Swarthmore at COP29

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.

Hi everyone! We hope you enjoyed keeping up with Aaron Metheny and Kyle Richmond-Crosset, and Professor Jennifer Peck last week, this week we (Shivani Chinnappan, Samantha Goins, and Professor Chris Graves) hope to bring you interesting new insight on the inner happenings of COP23.

In the wrong seats on the train, but it worked out.

Between leaving Philly and arriving in Bonn we covered several modes of transportation; after a 71/2 hours flight, a 45 minute train ride, and a winding drive up steep hills we arrived at our quaint hotel nestled in the hillside of a neighboring town called Königswinter.

The view from our hotel room (left) and some signage on the way to the conference center (right).

We visited the conference center to get our badges, but were unable to access the center until tomorrow when our badges are officially active. We decided to utilize the time and beat the jet-lag by exploring a bit. There was a Christmas Market nearby, a European classic, where we enjoyed some cocoa and ended up mingling with a representative from the U.S. that works for a NGO that works to build jurisdictional programs to protect forests while promoting rural livelihood.   

A crepe stall at the Christmas Market.

It was exciting to interact with other groups from the U.S. and see the continued effort even through withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. After the market detour, we walked through downtown Bonn and found a place to eat some delicious traditional German cuisine.

Public Transportation: Harder Than it Looks

Now, after 24 hours of sleepless travel, we are signing off. Check back tomorrow for updates about our first day at the conference!

Apologies everyone, this blog post is a little late due to the hassle of packing and traveling back to the States (we made it back safely!). Reflecting back on the last few days at the conference and on the week as a whole, I can’t help but feel grateful for this tremendous opportunity to witness and engage in international climate change policy negotiations. On Thursday, I attended the first events of the We Are Still In Campaign, which generally featured informative panel discussions concerning the economic solutions to climate change. On Friday, we were able to listen to a sobering and inspirational talk given by Al Gore on the climate crisis. I also was able to go to a event on Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s latest survey on US public opinion on climate change juxtaposed with a similar survey commissioned over the summer in China. While most Chinese believe in anthropogenic climate change, Americans are generally skeptical of the connection to man-made causes. The panelists suggested that the failure of domestic action on climate change is because of the absence of an organized and vocal grassroots movement that would increase salience this issue in the public mind and pressure the federal government to implement policy change. It will be interesting to see if Sam, Shiv and Professor Graves see more of this bottom up mobilization from US businesses, state/local governments and environmental justice organizations in the second week of negotiations. Overall, attending the first week of COP 23 was an unforgettable experience!

Look for more pictures here!

Today marked the kickoff of events in the US Climate Action Center, the non-federal US pavilion hosted by We Are Still In. I attended these events as well as a session of the informal working group on item 7 of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA) agenda.

The US delegation is led by US undersecretary of state for political affairs Thomas Shannon, a career diplomat and Obama-era appointee. The negotiators seem to be experienced COP participants, some with long histories with the climate negotiations. From reports from other RINGO constituents and our own observations in the meetings, the US delegation has been relatively subdued but not absent from the negotiations. US negotiators seem engaged in issues of process and substance in the informal sessions for the APA and the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage.

The “unofficial” US delegation has been anything but subdued at this meeting, holding events in a network of inflatable domes just outside the main negotiations. The Climate Action Center is huge and very polished. (The cost of the regular pavilions is 380 euros per square meter +19% VAT).

This is the hub for the delegation of US non-federal leaders, including mayors, governors, corporate executives, clergy, and university presidents who are attending the COP. William Shatner was not able to attend in person but sent his well-wishes via video.

This an interesting group: not party to the official negotiations, but it is positioning itself as a group with the capacity to meet US mitigation and financial commitments under the agreement. People at the conference seemed a little puzzled about the division, and some members of the group itself seemed likewise unsure of their specific role at the conference.

