Swarthmore at COP29

What an incredibly busy, bustling, and exciting first day! While most of the day was spent getting our bearings, we had the privilege of having lunch with one of the U.S.’ newest delegation members — and one of our very own — Liz Nichols. It was such a unique opportunity to hear about the conference from an insider’s perspective! Liz also shared some extremely heartening information with us regarding the U.S.’ presence at the negotiations; despite the fact that Trump has communicated his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in 2020, Liz explained how the delegates present at this COP are the same delegates who helped to craft the Paris Agreement at COP 21, and who have worked to solidify and implement this Agreement at subsequent COPs. Despite the position of the president, the U.S. delegates present at these meetings are deeply committed to taking meaningful action to combat climate change, helping to both preserve the U.S.’ reputation on the international stage and to address this urgent global crisis. Here’s to a bit of a bright spot for a more hopeful future!

— Shana

All of us students started out our day attending the COP24 opening ceremony, in which the Polish president, the mayor of Katowice, the leader of the World Bank, the prime minister of Fiji, and other high level officials spoke to the importance of COP24 and what it needs to accomplish.  The opening plenaries made clear the main goals of COP24: to create a rule book for implementing the Paris Agreement and to ramp up climate action efforts. Many leaders cited the IPCC report as evidence that climate action efforts need to be taken seriously.

The President of the World Bank made some bold commitments in their opening speech, such as including climate change as a factor in all of their decision making, implementing a shadow price on carbon, and doubling their budget toward mitigating climate change. I was surprised that there didn’t seem to be a huge initial reaction to these commitments, so I’m hoping to hear more about them throughout the conference.

(Executive Officer of the World Bank, Kristalina Georgieva.)

The president of Poland also used the opening plenaries as an opportunity to share what Poland has been doing to combat climate change and why Katowice is a great city to host COP24. He explained how the conference center where COP24 is being held is in the same site as a shut down coal mine. Amos, Shauna, Marianne, and I debated whether or not the Polish President’s argument was convincing, as he did make a good case for how Poland has been reducing emissions. Still, many of these reductions have still come from a supposedly ‘cleaner’ coal, and many climate activists would agree that clean coal is not really possible.

The opening plenaries raised many issues I can’t wait to follow throughout the conference!

(President of Poland, Andrzej Duda.)

 

Wow! What a really interesting first day at COP! I feel like everything has just been an absolute blur and that I’ve been at the COP for way longer than I actually have been.

Like I saw David Attenborough today… How crazy is that?!?!

 

Anyway while seeing David Attenborough (a.k.a my second Grandfather) was definitely the highlight of my day, I also went to some very interesting meetings that gave me a lot of food for thought. In one of the side events entitled
“Climate Friendly Technologies” one of the speakers off handedly mentioned that he would prefer to see a COP structured where all the important negotiating stuff happened as side events (observers can’t attend these events anyway so what does it really matter to us?) and that people’s presentations on current work that they are doing to actively reduce carbon emissions or adapt to climate change should have more of a focus at these conferences. I thought that this one comment was actually quite profound and it got me to thinking about what a COP would be like if we focused on stuff we ARE doing instead of stuff that we SHOULD be doing. How would that change people’s perception and attitudes towards climate change? What sort of message would that send in terms of placing the importance of climate change policy on people instead of powerful governments?

At the end of the day these are rhetorical questions and I do not think that I have been able to process a comprehensive answer. But, from my first impressions of COP, it does seem like there is a definite hierarchy of events that people prioritize to attend. For example: Why were there more people at a talk from Arnold Schwarzenegger than there were at a talk about indigenous voices?

Just some food for thought for my first day at the climate negotiations. How effective is COP anyway? I guess all of us at Swat will get back to you on that sooner or later.

—Marianne

So the only side event I went to today was called ” Experience gained from the CDM” and in this talk I had my “market based solution” bone tickled for the first time at the conference. The biggest surprise from the talk was that the subject of the clean development mechanism, and the emissions credit market that existed in tandem with it, acted as a way of hedging currency related risks faced by green industry in developing countries. This is because many of these industries hold foreign loans, but their income is in domestic currency, so if there is a high risk premium associated with their domestic currency, paying a foreign loan may be much more difficult. The CDM, which facilitates the transfer of capital from developed to developing countries, gives these industries foreign currency, which they can use to insure they are able to pay off debts which are held in foreign currency. Hearing this discussed I found really really exciting, because I had never even thought this was a potential advantage of capital transfers between developed and developing countries.

Day 0:

As the COP does not start until tomorrow, the whole group got to spend the day exploring Katowice and Krakow (after we picked up our badges, of course – pictured below).

It seems like we walked through a never ending stream of Christmas Markets and just went from one place to another in search of more and more food. A lot of coffee was also drunk to stave off the jet-lag.

Can’t wait to see what is in store for us at the opening plenaries tomorrow and meet some exciting people!

The first COP-24 delegation from Swarthmore has arrived in Poland! We are heading to the conference site this morning to get our badges so we are ready to hit the ground running tomorrow when the conference starts. Stay tuned for updates to hear what we are finding interesting during the week!

