Swarthmore at COP29

COP24 has been a crazy experience. Diplomacy at work is sometimes undiplomatic. Below are some quotes that I heard/read at some events.

1. “Now that we are done with the skit”, we can move on to our speakers for today. – Moderator Wells Griffith in a side event titled “US innovative technologies spur economic dynamism” on December 10 after protestors were escorted out.

The side event was heavily anticipated by COP24 attendees who had to line up to enter the event. The room was packed way before the event was supposed to start. There was a heavy security presence because an Action (a demand/protest) was organized for the side event. While waiting outside the room, I could hear “shame on you” and “keep them in the ground” being chanted inside. Those of us outside joined in. After the protestors were escorted out by security, the doors opened again, and I was able to enter the room to hear the panelists.

2. Our goal is “to improve the resiliency, efficiency, and competitiveness of coal fire plants” …. “The question is: do we continue using old coal technology used in the 1970s or move forward with new technologies which will be near-zero emitting?” – Steve Winberg, assistant director at the US Department of Energy speaking at the same panel as above on December 10.

Winberg was clearly facing difficulty defending his position supporting coal industries. When someone from the audience asked him why the Department thinks it is necessary to reduce emissions from coal plants when Trump has been calling climate change a hoax, he went on to talk about how we are privileged because we don’t use wood and fire to cook like people do in many other countries, and that we are not appreciative of our privilege. It was completely unrelated. Since he’d been on the job for a year, he had worked to make the coal industry more efficient, and since nobody had told him to do otherwise, he would continue.

3. “The sun does not shine 24 hours a day. Wind is not available 24 hours a day. But you can get enough LNG [Liquified Natural Gas] in a few minutes.” A spokesperson from Sempra Energy speaking at the same event as mentioned above on December 10.

There’s nothing more to say.

4. “I’m warning all of our people here that if you let this go, then it signals that we are mitigation-centric. We need to signal that we are supporting more adaptation.” – Delegate of Saudi Arabia on including the 1.5 C Special Report on the guidelines for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) on December 11.

Saudi Arabia was being difficult in the meeting to draft the guidelines for GCF. He went on to say that the committee does not understand what they are doing by trying to include a mention of the 1.5 C Special Report in paragraph 7, so the Saudis have to enlighten them. They made the effort to block the mention of the IPCC report wherever they could.

5. “…and together, we can proceed to be more resilient, along with the SDGs… I really don’t know what they are… to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.” – President of Maldives in his speech at a side event about “Loss and Damage and the SAMOA strategy for 2030” on December 12.

The Pavilion erupted with giggles when the president said this sentence. I wasn’t sure if he said it as a joke or whether he really did not know what SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) are. He then went on the reference the “IPPC” report twice and also said “I’ve been told to read from a statement, but I really don’t want to do that. Anyway, I guess I have to return to it” in the middle of his speech. The next day, however, the President of Maldives called on all parties to support the IPCC 1.5 C Special Report on behalf of all small island states, so I suppose his statements the previous day were for giggles…

6. “Yes, this is a manel, not a panel. We should consider that.” — Moderator of a panel on “New Adaptation approaches in the age of the SDGs” in the Japanese Pavilion on December 13.

In the Q&A, one participant raised the point that there were five men on a panel about local adaptation projects, when, in fact, women tend to be actively involved in the household, farming, or other work as breadwinners. This point is especially true in rural areas in developing countries since men often migrate to urban areas in search for better economic opportunities. One of the panelists explained that their adaptation projects address gender imbalances in rural areas and include women in implementing adaptation projects. It was unfortunate that there were no women in the panel, but it wasn’t the panelists who organized the event.

7. “Our partners are smart. Partners. Not me. And not even you.” Adau from Timor Leste, leading the discussions on Loss and Damage (L&D) on behalf of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), December 14.

It was a grim moment for the LDCs knowing that there’s no finance being discussed for L&D in the Katowice text currently being renegotiated at the time of writing. The developed countries are completely trying to scrap away L&D according to Adau, they kept pushing discussion on this issue until finance came up under Articles 9.5 and 9.7 last night, and they’re attempting to merge the issue under adaptation. But the reality is that L&D requires at least double the amount of money that has been allocated for adaptation so far. Adau left the room early to return to negotiating with other countries. A gentleman from Bangladesh mentioned that his country is attempting to pilot a 2-year loss and damage national mechanism, which was a ray of hope.

On Wednesday, former US Vice President Al Gore spoke in one of the plenary rooms. Apparently he does this every year, and he didn’t present particularly novel information, but it was still very neat to see him up close.

