Last night I dodged into a restaurant on my way back to the hostel following a long day at the negotiations. At a pretty far metro ride from the venue I was expecting to be finished with learning about COP for the day. Little did I know I was just getting started.
A party representative from Comoros took the open chair beside me. Between cigarette puffs he told me about his views on the climate negotiations.
How many years had he been going? “Since before you” was his simple response. Sure enough he had attended the 1992 Rio Earth Summit at the very beginning (2 years before I was born) and every COP since.
His answer was also concise for the largest climate worry for his country. “Sea level rise. We are an island and we will go under.”
Desperate for a glimmer of hope I pressed on asking if he thought young people had any influence or power at the negotiations. No, he said. As long as polluting countries, especially the US and China, are refusing to abate a considerable amount, nobody has much power.
Interestingly while the Comoros representative had little faith in a legally binding commitment in Paris, he had his eyes on Marrakech, Morocco (the location of COP22). His reasoning: even though Obama is intent on making a lasting agreement in Paris, the current US congress is not. After a new US president is elected next year the politics of the US congress will likely shift to being more serious about a climate commitment.
I left dinner with the weathered negotiator feeling pretty discouraged. These feelings of great hope and great sadness are both common here at COP when discussing the fates of current and future generations.
Screenshot of video feed from negotiating room – alternate versions in brackets.
We’ve talked about “the negotiations” a lot, but what are the negotiators actually doing during those hours that they spend behind closed doors? They’re talking about language. I got a chance to see that first-hand (albeit at a slight remove) today. I was in a hallway in the building where most of the negotiations are taking place, and one of the video monitors in the hallway was showing a feed from one of the rooms. Mostly the video was of individual country delegates speaking, but briefly it showed the image above, display the section of the agreement text that presumably was the subject of current discussion.
At first glance, it looks pretty dull—most of us have edited texts before, and sometimes argued over wording details. But if you look closely at the paragraphs above (which are on page 28 of the new draft text released this morning), and think about how things differ if one option vs. the other is chosen, some of these things really make a difference in outcomes. Text in brackets indicates different possible wordings (per the U.N. editorial conventions), so if you look at Option 1, there’s a big difference between choosing “Decides” (it will really happen) vs. “Invites the President of the COP” (might or might not happen, depending on what the President does). And either of those is pretty different from Option 2, where it’s certain that nothing will happen before 2020.
And what’s happening (or possibly not happening) here is “stock-taking”, getting together to assess progress, and possibly increase effort, toward the goal of decreasing future warming. And what precisely is that goal (“referred to Article 3, paragraph 1”)? It is—you guessed it—still being negotiated, but it reads in part (after referring to yet a different article and paragraph):
“Hold the increase in the global average temperature [below 1.5 °C [or] [well] below 2 °C] above pre- industrial levels by ensuring deep cuts in global greenhouse gas [net] emissions;”
Clearly there is [work still to be done] [progress still to be made] [drama ahead]—stay tuned.
Animals from “Noah’s Ark of the climate”, by artist Gad Weil, on display here at COP21.
“The pace has been slow and we have many issues that remain unresolved.”
“…progress was too slow.”
“We need a change in the mode of work.”
“The parties have engaged actively… but the pace, in my view, is nowhere near fast enough.”
“The parties have expressed clearly… support for transparency. Like others, the pace is not good enough. We will continue to work tonight.”
One after another, thus went the summary statements about the negotiations from the facilitators of the various groups. This was part of an update last night on the progress of the negotiations so far. It was attended by the lead negotiators of the various countries, as well as the COP President. As you can see, there was a consensus that not enough progress is being made toward the goal of having an agreed-upon text by noon on Saturday.
Ambassador from South Africa
After the updates from the facilitators, the chair of the meeting opened the floor to the individual country representatives who were present. At that point, the tone and focus changed dramatically. The ambassador from South Africa, speaking on behalf of the G77 (a coalition of developing countries) and China, expressed “some concerns with the process.” She spoke of the proliferation of spinoff and informal discussions, sometimes on the same issue and taking place simultaneously. She also noted that sometimes these were announced at the last minute, and asked for better advance notification of schedules.
