Swarthmore at COP28

Hi all, I’m currently sitting on the floor of the convention center with 20% laptop battery so this is going to be a shorter post! Today I went to another WIM negotiation, and things started to heat up quite a bit. Last night, the co-facilitators wrote up a draft document outlining a summary of the key recommendations the parties had suggested for enhancing the WIM throughout the week. Notably, there was absolutely no mention of additional financing for loss and damage, despite the fact that this request had been made multiple times. The LDCs, G77, Vanuatu, Uruguay, and Sudan came out strong, reminding the co-facilitators that additional finance for loss and damage was important to include on the summary document. The US, EU, Australia, and Japan, however strongly opposed the need for additional finance for loss and damage much more clearly than in any previous negotiations. The US negotiator that I met with a few days ago, Farhan, said that the WIM specifically had absolutely no role for the provision of additional finance, therefore completely prejudging the outcome of the WIM review and dismissing the pleas from LDCs and other supporting parties. This was personally a pretty heartbreaking moment for me – I was not proud to be from the US in that moment. Japan proceeded to talk up the use of adaptation funding to support loss and damage (a conflation issue I discussed in my last post), as well as the role of insurance facilities in helping with loss and damage (another problematic argument). Lastly, the EU said that they saw no value in creating additional finance for loss and damage, and that finance discussions should be reserved for COP agenda item 8 in the finance room. These were all highly disappointing stances, given the urgent need for financial support in the most vulnerable countries. This session ran over time by an hour and a half, and another informal session may be scheduled for tomorrow at 4pm (I wonder how long the WIM review sessions can be extended…). More updates to come, but the unified stance against additional financing from the US and EU is incredibly disappointing, to say the least.

BTW, good introduction to WIM here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXK1W0S015I

On the way to the Article 6 negotiations this afternoon I ran into the wonderful Liz Nichols (former Swarthmore professor and now finance negotiator from the State Department) and decided to tag along with her for a bit instead.  We stopped by the US State Department Delegation Room and chatted while her colleagues busily prepared for their meetings.

I followed Liz to an informal meeting about the details of providing GEF support for Parties to the Paris Agreement to submit the (new) required BTRs (biennial transparency reports).  These are huge all-sector audits that contain a national greenhouse gas inventory and progress updates on achieving NDCs.  These reports are hugely expensive for developing countries, so funding is a make-or-break issue for whether these will be ready by January 2024.  It’s hard to manage emissions without measuring them, so this is a really big deal for tracking progress and reducing emissions.

I sat at a small table in the GEF pavilion with Liz and a couple of other US negotiators, GEF leads, representatives from UNDP and UNEP and three donor and LDC parties.  The discussion was a technical one on how to design the funding process for the BTRs to make it accessible and effective.  Even in a small group there were a lot of competing interests and perspectives even though everyone had (more or less) the same goal.  It really drove home what Liz had told us before — that the details are important and hard to get right.

Hi everyone, today’s blog is in the form of a video once again! Featured here are my reflections on this morning’s WIM negotiations, a CAN Loss and Damage Working Group session, and a Loss and Damage panel event: https://vimeo.com/377414757/5d24a4f10a

At this year’s COP, my focus is on subnational actors and their role in both official negotiations and in promoting climate action more broadly. As more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and cities emit 75 percent of global CO₂ emissions, municipalities play perhaps the most important role in combatting the climate crisis on the ground.

Luckily, unlike many countries, cities are increasingly committed to climate action. For instance, almost 100 megacities across the globe have joined the C40 Climate Cities Leadership Group, which commits all of those cities to a Global Green New Deal and to developing climate action plans by 2020. Thirty C40 cities have peaked emissions and 25 have pledged to be emissions neutral by 2050. Similarly, almost 2000 small municipalities are members of Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), which is a big proponent of data sharing, greenhouse gas inventories, and future emissions predictions. Together, these networks of municipalities are fighting for a greater role in the Paris Agreement, perhaps through LDCs (locally determined contributions) as a supplemental mechanism to NDCs. They are also working to improve urban climate finance mechanisms, especially in developing countries, as well as to pressure their national governments to up their NDCs.