Our first delegation departs for Katowice, Poland, tomorrow, November 30th. Chemistry and Environmental Studies Professor Christopher Graves is leading a delegation of four students, all seniors: Amos Frye (Environmental Studies honors major), Shana Herman (Environmental Policy and Conservation Biology), Marianne Lotter-Jones (Biology major, Environmental Studies minor), and Brittni Teresi (Psychology and Environmental Studies double major). The team will arrive in Katowice on Saturday and attend the opening of the conference on Monday. We hope you’ll follow along with their adventures and post comments and questions to help them share the COP experience with you!

After an amazing day yesterday hearing some great speeches and listening to the high-level segment, I decided to stop listening to the dignitaries deliver their addresses and go to more events. We tried to attend the negotiations, but we couldn’t get in since they went closed door. From looking at the published schedule it does seem like the APA negotiations proceeded because the APA plenary is back on the schedule. A lot of talk this week has centered around the divide between the global North and South, which is primarily responsible for shutting down the APA plenary yesterday. We’ll see if this divide sneaks into the closing plenary of COP tomorrow.

Since we couldn’t get in the room to hear the wheeling and dealing, I attended some side events. The one that stood out most prominently for me was a Presidency Event Integrating Human Rights in Climate Action, a fitting topic given that today was Climate Justice Day! It was presided over by the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights (Kate Gilmore) and was opened by the COP23 President and Prime Minister of Fiji. He gave an excellent speech where the overarching message was that human rights are universal and our climate policies must protect the weak from the strong and give hope to those who are most vulnerable. The president of the Marshal Islands also gave opening remarks where she called for an end of the blame game, mentioning that all nations must be part of the solution and all actors have the responsibility to do what they can to help those in the most vulnerable places.

 The panel discussion was excellent! The big take-a-ways were the need to engage everyone in climate action and to acknowledge the special circumstances, challenges, and opportunities that different groups bring to the table. One quote from a panelist: “If you aren’t at the table you are likely on the menu. Everyone needs to have a seat at the table.” Throughout this conference a lot of discussion has focused around gender inclusion as well as in engaging the indigenous peoples. Both groups had major wins at this COP, with the establishment of a Gender Action Plan and a Local Communities & Indigenous Peoples Platform. For decades the indigenous peoples have been trying to be engaged in the development of climate action, and there is a lot of positive energy here around the fact they’ve finally gotten an official voice. Hindau Oumarau Ibrahim, who has been a major presence at this COP, was a panelist during this session and once again gave a passionate speech about engaging the indigenous peoples to help develop ideas and install paths that will met their priorities. I have really enjoyed hearing her speak throughout the week. The session ended with a closing remarks from Mary Robinson, the president of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, where she urged us to feel good about the progress we’ve made and to use that energy to develop effective climate action strategies. All in all, it was an excellent session!

Guten Nacht from Bonn! On Wednesday, we got to see a lot of negotiations going on in the Bula Zone. As you (may) already know, the COP is split up in to two seperate zones which are in different buildings, the Bula and Bonn zone. The Bonn Zone is more accessible (as in, more people are allowed in) and is where most side events take place, which are the kind of events you would expect from a traditional conference where speakers present about all kinds of topics from gender/climate issues to indigenous rights and climate change to the science behind our climate. This is also where the country ‘pavillions’ are (pictured below).

The other zone, the Bula Zone, is where the actual negotiations between parties take place. This zone is connected to the Bonn World Conference Center, and fewer people are allowed access. Today, we spent our whole day in this zone taking in negotiations. Today was an exciting day because it marked the end of formal negotiating and a launch in to more of a fine-tuning process on the final agreement. There are several working aspects of the agreement that will produce documentation (see more info here: http://unfccc.int/meetings/bonn_nov_2017/in-session/items/10498.php), but the one I have been following the most closely is Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement, or APA.

 

The APA is split up in to different agenda items. I got to see a working session on agenda item four yesterday, and saw two of the closing plenary sessions today. In both, South Africa played a prominent role in blocking up negotiating. It appears that South Africa has several issues with the current APA informal notes (see above link) specifically in agenda item 8a. This led to them requesting an adjournment on a technicality in the closing session, which led to the session being temporarily suspended not once, but twice. They plan to meet later in the week even as the fine tuning negotiating begins.

In the high-level session tonight, Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) and Emmanuel Macron (President of France) both spoke about the necessity of climate action. Chris got a ticket into the room, while Shiv and I watched on a screen in an overflow conference area. Macron went so far as to say that the rest of the world is moving on without the US and France has no qualms about stepping up to fill the gap. He also said that he is considering a ‘border tax’ against the US to help fund the Green Climate Fund, which is a fund that is pooled by richer nations to give grants to developing countries to help them get renewable energies off the ground (read more here: http://www.greenclimate.fund/who-we-are/about-the-fund).

After a long day at the conference, Shiv, Chris and I had dinner at a nice German restaurant near our hotel before heading back. Check back tomorrow for another update!

Governor Kate Brown of Oregon, a powerful woman, speaking about the climate policies she has successfully implemented in her state.