In addition to concerns about scheduling, she made some specific requests on behalf of the countries for which she was speaking. One concrete request was for the UNFCCC to compile the various edits that had been produce so far in the various negotiating groups, and to produce a new master (but still provisional) text that would be made available to all parties in the morning. I assume that the goal of this was to allow them (and everyone else) to get a better sense of where things stand, since issues being discussed in one part of the text will have impact on other parts of the text. (The chair of the session later agreed to this request, and the new text is out this morning.)
After South Africa spoke, the representative from Malaysia spoke, saying that he was speaking on behalf of like-minded developing countries. He said that he supported everything in the previous statement, adding that the pace of the negotiations was “punishing.” As an example, he cited three parallel processes on mitigation taking place in three difference rooms. He said, “We cannot sacrifice a durable agreement at the altar of expediency,” saying that some of the countries were beginning to feel left out.
Apparently this is a perennial problem at the COPs. The smaller and/or less-developed countries have smaller delegations, and thus it is harder for them to have a presence at multiple sessions taking place simultaneously, and to keep up long negotiations that can stretch well into the evening hours. In fact, some of the observers who are here come to COP specifically to help smaller states navigate the process, so that they have extra bodies to track what is going on in various parallel sessions (though observers have much less access than party delegates do).
I don’t have the experience to gauge whether these concerns are worse at this particular COP, given the urgency and the relatively short deadline of trying to agree on a provisional text by Saturday, and how much this is viewed as part of the process. But having read about this before the COP, it was interesting to see it playing out in real time.
After these statements, several other countries were given the floor to make statements. One interesting bit of procedure that I noted: it appears that parties request the floor by turning their country nameplates on their side, so that they are sticking up in the air. (You can see this in the photo above.) I couldn’t see everything that was happening (we were watching on closed-circuit TV from another room), but everyone who spoke had an upended nameplate, and they put it back down when they finished speaking, so this appeared to be what was going on.
Some of the remaining discussion amounted to parties saying to each other, “No you need to be more flexible,” albeit in a diplomatic way. Other countries weighed in with additional comments on the fast pace or the need for progress.
The final statement came from the representative from Mexico, who said, “We have talked about urgency for a long time, but this is the place to show it.” The negotiations are continuing today, and it will be interesting to see whether the collective sense of urgency produces more progress.
Today, I started out the COP by attending the YOUNGO meeting and then heading over to a press conference held with the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga because I wanted to get the live opinions on the negotiations from a Head of State. Tuvalu is one of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) that has a population of just over 10,000 people and around 10 sq miles of land area. It is also especially susceptible to changes in sea level as well as storms and typhoons because of its low lying land-mass (just 15 ft above sea level) and a major concern is that sea level rises will cause Tuvalu to become inhabitable and potentially even force relocation of its citizens in the coming decades. With this background in mind, I settled into a seat near the front and pulled out the camera to record what I anticipated to be an thought-provoking speech. I was not disappointed, and there were a lot of memorable statements to be recounted.
The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga
After making a round of introductions to other dignitaries in the room, Enele got straight to the point. “Tuvalu is suffering.” He reiterated that a 1.5 degree Celsius cap was essential for the survival of the islands. He then pushed onto the negotiations, citing his support for a legally binding agreement to come out of the COP and sticking a point in to the Loss and Damages discussion about how if framed properly there would be a wider agreement between parties on this matter. “This is not about loss and damages, this is about survival.” was Enele’s reply and an adequate one I think for the PM of an island nation. He then moved on to discussing how he felt things were moving along at the negotiating table, and this next statement sums things up quite adequately. “The process has been very slow, very (un)transparent, and there’s a lot of twists and turns that small nations like Tuvalu cannot follow because of logistics. And that defines a very unjust process already.” This was followed by an even stronger statement about the impacts of political foot-dragging, “There is always a tactic of delaying until the last minute, and then being dumped upon, by something that is totally weak and is not worth the paper it is written on as we saw in Copenhagen.” Bang, no beating around the bush. Enele continued on, asking other parties not to utilize this as a tactic even citing the US as a culprit in dragging down negotiations and appealing directly to COP Presidency followed by another call, specifically to the leadership of the EU (Germany and the Netherlands in particular). for a legally binding solution and cooperation on loss and damages.