On the first day of the conference I attended a panel hosted by the Climate Action Network, an environmental NGO with a large presence at the conference. Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based non-profit working on environmental issues, spoke about the US role at the negotiations, emphasizing that subnational groups were trying to both cut emissions and mobilize climate financing to help the US meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement. A question from the audience about who other parties should be negotiating with, Meyer emphasized that negotiations about transparency, finance, and other official matters must go through the federal delegation, but he urged participants to think of the current administration as an “aberration” rather than a long-term trend in US climate policy. He highlighted the role of the US subnational-delegation as being closer to public opinion than the executive branch of the government. This point came up in the afternoon today when Mayors and State Representatives in the non-state delegation talked about responding to the demands of their constituents.

The event started with remarks by James Brainard, the Republican Mayor of Carmel Indiana. He made the case that there is more support for climate action in the Republican party than is reflected in the executive branch of the government and talked about the nonpartisan history of environmental protection in the United States. (He later talked about the capacity for state and local-level change as a benefit of not ceding too much control to the federal government.)

Mayor Brainard was then joined by a group that spoke about achieving climate goals from the perspective of faith groups, corporations, universities, cities and states. A member of the audience asked the panelist how they hoped to engage with the other countries at the conference, and their responses were understandably vague, since there’s no official channel for them to do so.

The second event focused on market mechanisms to achieve climate progress. Speakers from business and industry talked about offsets, carbon pricing, and investing in renewables. California Assemblymember Cristina Garcia spoke about using cap and trade revenues and real-time local environmental monitoring as a tool to achieve environmental justice in disadvantaged communities.

The main priority of the non-federal US group at this point is to make visible US sub-national support for the Paris Agreement. The US Climate Action Center events today focused on broad strokes of different approaches to achieving the Paris Agreement goals, and events later in the week are supposed to go into more specifics. Perhaps future COPs will have a larger role for the US sub-nationals.

The third day of COP23 was packed to the brim with dozens of informal negotiations, party roundtables, and side events hosted by some of the many non-party stakeholders attending the conference. This COP has about 19,000 attendees, including more than 11,300 party delegates and about 6,000 non-party stakeholders, and there are complicated rules about which events are open to which participants.

According to someone I talked to who had been to many previous COPs, almost all negotiations (except for the most informal discussions) used to be open to anyone with access to the conference. As the size of the conference has grown, the negotiations have become more intense, and information is more quickly distributed, the parties have become more hesitant to allow non-party stakeholder observers into negotiations. At the same time, many of these stakeholders have cultivated personal relationships with career diplomats who attend many consecutive COPs, and so while more meetings are now technically closed, exceptions are often made on the request of party delegates.

Countering the trend of increasingly limited access and ability to influence negotiations directly, the Fiji Presidency has made it a point to engage non-party stakeholders in productive dialogue. The highlight of this approach was the Open Dialogue, a discussion that took place this morning with several dozen party delegates and representatives from the nine non-party constituencies. Two of the most relevant of these constituencies are YOUNGOs (YOUth NGOs) and RINGOs (Research and Independent NGOs); Aaron, Jennifer and I have been attending their daily meetings. During the Open Dialogue, delegates from both parties and non-parties agreed that connections between civil society and government, both domestically and during climate negotiations, were critical to enhancing the ambitions of the Parish Agreement. That being said, despite being labeled a dialogue, the meeting could have been more aptly described as Stakeholders Reading From Written Statements, and little to no substantive outcomes were reached. Clearly, more dialogues are needed.

In addition to the Open Dialogue, NGO constituencies get a brief amount of time to speak in what is called an intervention at specific negotiating meetings called open plenaries. One of the highlights of my week so far was frantically editing an intervention about climate finance for YOUNGO in the back of an open plenary meeting, minutes before our representative read it to the parties and observers at the meeting.

