophysical Union who organised 650 climate scientists to volunteer to assist journalists covering the Copenhagen climate talks through an on-call email service … only about 20 journalists have bothered to write in (more than 3500 journalists are here reporting on the conference).

Throw to Senator Steve Fielding, standing in the centre of the Bella Centre. Seems Fielding, whose accreditation for the conference is being provided by the American sceptics group, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, didn’t make a beeline for the bank of climate scientists.

Instead, he spent roughly $10,000 of his study tour allowance on a business-class Emirates ticket to Copenhagen to hand out business card-sized laminates that read: ”An inconvenient fact?” and contend that the globe has not warmed in 15 years.

Meanwhile, AGU has amended their website:

Note, the service has been scaled back from 24/7 due to low request volume …

If you’re reading this, and you’re based in Copenhagen right now, the Australian taxpayer would be greatly obliged if you could point Senator Fielding in the direction of a qualified scientist.