He then voiced his desire for mechanisms that include regular and consistent reviews of the actions of their parties to meet their INDCs and mentioned Tuvalu’s impressive commitment to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2020. He then alluded to the Kyoto Protocol as a cautionary tale for the Paris agreement, finishing up this portion of his speech with another call to not hit a dead-end like in Copenhagen.
Finally, Enele switched gears to talk about financial mechanisms and their impact (or rather lack of impact on Tuvalu). Labeling the current situation as “unforunate” the Prime Minister described the inability of low-resource SIDS such as Tuvalu to submit sound, and scientifically justified proposals to obtain funding through UN sources such as the Green Climate Fund. “Bureaucracy is taking over. Not the parties. The parties that need resources such as the Green Climate Fund are being neglected.” He followed with a call for parties to do away with such “conditionalities” and to consider the vulnerability of nations rather than the quality of their proposals. Lastly, Enele used the CDM as an example to make a pitch for renewable sources of funding to be added to the current financing mechanisms so that money is not simply being siphoned off to the abyss of climate financing and that Least Developed Countries (LDCs) who have contributed the least to climate change are not continually being forced to finance their own adaptation which he labelled as a final “great injustice”.
Sunrise at the COP
It was hard to hear from Enele that the talks were still too slow to keep up with the demands of SIDS, but his talk inspired some hope in me. If a country as small as Tuvalu can put forth so much effort to push for change and still keep up hope despite being completely disadvantaged, it stands to reason that the US should have no reason to drag its feet. As a representative from a large, well-funded, and well-equipped delegation, this talk made me rethink my perspective on what needs to happen here at Paris. Having an SIDS perspective was really invaluable, and it is really important to keep these vulnerable countries in mind moving forward. Their voices matter too.
Professor Jensen, Dakota, and I all attended an observer briefing today by the President of COP21. As per tradition the position of the President is held by a high-ranking official of the host country. In this case Laurent Fabien is the French minister of Foreign Affairs. For these two weeks his duties include chairing the Bureau and COP Plenary, proposing compromises in the Paris Agreement text, and providing political leadership. Each year the President strikes his or her own balance between staying impartial or promoting his or her own agenda. We were interested in this briefing because the procedural fluency of the President can have a large impact on the result of the negotiations.
We were first struck by Fabien’s affable demeanor. He emphasized that we, the audience (consisting of delegates from observer organizations), have a major role as both observers and actors. He spoke directly to the people who asked questions with thoughtfulness while occasionally even inserting jokes. He was also self-deprecating: “I am a student trying to learn quickly.”
The second thing that struck us was Fabien’s deliberateness in setting the stakes high for Paris. “There will not be a better opportunity than now.” He said that COP21 is our last chance to make something big happen with regard to global emissions cuts, and if we can’t get an agreement now, the whole procedure should be under question.
Fabien, along with the previous COP20 President and Peruvian Minister of the Environment Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, fielded questions from multiple observer groups such as environmental NGOs, the trade union, and youth NGOs. Fabien made it clear that personally he is in favor of keeping equity language in the Paris Agreement such as human rights, long term goals, loss and damage, and differentiation. However, he said that he hoped that he would have some influence on these topics, but also that his power was limited and he would mostly remain neutral in his role as President. Fabien was not helpful about the floor questions over transparency and better accessibility to meetings. He merely said that France was following the rules.