Today was the COP 23 Gender Day, a day meant to “highlight how gender-responsive climate policy and action can provide economic benefits to communities and create opportunities for raising ambition under national climate plans, while transforming lives, particularly of women and girls”. Before getting into my observations from Gender Day at COP23, I’ll go into a little background information on gendered climate issues.

The 2013 COP conference was the first year that the disproportionate affect of environmental degradation on women was recognized on a large-scale. The initial title was “Women’s Day” and it intended to highlight women’s involvement in environmental issues and provide women with a larger platform to voice their issues and empower themselves. The title “Women’s Day” was changed to “Gender Day” because focusing on women instead of gendered power structures depicted women as victims, furthering their subjugation in the matter.

I’m sometimes met with confusion or skepticism when I say women feel the impacts of climate change more than men. However, women and children are fourteen times more likely to die in ecological disasters than men. Greta Gaard provides interesting case studies in her article “Ecofeminism and Climate Change” (2015),

“...women and children are 14 times more likely to die in ecological disasters than men (Aguilar, 2007; Aguilar, Araujo, & Quesada-Aguilar, 2007). For example, in the 1991 cyclone and flood in Bangladesh, 90% of the victims were women. The causes are multiple: warning information was not sent to women, who were largely confined in their homes; women are not trained swimmers; women's caregiving responsibilities meant that women trying to escape the floods were often holding infants and towing elder family members, while husbands escaped alone; moreover, the increased risk of sexual assaults outside the home made women wait longer to leave, hoping that male relatives would return for them. Similarly in the 2004 Tsunami in Aceh, Sumatra, more than 75% of those who died were women. In May 2008, after Cyclone Nargis came ashore in the Ayeyarwady Division of Myanmar, women and girls were 61% of the 130, 000 people dead or missing in the aftermath.”

Again, critics might say something along the lines of “Well this is anecdotal and not relevant to developed nations!” Well that’s the point. The adverse affects of climate change are not felt by the people responsible for it, and further are especially detrimental to marginalized communities.

“Unbearable” art installment on the walk between the conference zones. The bear is being impaled by an oil pipeline that is curved to match the growth of the carbon in the atmosphere (ppm).

The events at COP23 for Gender Day focused on having women being the focal points of their own climate solutions. I attended a panel called The Economic Case for Gender-responsive Climate Action, where the speakers from different cultural and economic backgrounds spoke to the importance of governments to seek or promote, and investors (both private and public) to fund climate policy and action that considers the needs, perspectives and ideas of not only men but mostly women. The panelists spoke to the importance of centering gender-responsive climate action around women in communities they are already passionate about in order to further community well-being actions. The VP of Global Themes from the World Bank, Hart Schafer, made an interesting point that it is economically irresponsible for countries to not consider women as assets in development, because they are 50% of their market. He explained that the World Bank seeks out  local women to engage in grassroots movements to alleviate damage from natural disasters, and statistically the efficiency of the aid is significantly worse when they failed to address gender disproportionality as an issue.

Another aspect of Gender Day and the COP23 conference in general that is worthy of analysis was the presence of Indigenous peoples in a more mainstream way. As we know the conference is being hosted by Fiji, but is physically in Bonn because Fiji lacks the resources and climate security to commit to such a large event. The presence of indigenous peoples on the panels and as leaders in this conference shifts the focus away from a science and development centric approach, and reminds people on an international scale that marginalized, “other” communities deserve a better voice in these forums.

As much as I appreciate Gender Day and it’s existence, it still feels like an afterthought or a strategy for appeasement. If UNFCCC can recognize gender-responsive climate action as a priority enough to create a day, then these actions should become a given part of NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions). In 2016, WEDO (Women’s Environment and Development Organization) analyzed every country’s total, and came out with a report,

“In total, 64 of the 190 INDCs analysed include a reference to women or gender. Of these, several only mention gender in the context of the country’s broader sustainable development strategy and not specifically in relation to climate change policies (e.g. India).”

NGOs are doing incredible things to promote gender-responsive climate action, mostly at the grassroots level. I hope to see increased support on national levels and more talk of gender in negotiations in future COPs.

Panel for WEDO awards on gender-responsive climate action grassroots organizations. 

A final critique I have would be the lack of inclusivity and intersectionality in relation to environmental justice issues at the conference in general. These issues are discussed briefly with gender normative language and often frame women as needing to be “brought” to the forefront of these movements. We need to stop seeing women and other marginalized peoples as victims, and begin to deconstruct the existing power structures and “norms” we’ve accepted for so long. This requires an uncomfortable process of self-critique and relinquishing control, but it is something we can achieve with mindfulness and humility. This being said, I am excited to see the progress the Environmental Justice movement has made on this international stage, and have faith that it will continue to develop and manifest into policy in future COPs. As the Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa Fiame Naomi Mata’afa stated so well in the economics panel, “We know what we want, we’ve known for a long time. It’s time to just do it already.”

*Edit: 11/15/17 In the closing plenary of the SBI (Subsidiary Body for Implementation) it was announced that a Gender Action Plan was adopted in the UNFCCC. At the SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice) closing plenary an agenda idem with an Indigenous People’s Platform. It was exciting to see more substantial documents of the needs for better representation.