Beyond formal interactions between parties and non-party stakeholders, many climate action organizations are engaged in a massive effort to lobby delegates, shame uncooperative parties, and shape the topics of discussion. With the help of the Swarthmore hub of the Sunrise movement (shout-out to Aru), I have recently become a member of the Climate Action Network, a network of climate action organizations that work together to influence the negotiations and push a progressive climate agenda. As a result, I have seen some of the incredible behind-the-scenes work that goes into maintaining a coherent and consistent climate action campaign. For example, the Climate Action Network organizes a daily event at 6pm titled “Fossil of the Day,” in which a theatrical man dressed in a skeleton sarcastically presents an award to the party that has acted poorly or stalled negotiations. While very silly, shaming countries into behaving more constructively is important, especially when one party can hold up progress on any agenda item.

In the end, the Paris Agreement can be signed only by parties, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are determined by national governments, and the COP by definition designates the Conference to be “of Parties.” But even in the short time we have been here, it is clear that non-party stakeholders have a serious role to play in framing the conversation and applying pressure with the goal of concrete and ambitious climate action.

Today I attended the Opening Plenary of the APA, the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Paris Agreement that is tasked with operationalizing the prescriptions set forth in the treaty. Delegates face a 2018 deadline for crafting draft language that will be finalized during the Talanoa Dialogue next year at COP 24 in Poland. Throughout this week, delegates will participate in informal consultations to hash out complex implementation details covering mitigation, adaptation, transparency, and the global stocktake (the five year review process for the Nationally Determined Contributions). Being the policy wonk that I am, I find these technical negotiations very interesting–I hope to observe the consultation on mitigation tomorrow (crossing my fingers that I will be able to get tickets)!

Some delegates at the Plenary also gave striking opening statements. Syria announced that they have joined the Paris Agreement, leaving the US as the only nation opposed to it (albeit, we cannot formally withdraw for three years). Venezuela was the only country in their opening statement to allude to the US, and the Venezuelan delegate did not mince words when he demanded that other industrialized countries compensate developing countries for the lack of climate action effort from a particular geopolitical problem (aka the Trump administration). Small island nations and developing countries reiterated that industrialized countries need to do more to finance and support poorer nations as well. It will be interesting to see how this mantra plays into the negotiation process.

In the afternoon, I went to a press conference held by Dr. James Hansen. In his brief talk he discussed his argument for a carbon fee and dividend policy to put a price on carbon and therefore make the major carbon players pay for the pollution they emit. He and his granddaughter are even involved in a lawsuit (Juliana v. United States) to try to hold the US accountable for failing to take action on climate change. Also, according to Hansen, the 1.5 degree Celsius goal is still attainable, but only if we reduce emissions by three percent each year (which is only feasible if significantly more countries, including the US, implement a national carbon pricing system). I am not, however, optimistic about the probability of that happening.

On a lighter note, we went out to a cozy German restaurant in downtown Bonn to unwind after a long but productive day. Cheers!

Also, if you want, you can tune into some of the conference talks On Demand here!

Bula Vinaka!  The 23^rd UNFCCC Conference of the Parties started in Bonn today, presided over by Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji.  Over 20,000 people are expected to attend what is being called the “Pacific COP”, the first of these meetings to be hosted by one of the island nations most vulnerable to storms and sea-level rise.  The COP 23 President focused on several themes during his opening statement: urgency, “talanoa” (understanding and respect), involvement of non-parties, and assistance to those affected by climate change.  These themes reflect the goals of this COP, which is expected to be a more technical meeting focusing on implementing broader goals set at prior meetings.  This work will lead up to the 2018 meetings, in which Paris signatories have committed to take stock of their collective efforts and progress.

Today I attended an event hosted by Climate Action Network-International on the “Yardsticks for Success” of the Pacific COP 23.  The panel emphasized two parts of the work being done at the COP this year.

First, COP 23 aims to complete the design of the 2018 Talanoan Dialogue (Facilitative Dialogue).  This is a process over the next year for Parties to collectively take stock of their efforts toward reaching their Paris goals and to inform the preparations of new nationally determined contributions for COP 24.  The Fijian presidency has taken a strong hand in shaping this process already, renaming it using Talanoa – a traditional word used in Fiji and the Pacific to indicate inclusive and transparent dialogue meant to build empathy and trust.  The dialogue will address the questions of: ‘where are we?’, ‘where do we want to go?’, and ‘how do we get there?’ in the months leading up to COP 24.  The goal is to assess whether Parties are on track to meet their NDCs and to reevaluate their commitments, which are considered to be well-under the reductions needed to meet global climate goals.