What surprised us the most was when Fabien stated that he was committed to having a text of the ADP (aka the Paris Agreement) by this Saturday, the 6th of December. This way there would be a whole week for deliberation and discussion on the text. Fabien hopes that the new text going into week 2 will be shorter and have fewer brackets—meaning less to argue about between parties. He wants to finalize the draft by Wednesday, December 9th, so that there is not the usual chaos that ensues at the final gasps of the negotiation.
The COP21 president sounds hopeful about the international legal agreement in the middle of week 1 of the negotiations. We shall see if the optimism continues and whether climate justice does in fact remain in the text.
Technology ultimately plays a large role in the actual, physical mitigation and adaptation plans established by different parties and organizations. However, it should be noted much of the discussion of “technology” that goes on in the COP21 is pretty far removed from the actual science. Many bodies of scientific experts such as the SBSTA that are part of the COP simply compile and submit relevant recommendations for the COP to consider and can only influence the negotiations indirectly. Policy initiatives and mechanisms that integrate technology and are designed to aid for instance, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), seem to be largely set up to provide “technical assistance” or “capacity-building” and act as networks that connect these government entities with other firms that are concentrated bodies of expertise.
US Center at the COP21
During one of the side events I sat in on, I found that the Climate Technology Center & Network (CTCN) is exactly that, and is coincidentally recognized as the operational arm of the COP21 in this regard in conjunction with Technology Executive Committee (TEC) which is the policy recommendation arm. Through the CTCN, no finance is provided for projects nor actual technological solutions, but simply feasibility studies and other “requests” for technical assistance which governments who need the help must actually formally submit for through Nationally Designated Entities (NDEs) defined by the requesting country and then pay up to hundreds of thousands of USD ($100,000-200,000) for the services. Arguably, these countries can seek funding from other sources to pay for these services, but it brings to mind questions about whether technology is really being effectively implemented in this way given their already limited resources. If this is the process that a developing country must go through in order to simply identify which technologies to implement, I fear how the combined lag of international policy bodies to make decisions, these intermediate phases of technological development, and the actual implementation of technologies will affect our ability to cope with climate change when our preparation time is already in short supply.
Buses waiting to take COP21 participants from the train station to the meeting site.
Would you cross the road if there was a one-in-three chance you’d be hit by a bicycle? (Maybe.) Would you cross the street, holding the hand of a child, if there was a one-in-three chance you’d be hit by a bus? (Probably not.)
I’ll bet that the above questions grabbed your attention more than this would:
Limiting the warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions alone with a probability of … >66% to less than 2°C since the period 1861–1880, will require cumulative CO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources to stay between … 0 and about 1000 GtC (3670 GtCO2) since that period. These upper amounts are reduced to about… 790 GtC (2900 GtCO2) … when accounting for non-CO2 forcings as in RCP2.6. An amount of 515 [445 to 585] GtC (1890 [1630 to 2150] GtCO2), was already emitted by 2011.
The latter is a quote from the “Summary for Policymakers” in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) from Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The former is an example of how to communicate essentially the same idea in a different way, focusing on the 1/3 risk of surpassing 2° C even with the quoted emissions budget, and how extreme and dangerous that would be. The example comes from Keith Tuffley, one of the speakers at a very interesting session I attended on Monday. The event was organized by the IPCC, requesting feedback on how they could better communicate the results that they present in their assessment reports. The IPCC is the body charged with assessing the science related to climate change, and their reports are widely viewed as the gold standard in presenting a consensus view of scientists about these issues. At the same time, the reports have also been criticized for being hard to read and understand.
To distill a very interesting discussion down to its essence, the bottom line of the contributions of the panel members, and the questions and answers that followed, was this: as human beings, we respond to stories. So to communicate the results of climate change, we need a layer of storytelling between the technical details of the reports and the listening ears of the world. As a scientist and a teacher, I think that is exactly right. And indeed it is the same message that my Swarthmore colleague Tristan Smith has been conveying, bringing the work of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science to Swarthmore’s campus via a series of workshops for our students on how to be better communicators. I’m also assigning the students in my Climate Change class this semester to make one-minute videos of themselves explaining the real science behind one “climate myth” of their choice.
