Heather Young/Atascadero News From left, Atascadero residents and 350.org Festival at the Fountain organizers Ray Weyman and Fred Frank hand Cal Poly senior Michael Symmes a check to cover his airfare to Copenhagen on Tuesday. Symmes will be in Copenhagen Dec. 11 through 20.

Cal Poly senior Michael Symmes, of Manhattan Beach, will head to Copenhagen next month as one of 47 California students going there for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Conference of the Parties 15. To assist Symmes in getting there, the organizers of the 350.org event that took place in Sunken Gardens on Oct. 24 gave him a check to cover his airfare.

“We decided we wanted to help Michael out with some financial aid [for the trip],” Atascadero resident Ray Weyman said. “In exchange, he [will] write a blog for us.”

When Symmes returns to Cal Poly for the next semester, he will give a presentation to anyone interested in hearing his first-hand experience of the international event.

Weyman said they chose Symmes as the recipient of the funds they had raised from the 350.org event because Crystal Durham, the executive director of the California Student Sustainability Coalition, recommended him. Symmes has been Durham’s intern for the past several months. The coalition is made up of student groups through California colleges and universities.

Under CSSC’s parent organization, Earth Island Institute, the students will receive access to the conference to get a first-hand look at the proceedings.

“I think it’ll be well worth our money to have a direct connection to Copenhagen,” Weyman said.

While there, Symmes will blog about his experience in Copenhagen, along with a student from University of California Santa Cruz, Jennifer Helfrich. View their blog at www.castudentsatcop-15.blogspot.com. They will update the blog on a daily basis.

Symmes recommends those concerned about climate change write to influential policymakers such as Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee.

While Weyman noted on Tuesday that President Barack Obama had not yet decided if he would go to Copenhagen, Boxer announced Wednesday his decision to attend the conference.

“I am so pleased that the President is going to Copenhagen to address one of the most pressing issues of our time — global warming,” Boxer said. “The goal he announced [Wednesday], in the range of 17 percent, reflects the work that was done in the House of Representatives and in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It is realistic, it’s smart and it’s credible.”

“Voicing your own opinion through letters [is the best idea],” Symmes added.

Symmes said the students were able to obtain credentials to the event by the Earth Island Institute applying as a non-governmental organization.

“They’re really a progress institute that primarily focuses on sustainability issues,” Symmes said about Earth Island Institute.

According to www.en.cop15.dk, the official Web site of the conference, there are four ways a person can attend the conference, as a representative of a government party, U.N. body, observer organization or the press.

Symmes added that the goal of the conference is to come up with a climate change treaty as the Kyoto Treaty, which is an international agreement that the COP came to in 1997, Symmes said. It expires in 2012. He also noted that the United States did not ratify the treaty, so the U.S. is not recognized as a supporter. In order to ratify it, two-thirds of the Senate would have to approve it, Weyman said. Weyman also noted that the treaty to come out of COP15 would be more robust than the Kyoto Protocol, which exempted China and India.

“People don’t realize it’s a local issue — what happens in Florida and Bangladesh does affect us [here in Atascadero],” Atascadero resident Fred Frank said.