Today, I attended an interesting talk on how many cities across the globe are aligning their policies and plans with a 1.5C pathway. One of the speakers at the event was Susan Aitken, who serves as the leader (mayor) of Glasgow, a city that will host next year’s COP. Susan, as she preferred to be called, outlined Glasgow’s plans to become the UK’s first net-zero carbon city (by 2030). She discussed a public-private partnership with Scottish Power to boost investment in renewable energy production and storage, as well as to promote the use of electric vehicles.

Refreshingly, she also spoke in depth about a moral responsibility for climate justice and a just transition, especially given that Glasgow’s bad air quality is concentrated in poorer areas of the city. She emphasized the need to expand the city’s public transportation networks to poorer neighborhoods, as well as to promote access to green space and recreation in those areas. Importantly, she stressed the importance of including citizen voices in any sustainable planning processes.

It was really interesting to learn about Glasgow’s innovative leadership role in combatting climate change — both through the private sector and through participatory planning. It also made me excited about next year’s COP (even if I won’t actually be there). Hopefully at COP 26, Glasgow emphasizes the importance of including subnational actors more directly in the COP process. I also hope that being in Glasgow will provide other subnational leaders with a model on how to decarbonize former industrial cities. Glasgow was where James Watt conceived of the modern steam engine. Now it is becoming a pioneer in new, participatory, just environmental technologies and policies. The city has come a long way from its industrial roots.

Quick video summary of Glasgow’s net-zero efforts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANLdqvzi44s.

Hello everyone! Today I had another exciting day of the COP, and got to learn more about the various parties’ perspectives on the WIM. This morning, I attended a WIM negotiation contact group (see Max’s post for an explanation of this term) where the parties began discussions about how to enhance the WIM. The session began with a welcome and introduction from the two co-facilitators, who then explained the agenda for the meeting: a brief summary of the outcomes from Sunday’s WIM review meeting and the ExeComm report (Execomm is the central body of WIM), an explanation of the WIM negotiation process for this COP, and finally, open interventions from the parties. From what I understand, Sunday’s review was organized by the Secretariat to provide an opportunity for parties to hold preliminary discussions around the effectiveness of the WIM thus far – it was not a formal negotiation, rather a brainstorming session with multiple break-out groups. Today was the first time that the parties were formally negotiating. It was then revealed that the parties would only have two more formal negotiations like today to finish their discussion about the WIM and submit a draft decision on next steps to the appropriate UNFCCC bodies by December 7th. This means that the parties are expected to finish WIM negotiations in two more sessions, one tomorrow, and one the following day. Parties are allowed to meet on their own for ‘informal informals’ in the interim period between formal negotiations, but co-facilitators are not present and observers are not allowed to attend (some LDC members later requested the co-facilitators and the Secretariat be present at these informal informals, TBD if this request will be granted). Though this tight timeline was highly contested by multiple LDC members, it was later revealed by a co-facilitator that these negotiations were only allotted 8 hours of deliberation under the UNFCCC mandate and therefore cannot be altered (for now…we’ll see if something changes towards the end of the week). If no extra time is permitted to negotiate the WIM, I highly doubt the parties will come to a conclusion about the financing facility. Next, the parties were allowed to present their interventions (AKA speeches) on the floor. As expected based on my conversations from yesterday, G77 and China and the LDCs were strong and unified in their push for the establishment of a financing facility. These parties stressed the fact that loss and damage is happening already and that adequate funding is crucial for poorer countries’ survival. The EU and New Zealand, while in agreement with the idea that WIM needed to be improved to better serve developing countries and the LDCs, focused most of their interventions on the successes of the WIM. The session ended 15 minutes late, with multiple parties/countries still waiting to speak, one of which was the US. I left the negotiation eager to hear what the US was planning to say, but luckily I had a meeting scheduled with Farhan Ahktar, the US State Department head negotiator on WIM, only a few hours later (big thank you to Liz Nichols for the connection). I only had about ten minutes to ask him some questions, as negotiators tend to run between a million different meetings at the COP, giving them little time to take a lunch break, let alone chat with an undergrad student. When I asked Ahktar about the US’s stance on the establishment of a financing facility, he said that the US was in favor of using existing funds (like the Adaptation Fund) to support loss and damage, rather than creating an entirely new facility. This opinion is based on two ideas: first, that creating a new funding facility would take too long to implement given the urgency of loss and damage problems (Liz said it could take up to a decade) and second, that the kinds of funding needs from loss and damage would be eligible for coverage under other existing funding mechanisms. Ahktar added that the US simply could not subscribe to unlimited liability and compensation for loss and damage. A brief note: the US only agreed to sign on to the creation of the WIM in 2013 once a sentence was added about the WIM NOT creating a basis for liability and compensation, so it’s clear that developed countries have been avoiding direct payment to vulnerable nations for years; this is not a new conversation. Ahktar said that the US definitely wants to support the LDCs and other vulnerable nations to become more resilient and able to address the impacts of loss and damage, but that this support would need to materialize through the use of existing funding mechanisms and through the strengthening of other aspects of the WIM. I am excited to hear how all of this gets translated into more formal negotiation language tomorrow morning when the US gets its turn to speak. 