The session did not ultimately answer the key question of whose job this is. Is it the IPCC’s job to tell more compelling stories? Personally, I don’t think so—their primary focus has to be to continue to convey the latest science, including its technical detail and its uncertainty. And, as Paul Lussier of Yale pointed out in the session, what resonates with one group may not resonate with another—your story may not be my story. Lussier is the founder of the Science Communication with Impact Network (SCWIN), and he argued that effective climate change communication should start by connecting with values: Do you care about food? About the oceans? About livable cities? About social justice and equity for low-income people? Any of these things can connect with climate change, and Lussier argued that you will be more willing to dive into understanding the science of climate change if your point of entry into the issue is via something you value, rather than climate change being a (relatively abstract) idea in and of itself.
In that light, it’s encouraging to see the number of organizations here at COP21 that are focused on telling the climate change story in different ways and engaging people via particular issues that resonate with them. As for me, I’ll keep telling the stories in the ways that I can, and I hope that you will, too.
** Will upload voice recordings and videos to youtube channel at some point. Files are too large to process through wordpress
Today I tried branching out from the side event proceedings (which were getting increasingly stale) to try and mingle with delegates, observers, and participants from other countries and try my luck in the plenaries. This worked out far better than I imagined it would. Although there were individuals from all sorts of different backgrounds, everyone was open to talking about their problems and solutions though asking for hopes seemed to be a bit of a contentious issue. I managed to land some solid conversations and even interviews with quite a few people. I talked to a geologist from the Comoros about the effects of climate change on their nation as island-state, a lady from the French delegation about how France engages civil society in matters involving environmental initiatives, and a participant from Denmark from the Nordic Council of Ministers. I also got to hear about how Saudi Arabia is pursuing Carbon Sequestration technologies (most of which ironically involve producing byproducts to process more fossil fuels).
Plenary Hall
Additionally, today seemed to be a good day for sighting some higher level delegates. I recorded (Coming soon) some remarks by Kevin Rudd, the former PM of Australia who dispensed some helpful advice on pushing the political agenda for the purpose of combating climate change, and got to piggyback onto an ongoing interview with the President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, who apparently had been in some unsatisfying meetings with President Obama earlier on in the COP (also coming soon). Also, in addition to having a satisfying day connecting with a broader set of individuals, I attended the “fossil of the day” award mock ceremony which is usually held to highlight “awards” to the Parties of the day who were the most obstructive to the progress of negotiations. Today, however was different. Instead of a fossil, the Phillippines and Costa Rica were lauded for being part of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) with other LDCs such as Bangladesh and Afghanistan to declare their intentions through the Manila-Paris agreement adopted on November 30th to move to 100% renewable energy and decarbonize their economies by 2050 in an attempt to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Pretty exciting for Day 2.
It was the usual unease of trying to navigate where to set my tray down in a bustling cafeteria. Except the scenario was a bit different at the UN conference because I happened to sit across from a Ghanaian party representative.
I assumed that this man of high-level position would be disinterested in engaging with a student, but instead he immediately lit up when I sat down and we had a stimulating lunch discussion.
Mr. Ramses Cleland had just had a meeting with French President, Francois Hollande, and the other African nations about climate mitigation plans across the continent. Cleland particularly described to me his worries and the projects that related to West Africa.
Cleland focused on the shrinking of Lake Chad, an important fishing and water resource for the 5 countries that surround it. “When hope shrinks”, Cleland lamented, “it causes countries to despair.” He then detailed the climate-related migration of young people from the Lake Chad region who were no longer able to sustain a livelihood. Many residents thus take the journey across the Mediterranean to find work, are often rejected, and then sometimes even turn to terrorist groups for support. Climate change, he said, is linked to migration and terrorism. It makes people feel hopeless. With this example, Cleland explained to me how “the world is one” and that we must think of climate resiliency on a global scale.
