Week 2, Day 1 – Engage, Engage, Engage!

Today was our first day of the COP-23 meeting. I started the day by attending the RINGO debriefing meeting where we got the status on several of the negotiations pertaining to implementation of the Paris Agreement. It was a good way to start and gave a big picture overview of the progress made thus far. A general takeaway was that things are moving slowly, but the chair of the session assured us that this was normal.

For the rest of the day I moved to the Bonn zone and attended several side events. The theme of the talks/sessions from my day focused on the need and importance of engaging local communities and governments in the process of climate adaption and mitigation. I first attended the High-Level Opening of Global Climate Action where I saw Gov. Jerry Brown (CA) talk for the first (not the last) time. He spoke very passionately about the need for states to pick-up the slack where the federal US government has failed. He was followed by a panel of an interesting group of dignitaries from around the globe and from different sectors. The representative from the Indigenous People’s really stood out for me as she stressed the need to engage local people in the mitigation and adaption process and to enable them with an action plan. In this vein I also I went to a side event focused on regional collaboration centers (RCCs) that pair local government organizations with bigger entities to help establish carbon pricing (and other) initiatives. The panel was interesting as several people discussed their specific projects or hopeful projects, although the “high end” portion consisted of dignitaries patting themselves on the back, which I found dull.

I spent a good chunk of the middle of my day exploring the venue and the pavilion. What a great group of diverse individuals! I spent some time at a science hour at the German pavilion and gathered a lot of pamphlets and information that I think will help me in my courses next semester. I also discovered that the Russian pavilion is going to have an entire session Wednesday devoted to progress toward a more carbon neutral refining of aluminum (my favorite element) so I am pumped!

I wrapped the day up by attending a session on Sub-National Strategies in North American for Meeting the Paris Commitments. It was opened with two governors (Kate Brown (OR) and Jay Insee (WA)) discussing their state initiatives and commitments to battle climate change. It was the first time for me at this meeting where a person directly spoke about Trump. The opening was by an excellent panel with Canadian and Mexican dignitaries as well as Gov. Brown. I was really inspired about all the state and provincial level work being done in the three countries. I was also filled with hope when the Minister of the Environment from Ontario reminded the USA people that Canada once had an environmentally unfriendly federal government (the Harper administration) and in those time the provinces made huge initiatives. It was a ray of hope that the state-lead coalitions will be able to do great things under the Trump administration. I look forward to learning more about these initiatives during the We Are Still In events over the next few days.