In sum, I’ve now got two pretty clear opinions on the need, or lack thereof, for a new financial facility under WIM. I am working on setting up another meeting with the negotiator for the LDCs later this week to ask the question: can loss and damage funding actually be covered under existing funding mechanisms? If yes, why is a new facility needed? If not, what other factors are keeping the developed countries from creating this facility?

Wow! Today has been a whirlwind. My day began at 9am at the YOUNGO Spokes meeting, which is a daily meeting of youth representing NGOs at the conference. I then proceeded to attend negotiations sessions on two key issues at COP 25 — Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (which Jenn talked about in her latest post) and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (which Allie discussed yesterday) — as well as two side events at country pavilions and two official side events hosted by the UNFCCC, before leaving the venue around 8pm.

Since there are so many venues and meetings at the COP, I thought it would be helpful to provide visuals and descriptions of the different types of events and negotiations.

Official Negotiations – Plenaries and Contact Groups

Plenaries: Plenaries are open to all in attendance. They are held in large halls (see below) and are used as forums for public speeches, the adoption of agendas, all procedural issues, and the adoption of any decisions/conclusions.

Contact Groups: When agenda items in plenary warrant further discussion (they almost always do), contact groups are formed. Contact group discussions generally take place in smaller settings (though not always as you will see below). Contact groups work out detailed texts that are then adopted/approved in plenary. These events are sometimes open to observer organizations and sometimes not.

It is also important to note that “official” negotiations continue outside of these sessions informally in negotiating blocks, bilaterals, and multilaterals.

Informal Proceedings – Side Events and Exhibits

Official Side Events: These are thematic talks sanctioned by the UNFCCC. They serve as opportunities for observer organizations — which are limited in official negotiating capacity — to engage with the conference, share information, and promote climate action.

Pavilion Side Events: Similar to the official side events, pavilion talks are opportunities for observer organizations to share their work and engage with the conference. These events, however, are curated based on the pavilion host’s (an NGO, UN body, or country) positionality on the climate crisis. Below are pavilions from two countries, the IPCC, and a NGO representing a coalition of development banks.

Official Exhibits: These serve as additional opportunities for observer organizations to share their work with the conference attendees. They function almost as rotating poster sessions (as the exhibits shift every couple of days).