Climate finance is another theme of the work this year.  Fiji has emphasized the need to establish financing for “Loss and Damage” due to climate change, with a focus on natural disasters.  (The logo for the conference shows a small island being submerged by a cyclone-shaped wave).  Delegates also aim to increase the transparency around these funds, including agreeing on accounting conventions that reflect the climate relevance of funded projects.  We’ll hopefully get to see how the process stands at the end of week 1 before we leave, and Sam, Shivani, and Chris will get to see what comes out of the second week of negotiations.

Finally, the Fijian focus on engaging non-Parties and subnational actors is particularly interesting in light of the unusual US participation in the negotiations this year.  The US has sent a formal delegation to the negotiations, which it is still a party to despite President Trump’s announcement of his intention to withdraw from the agreement in 2020.  The Fijian presidency appointed California Governor Jerry Brown as a special advisor to COP 23, who notably launched “America’s Pledge” with Michael Bloomberg in July.  The subnational US delegation seems likely to be a significant presence at the meetings.  The US Federal Government is not hosting a pavilion for the first time this year: instead the “We Are Still In” coalition is hosting the US Climate Action Center, financed by and highlighting US subnational actors.  It will be interesting to watch how these two groups participate in the meetings and how other countries respond to the two groups over the course of the week.

This begins our blog series about the Swarthmore delegation’s experience at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Bonn, Germany.  The COP is a yearly conference that has been held every year since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was created in 1991 (this year is number 23, hence COP 23). We’ll be talking more about various aspects of the UNFCCC and the goals of COP 23 in the upcoming days, but we wanted to start with a brief travel update.

We made it! After a red-eye Lufthansa flight with not enough legroom and little sleep, we (students Aaron Metheny and Kyle Richmond-Crosset, and Professor Jennifer Peck) arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at about 7am Sunday.

We had some logistical difficulties, including a baggage claim scare and missing the stop on our train from Frankfurt to Bonn (note to Week 2 delegation: it turns out there is a stop between Frankfurt and Cologne!), but we eventually made it to Zur Post, a small, delightful hotel about 4km from the city center in Bonn. We found a great Greek restaurant nearby for lunch and then promptly took three-hour naps.

In the afternoon, we took public transit to the Bula Zone (where the deliberations, meeting, and negotiations will take place) to get our registration badges, and then we sat down for dinner at a yummy Asian restaurant in the city center. Altogether, a very successful first day, and we’re looking forward to the start of a busy week!

If you’re particularly curious about a specific idea or topic, or there’s an event you want to hear more about, post a comment and we’ll see what we can do.

-Kyle Richmond-Crosset

As a student with an interest in the science of climate change, I was excited to have the opportunity to broaden my horizons and engage with the policy and activism aspects of climate change at COP22. My focus for the week was understanding the role that scientists play in creating and guiding climate change legislation, as well as their methods of effectively communicating their work and the seriousness of the situation.

I was luckily able to participate in Earth Information Day, which was designed to be a discussion of the up-to-date state of the climate and an opportunity to optimize engagements and connect information between the scientific community and party delegates. Held in one of the two giant plenaries on site, I looked forward to what the forthcoming discussion held.

Many of the talks given by the scientists focused on their new data sets and models of projected temperature increases. The main overarching theme was that more money and resources were needed for research and measurements to go from a global background level to a higher resolution regional scale, with the ability to pinpoint accurate levels of carbon emissions and temperature increases in specific areas.

