Category: COP24

Today during a series of high level negotiations on article 6 of the Paris Agreement, I found the behavior of several of the delegations very interesting.

Firstly the behavior of the US delegation. The US delegation could not really be called the Trump delegation. The points they were making we’re well informed, reasonable, and in favor of the international climate regime in general. Further, the entire negotiating block that includes the US were perfectly aligned during the negotiations, and they coordinated a series of “interventions” where each member if the grouo reiterated their collective stance. I found this really interesting. Further it obviously frustrated some of the other groups, and this was brought up by the delegate from Tuvalu, who, without calling out the US by name, strongly rebuked the official stance of the US: “the United States will pull out of the Paris Agreement until such time that we can get a better deal for the American people.” This is directly at odds with the US and its allies dominating the negotiations on how to implement the paris agreement.

 

Today I attended a side event called Building a Spirt of Solidarity to Overcome the Climate Crisis where voices from various different sects shared ideas on how to build solidarity, overcome fears, and take responsible decisions to protect humans form climate change. Overall, it was excellent. The panel included someone from the IPCC, a previous negotiator, a UNFCCC official, an archbishop, a nun, and my favorite Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, and Indigenous leader.

Overall, it was an excellent event! There was good spirt in the room and some interesting points were made. Many of the panel members talked about reconnecting with your fellow humans and discovering a sense of service. There was also a lot of discussion about trying to find common ground and in listening to people who don’t have the same view point as you. This resonated with me a lot, especially when the negotiator was talking about approaching the negotiations with countries with very different priorities. She stressed that negotiator that you disagree with the most is the one you need to connect with the most and try to understand the most so you can think about the issues from their point of view, and that only then is real progress made. Hindou also discussed bringing a human element to the negotiations, and how she views it as her responsibility to talk about the struggles of her people.

There were a lot of powerful messages throughout the 1.5 h and I left feeling positive. I also introduced myself to Hindou after the panel and shock her hand, which was a highlight of the day for me!

Being at the COP has made me so much more aware of just how many countries there are in the world. Sure, 197 is a number that is not to hard to think about but do you actually know what you’re imagining when you think of 197 countries? It’s surprising that any negotiations get worked out at all given the sheer amount of languages spoken, though it is certainly heart warming!

I have had several experiences this week that have made me think of the extraordinary ways in which the COP delicately (and maybe sometimes indelicately) handles culture clashes.

 

What is it with every single speaker thanking the previous speaker for their “kind words”, congratulating the previous speaker on being appointed to a certain position, and addressing each other as “your Excellency”?

At first, I thought the formal ways in which people spoke to one another here was quite over the top and in some cases, frankly, a waste of time. Just get to the point already! But I think that these ways in which people speak to one another is a form of showing deep respect and to avoid certain confrontations. It also shows the appreciation that people have for one another during these talks and exhibits ways in which climate negotiations are supposed to unite us and not divide us.

To me, the COP is not a tourist attraction and is not even supposed to be, but that’s not what other people seem to think. 

I can get behind the fact that people want to document that they were at the COP and that they were with their delegation presenting at a certain side event or something but sometimes, it seems like some delegates are putting on too much of a show. For example, I literally saw a panelist leave the panel, give his phone to a random stranger, go back to the panel and pose thoughtfully as the stranger took a photo of him, all while the actual panel discussions were ongoing. No one batted an eyelash. I think something like this just goes to show the extent to which people want to document their time at the COP, and hey, in the 21st century when social media is king, there is no better way to get the word out than a snazzy picture on instagram. This is also surely the first time that a lot of people get to visit Poland and be so far away from home so if they have to spend most of their time at the COP, then that’s what they are going to take pictures of. The privilege I have of being able to travel as much as I have has been checked. 

 

Please please please will anyone address the fact that most of the events are held in English!!!

I could not be more grateful of the fact that I can understand most of the events that I go to. Only one event I have been to has completely been in a different language and in the negotiations, only those delegates who absolutely cannot speak English will not. However, what does it mean that the COP is in English? I know that the UN has six official languages, but these languages do not seem to be exposing themselves that much throughout the COP. What sort of messages of power are relayed when everything is in English? I had to leave an event just because I could not understand the broken English that people were using and I felt really bad because I was so sure that the topic they were speaking about was just as important for me to learn about as a topic that was presented on by fluent English speakers. I think it’s beyond the scope of this blog to go more into detail about this but it is definitely worth thinking about some more.

Today was intergenerational youth day at the conference! While themed days don’t affect the actual negotiation discussions too much, they do make it so that more of the side events at the conference center on this topic.

One event I went to for intergenerational youth day was a celebration for a new Guinness World Record of 100,000 climate change postcards put on a Swiss glacier. The celebration took the form of a panel in which NGO youth leaders from Uganda, India, and Switzerland discussed how they encouraged schools and youth organizations to write postcards against climate change, which were eventually put on a receding Swiss glacier to advocate that youth deserve a future too.