This is being called the “Action COP”, and yesterday’s opening plenaries focused again and again on turning pledges into concrete action as countries prepare their climate action plans for next year.  Chile’s graphic for the COP leans in to its long-skinny resemblance to the hand of a clock:

 

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which lays out the rules for global carbon markets, has turned out to be a major sticking point in the negotiations and is a key outstanding issue on the negotiating table this year.  A well-designed system can decrease abatement costs, direct investments to areas where they can most effectively reduce emissions, and allow countries to increase ambitions for their targets.  A poorly-designed system can make NDCs meaningless by flooding international markets with credits that do not reflect actual reductions in emissions, whether because they were banked under less-restrictive systems, are double-counted through multiple NDCs, or reflect “reductions” from artificially high business-as-usual emissions. This afternoon I attended an academic session on designing carbon markets to avoid some of these pitfalls, including a range of interesting ways to test for “additionality”, i.e. whether a project reflects a real reduction in emissions below BAU levels.  (For example, should switching to solar count toward emission reductions even when it’s the lowest-cost option for power generation?) . It’s an incredibly interesting issue where the technical details are extremely important and very political.  I don’t expect we’ll see too much progress this week, but I’ll be watching closely after I get back to see what happens in week 2.

Finally, an easter egg for econ folks was this event hosted by the Indonesia pavilion:

Global eminent person Jeffrey Sachs is speaking next Thursday — following up on his talk at Swarthmore in October!  (There’s another global eminent person speaking the day before: H.E. Al Gore.)

Hello friends! Today marked the relatively quiet opening of COP 25 in Madrid, but the preparations for the annual conference were anything but calm.

COP 25’s original host, Brazil, backed out of its role in November of 2018 after the election of Jair Bolsonaro, whose foreign minister has stated, “there is no climate change catastrophe.” In the wake of Brazil’s withdraw, Chile offered to stage the UN event in Santiago. About a month before the conference was set to begin, however, increases in metro fares and living costs in Chile sparked nationwide protests that culminated with the Chilean government withdrawing Santiago as the host city for the COP. After Chile stepped down from its host role, our contact at the State Department, former Swarthmore professor Liz Nichols, informed us that a 2019 COP was unlikely to take place. Surprisingly, Spain almost immediately agreed to take over hosting duties and here we are!

I write all this not to give a general overview of how our delegation and the COP arrived in Madrid, but rather because the changing location of the conference has negatively impacted the proceedings. Importantly, an activist presence was notably missing from today’s session. In large part, this is a result of Chilean environmental justice folks being unable to regroup and pay for plane tickets to a new venue in a new city on a different continent. Instead of folks pushing negotiations to question market mechanisms and radically work towards 1.5C, most of the voices today operated within the conventional neoliberal models that have contributed to our climate crisis. In fact, we only observed one concrete counter-COP demonstration (see below).

It is especially important to note that fighting for climate action and protests like those in Chile are parallel struggles — against exploitation of markets. The same policies that and people who enable big polluters to exploit the planet and grow rich also force poorer people to contend with stagnating wages and higher costs of living. We will only solve our climate crisis when we begin to alleviate economic inequality and vice versa.

Hi everyone, I’m really excited to share my week with all of you!

My research topic for COP25 is on the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM). I am interested in understanding how different actors at the COP are framing the issue of loss and damage. On the first day, I met with the YOUNGO and CAN International Working Groups for Loss and Damage, edited and finalized the YOUNGO opening plenary session speech, and interviewed Saleem Huq, the Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), about the consultation he provides for the Least Developed Countries (LDC) on the WIM.

Throughout the rest of the week, I plan to continue working with the CAN and YOUNGO working groups and might help draft a loss and damage policy document for the YOUNGO. Up next for tomorrow, I’ll be meeting with the head negotiator for Loss and Damage from the US State Department.

More of me rambling about my day here: https://vimeo.com/user105825874/review/376910872/c4858b8e19 

Day 1 is underway in Madrid! We’ll have more later, but just wanted to share the link to the livestream of the US Congressional Delegation’s press conference that should be starting soon: https://unfccc-cop25.streamworld.de/webcast/us-congressional-delegation

I’m waiting outside hoping to get in, but if I don’t I may be joining you watching the video from across the hall here.