A delegate from Mali asked why the goal of keeping temperature increases below 1.5 °C was no longer possible. I was shocked to hear one of the scientists on the panel respond that the goal of 1.5 °C or below was still a possibility. Throughout the conference, the scientists pushed the message that we could limit temperature increases to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. I was distraught to see this because the honest truth is that even if we completely stopped carbon emissions today, we would still surpass 1.5 °C and probably 2 °C. It was difficult for me to discern if the scientists legitimately believed this or if this was a message meant to maintain hope. While the numbers of 1.5 or 2 °C hold symbolic value, I think that they focus people on goals that are unrealistic and divert attention from pressing issues such as how vulnerable countries will adapt. Sure, these are numbers that can be advertised and sound really nice to everyone. But they assume that future technologies such as carbon sequestration will play a big role in limiting emissions to the atmosphere and that as part of the Paris Agreement opt-in system, countries will continue to enhance their emission limits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although more detailed data would certainly be helpful, I was frustrated that this was the main talking point. Doing more research is the easy part; as scientists, we can all continue to play our usual parts and produce more data. What is far more difficult, but more necessary, is to shift our focus towards advancing our science into social realms to ensure that our data are taken seriously and properly translated into public policy. If the data clearly show that climate change is occurring due to anthropogenic influences and that there are exponentially increasing temperatures, shouldn’t our priority be to make sure that climate change policy meets the requirements of what our data demand to avoid catastrophe? How do we clearly communicate important results such as the fact that the last time we were this warm 125,000 years ago, global sea levels rose 5 – 9 meters (Dutton and Lambeck, 2012)? We must transition away from remaining impartial and begin to engage with policy makers and the public, even if it will require time and for us to move out of our comfort zones.

Unfortunately, none of the speakers seemed to discuss techniques for communicating science and effectively making sure that policy reflected the increasingly dire outcomes for people and biodiversity around the world. As a result, at the end of the first discussion session I clicked a button to activate my microphone and asked the panel of scientists how well they thought policy makers incorporated their data. It wasn’t clear if they didn’t want to answer the question or didn’t take me seriously as a college kid, but they skirted around my question and responded that they believed governments took the issue of climate change very seriously.

At the end of the day, the bedrock of the UNFCCC process is fundamentally based on high-precision science. More research needs to be done to understand how climate change will affect diverse ecosystems around the world and how deleterious effects can be mitigated.

However, that is simply not enough.

As a scientist, I am used to being able to put in the time and effort to do experiments and accomplish my goals. However, I quickly realized at COP22 that the realm of climate change politics was a formidable foe and a completely different and uncomfortable game that involved compromises, a bit of propaganda, and extreme patience. But that does not mean that we can shrink away and wait for others to draft policy.

Rather, we must engage and fight to make sure that people understand the consequences of our data and that social policies of vast importance include responsible features that acknowledge and account for the current and future problems that science has shown we will all face.

As scientists, we must drop the fear of drawing attention to ourselves and speak up to the world even if our first attempts are incoherent or not well received. We must reject the alarmist label from those who do not believe our science or consciously choose to discredit it. In order to find solutions to a global problem, we must collaborate with each other, scientist to scientist, across other disciplines, with everyone; and reject the norm of individual achievement as the driver of scientific career progression. We must be politically active and support politicians that are in favor of increased funding for research. We must reach out and incorporate the public into our work to demystify science, increase transparency, and reduce the power dynamic between scientists and the public. These are all things that I believe that scientists must and can do.

Let’s hold off on “smiling for the planet” until we make sure that policy reflects what decades of data have been telling us.

– David

Dutton, A. and K. Lambeck. 2012. Ice volume and sea level during the last interglacial. Science 337(6093):216-219.

Footnote: If you are interested in learning more about how the science can become better incorporated into the humanities and social science, check out Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by E.O. Wilson.

Christina Hui ’17 and Patrick Houston ’17 take a hands-on approach to saving the world from the cataclysmic effects of climate change at COP22 in Marrakesh during the second week of the conference.

There were warnings from Sec. State John Kerry, Jeffrey Sachs (Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia), and others that if all nations met their “ambitions”, we would still be far short of what was needed to meet a target of 1.5 degrees Centegrade rise in CO2 emissions over pre-industrial levels.