Climate projects in Africa affect Europe and the vice versa. Mitigation now means less adaptation later. On a more hopeful note Cleland described initiatives to channel economic and environmental growth in the Lake Chad region instead of sending its inhabitants away. He talked about massive tree plantings via the Green Belt Movement to absorb increasing temperatures and to slow the desertification spreading southward from the Sahara.
I am excited to find out what passionate person I share a table with tomorrow at the COP.
The first day of the COP21 started off at full tilt. Signs, graffiti, and artwork highlighting the event paved my way from the airport all the way to Le Bourget. After making a brief cameo at the hostel for a much-needed shower after my red-eye flight, I bolted over to the COP area to get my badge and throw myself in the mix. I got in later than most people since the registration was closed for NGOs this morning, but luckily security took pity on me and I managed to worm my way in just a bit early with enough time to scout around before attending my first side event. I was blown away. As soon as I entered the exhibit hall, scores of delegates from every country you can name flowed past me like schools of fish, weaving their way through the oceans of stands with their multi-colored climate-related flyers, jabbering heatedly to one another in a trifecta of different languages. I passed gigantic rows of tables full of reporters and observers plugged into their computers, all simultaneously plugging away at their Macbooks and watching streams of the Leaders’ event being held in the massive plenary halls across the way. On one hand, it was definitely overwhelming to witness, but at the same time comforting to know that there were so many people invested in the outcome of the COP. After getting my bearings (by which I mean getting lost several times and also getting booted out of the press area), I finally settled down at the first of side events I attended that day, “COP21: The Key Issues”
Mural depicting hopes for the COP21
During the course of this event in which the delegates chairing the panel discussion trickled in and out, I was able to listen to representatives of developing countries including India, China, and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) voice their thoughts on their own intentions for the COP21, what they believed the key issues on the agenda to be, and the results they wished to see. Each group had a different perspective on how they were approaching the COP, but there was a surprising amount of overlap between these nations especially in regards to the role of developed nations and the issues they viewed to be crucial. All of the parties named adaptation and mitigation strategies to be the most important agenda items for this COP, and called for developed nations to take a bigger role in supplying technology and financial resources to ensures the success of these strategies. Both India and China in particular stood by their usual ground, using the argument of historically generated emissions from developed nations as the case for setting up “Common, But Differentiated Responsibilities” (CBDR) for developing nations and call for technology transfers and other aid to be provided to them by developed countries on this basis. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised.
First Side Event
The next side event I attended was centered on the inclusion of indigenous people in the Reducing Deforestation and Degredation (REDD) mechanisms (http://www.un-redd.org/aboutredd). Traditionally, REDDs are set up in such a way that the indigenous people living on the land may get persecuted for their way of life by the legal boundaries set by the REDDs without reaping any of the benefits which instead go to the governments or NGOs implementing them, bypassing indigenous people as stakeholders in their own cultural lands. The panel for this side event consisted of a coalition Peruvian and Canadian indigenous peoples who laid out suggestions and an alternative framework for ensuring that above all, the territorial and cultural rights of their people were preserved under REDD schemes. This framework stresses the importance of continued stakeholder involvement, proper implementation monitoring among other improvements to the existing REDD mechanisms.
Media Area
Finally, I attended a side event on the role of civil participation in the Green Climate Fund. Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of the busts of my day, as basically all the panelists really had to say on this matter is that more civil society participation would be good for the GCF in a general sense to offer more feedback, insights, and opinions beyond the ones already there. Given that this would probably happen no matter who they added to the GCF board, I would say that this was sort of a cop-out answer. On the plus side, I did catch an interesting debate about the role of small-scale renewable energy distribution in Indonesia as a potential way of averting some effects of industrialization, and that made me happy in a nerdy sort of way.