Personally, I felt a little skeptical about the initiative. While I absolutely think it’s inspirational that youth are speaking out against climate change, I questioned if there were too many negative impacts of putting postcards on the glacier. I wonder if school children would have felt as engaged if the postcards were sent to policymakers instead. I also found it a little sad when Switzerland said they had a hard time getting schools and youth organizations to join onto the initiative, as this is the reason they reached out to Uganda, India, and other countries to get more postcards in the first place. I wonder if the engagement of young children in the climate change movement may be lacking. Perhaps we could be doing more in schools to teach children the urgency of climate change. While this may seem a little far from the goal of the actual negotiations in implementing a rule book for the Paris agreement, it has potential to have similar importance in the future.

I think this is the first side event at the conference I attended where I was left feeling a little disheartened, or a little unsure about the impact of a supposed climate action. I was also left feeling like a lot more needs to be done in educating young children about the importance of climate change. I’d actually be really curious to hear others thoughts on this issue, if anyone has any reactions.

 

For those of you not at COP-24 and who want a source of the day to day outside of what we are giving on the blog, you may find the daily newsletters from ECO interesting and useful:

http://www.climatenetwork.org/eco-newsletters

Today the entire group went to visit Auschwitz. We know this isn’t why we came to Poland, but we all felt very passionately about taking the time to visit this important landmark. The site isn’t far away, only about 35-40 km, so we made the trip and spent a long time visiting. To say the least, it was powerful and emotional. By the time we were done at the main site, we didn’t have time to visit Birkenau, which was disappointing. It wasn’t an easy visit, but I think we were all glad we went to pay homage to the terrible atrocities that were committed there. I was proud that we were all able to talk about our emotions on the way home and over dinner as well, and to share some about what the visit meant to us.

Chris, representing the entire COP-24 Week 1 Delegation

This afternoon, I attended two extremely interesting side events that focused on incorporating Indigenous rights in the language and implementation of the Katowice Rulebook (the goal of this COP is to establish this Rulebook to actually implement the commitments set forth in the Paris Agreement). The first event, titled “Realizing the Vision of Paris: Incorporating Rights in the Implementation Guidelines,” consisted of panel members from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Earthjustice, Women’s Empowerment and Development Organization (WEDO), Amnesty International, and Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP).

The most impactful speaker in my opinion was a man representing AIPP, who emphasized how Indigenous Peoples face impacts from not only climate change, but also the mitigation and adaptation measures designed to address it. One example is the expansion of protected areas — a measure designed to protect forests and their crucial role as carbon sinks. While seemingly wonderful, in acquiring additional land to expand the reach of protected areas, this approach displaces Indigenous Peoples and strips them of their access to ancestral lands and culturally significant resources.

One of my greatest passions with respect to environmental protection and social justice is the exact issue of how conservation initiatives affect Indigenous Peoples. While I have previously focused a great deal on this in terms of existing national parks and protected areas, I had not thought about these issues in terms of the climate-related expansion of these initiatives  It was eye-opening to learn about the flaws and inequity of seemingly good solutions to the climate crisis, and this event really expanded my understanding and altered my perspective of currently proposed mitigation and adaptation initiatives, including REDD+ and other carbon offset schemes.

After this panel, I went to another side event, titled “Megadrivers, Climate Funds, and Indigenous Peoples.” This event was organized by representatives from several Indigenous Peoples organizations in Peru. Each of the speakers emphasized the urgency of the challenges that they are facing in the Amazon and how integral it is to maintain and ensure Indigenous control of their territories. This event detailed several climate funds that exist in the Amazon, including the DGM, FCPF, FIP, ONU REDD, and DCI. The panelists discussed the current problems that exist with respect to these funds, including the prioritization of state mediation, the lack of inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in these conversations, and the state’s continued support for extractive industries and anti-climate investments (i.e., agribusiness, hydrocarbons, mining, wood felling). The panelists then discussed some experiences and achievements of Indigenous Peoples with respect to land titling, reduced deforestation due to resistance to extractivism, investment in Indigenous economies with standings forests, and Indigenous REDD+. The event concluded by proposing Indigenous alternatives on climate finance, which highlighted the importance of territorial organizations and learning from previous Indigenous-centered successes.

Another interesting thing to note about this event is that it was entirely in Spanish, which I found very exciting and powerful because most other side events are held in English; it was clear that this event was focused on the people who it was trying to reach, and in asserting the rights (and language) of the panelists, rather than submitting to the sense of Western, English, and American superiority that is so pervasive at these negotiations.

Coming out of today, I am extremely interested in learning more about just and viable alternative approaches to mitigating and adapting to climate change without perpetuating colonialism and human rights violations with respect to Indigenous Peoples, as well as how such mechanisms and financing can be used to uplift and support Indigenous Peoples in implementing their own self-driven initiatives. Stay tuned as I continue to investigate these crucial questions this week!

— Shana

As you may or may not know, an umbrella group of Non-Governmental Organisations, Climate Action Network (CAN), has been organizing awards called “Fossil of the Day” at the COPs since 1999 which is an award given to the country that has done their ‘best’ to block progress in the negotiations on each day of the COP. Members of CAN vote each day on which country can claim this prestigious prize and today….

the award went to…. Poland!! CAN cited the Polish President who said that there was “no contradiction between climate protection and coal” during his Plenary speech yesterday. Today he further stated that “Poland has enough coal to last for another 200 years”… and that the “Polish mining industry and mining constituencies were the foundations of the Polish economy determining the country’s energy security and are a greater extent towards energy sovereignty.”

As it is only the first day of negotiations, I do not know how much we can really look into the significance of this award and there are plenty more days ahead for other countries to take a lead in blocking negotiations. I do think that as the hosts of a COP, there is a lot of pressure for Poland to “put on a good front” and there are a lot of people very willing to critique the COP itself (just how much carbon was emitted to get 197 countries to convene?) and looking for any sort of juxtaposition between what states say compared to what they do. I did not attend any high level negotiations today so I am not able to say whether I think Poland is more deserving of this award than any other country but somehow I can’t help feeling that Poland only got this award because it’s been under the microscope more so than other countries today and yesterday.

There’s a lot to unpack in this award, that’s for sure but here are just a few questions I am thinking about:

• Do you think Poland’s stance on supporting the coal industry is worse than a country’s support for fracking or nuclear power? (Can’t we critique every country for a bad climate policy decision?) Or did Poland win the award because it was selling the ‘wrong’ sorts of ideas to the wrong audience?
• As a host of COP, is it really Poland’s job to be at the forefront of climate policy? Afterall, isn’t the point of having different countries host the COP so that different voices can be heard and different cultures experienced?

Also, I think it’s really interesting to think about how the Fossil of the Day award can be used as a climate negotiating tool.

• Do you think that the award would make more people engaged with the COP and would a daily spotlight on a specific country help the public follow the COP events that much more?
• What do the countries who win this award think? It’s not a great award to get, that’s for sure, but will it change the way in which, for example, Poland will think about it’s message?

As CAN stated, it has definitely been “a hot welcome from the hosts of COP24!” Seriously, it’s cold in Poland but not as cold as I thought it would be…

— Marianne

P.S.I You can follow more of the Fossil of the Day COP24 awards here on their facebook page! Or, to learn more about CAN, click here.

Despite warnings that the side events at COP24 tend to be more interesting than most of the actual negotiations, my decision this morning was to attend both an informal and a formal negotiation meeting. The first negotiations meeting I attended was an informal conversation with the SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice) about the timeline countries should have to implement the rule book for carrying out the Paris Agreement. They were discussing whether countries should have 5 years, 10 years, or the ability to decide their own timeline.

I definitely see why people say the meetings can be difficult to sit through. There was a lot of jargon and sometimes tedious arguments that seemed a little trivial if you weren’t part of the United Nations (EX: one delegate from a country spoke about a small phrase in paragraph 5 of Article 4 that needed to be deleted.)

Still, I am so happy I spent time this morning orienting myself with a negotiations meeting. It was SO interesting to watch how a United Nations meeting works in practice. Basically, countries take turns raising placards with their country’s name on it when they want to speak.

Most countries seemed to support implementing a 5 year timeline for the Paris Rule book. The Marshall Islands and South Africa advocated strongly for this. But, the timeline decision is more complicated than it sounds because no one is sure when the 5 year deadline should be implemented, especially since there is no rule book yet. The informal meeting was more of a discussion with countries raising their arguments and voting to see what is agreed upon, but no official policies were adopted.

Afterward, I contrasted the informal meeting with a formal negotiations meeting about climate finance. As Chris mentioned in his post, it was interesting to watch South Africa get pretty heated. The formal negotiations meeting was a lot more structured, had more strictly imposed time limits, and seemed a lot more tense than the informal negotiations session. I wonder how the atmosphere in both informal and formal negotiations will change on certain issues, especially as sessions progress and the stakes become higher throughout the next two weeks.

Today at the COP there was a joint SBSTA IPCC special event to discuss the findings in the most recent IPCC report. The event was held in the largest plenary room at the conference, and it was filled with both conference delegates and observers. I found the event on the whole very informative, and it was clear the effort the scientists were going to to present their results in a way that would assuage the apocalyptic descriptions of the report in the popular media after its release. I really enjoyed the data although I was left with some methodological questions, which I will research after recover from sleep deprivation. I also had the opportunity to ask a question to the panel, and I have never shaken so much in my life!