Also fun was to be able to seat in the delegate seats. I ended up at the Kingdom of Lesotho. There was a bit of confusion around my seat halfway through the talk – delegates from Lesotho came to sit there, were surprised to find other people, and were told by a security guard before I fully understood what was going on that seating had been opened to all. Luckily, there was room for the delegates to sit down next to me and we had a friendly, whispered conversation about the famous Al Gore of An Inconvenient Truth. They also shared the below flyer with me.

Back to Gore’s presentation, here are some extremely sobering and occasionally encouraging facts that he shared:

Above: The energy trapped by man-made global warming pollution is now “…equivalent to exploding 500,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year.” James Hansen, Former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Above: Graphic showing increased deviation (between 2005-2015) from the mean of the frequency of unusual temperature occurrences. Baseline is from (but I’m unsure because it’s blurry) 1951-1990. Graph shows in particular increased warmer than average days as compared to baseline. 

Above: One June 26-27, 2018, Quriyat, Oman set a world record for the hottest overnight low temperature ever recorded: 42.6C (108.7F). The town remained above 41.6C for 51 hours.

Above: The jet stream is becoming “wavier”. Steeper troughs and higher ridges mean weather systems progress more slowly, raising the chances for long-duration extreme events, like droughts, floods, and heat waves.

Above: A recent national survey shows that 69% of Polish citizens favor a phaseout of coal by 2030.

Above: Enough solar energy reaches Earth every hour to fill all the world’s energy needs for a full year.

 

Planetary Boundaries

Speaking of famous white dudes, I also had a chance to see a brief presentation by Johan Rockstrom, a very well-known climate scientist who leads research on the ‘planetary boundaries’.

Rockstrom said that there are three key climate facts:

1. We are living in a new geological era, the Anthropocene.
2. The Holocene is the only period that we know for certain can support sustainable societies (i.e., meet the SDGs), so we need to get the Earth back to those characteristics.
3. However, ecosystems can be shifted irreversibly by breaching tipping points – and so we might not be able to get back to the Holocene.

The time to act must be now, he says – and the SDGs are the framework to use to get there. Finally, he advocates for people (researchers, policymakers, etc.) to not pick and choose SDGs to focus on, but instead to see them all as an inseparable package.

Here are two young people adding their voices to the Talanoa Call for Action:

How might you add your voices?

Jonathan Watts of the Guardian published an article Thursday about using the term global heating instead of global warming.

It was interesting to read this article because I was in the audience for the side event when Watts asked Richard Betts a question about global heating. This was the sequence: an observer? an activist, perhaps from Italy or Spain? asked “Hans Joachim Schellnhuber” (as Watts called him, though on the panel he was called more simply “John” and he noted that he had spent many years working in the UK) whether activists using the term global heating were supported by the evidence. Schellnhuber promptly took responsibility for the term, stating that he and his colleagues had used the term “hothouse earth” in their paper in PNAS, and that this might have sparked laypeople’s use of the term global heating. Heating, said Schellnhuber, was a more accurate term than warming.

After an intervening question or two, Jonathan Watts asked Richard Betts whether he agreed with Schellnhuber; Betts confirmed that he thought “heating” was a better term, because the energy systems of the earth were changing. That became the subtitle of the Guardian article, with an eminently British image focused on the British heatwave of this past summer.

Was Watts wanting to amplify the voice of southern European activists via the authority of the UK Met office? Was he wanting to credit a local boy (UK Met office) rather than a German scientists (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)? Did he just want to give Richard Betts some attention in a panel where almost all the questions went to Schellnhuber? I’m just curious–but I was fascinated to see this kind of journalistic intervention in action.

 

Yesterday, I went to an event on demystifying carbon capture technologies. They are here, but are they here to stay?

Sallie Greenberg, a geologist at the Illinois State Geological Survey talking about experiments they have conducted in Illinois to inject CO2 into saline aquifers. Her team has shown that it is a proven method that could be scaled up to provide storage of CO2 out of the atmosphere. There are obvious challenges with sighting and injecting but she believes this can contribute to fighting climate change.

The co-founder of the world’s first commercially available carbon capture technology gave a presentation about how his team’s product has a net 90% efficiency in pulling carbon directly out of the air. It pulls out carbon and liquifies it. Water is also a byproduct of the process. It has been rolled out across several European countries.

This is a scheme of how the first negative carbon plant in Iceland works. Its hooked up to a geothermal plant to provide the heat necessary to remove carbon. The chemistry to me is not clear but this seems promising.

The founder did recognize that this is not the solution to climate change. In fact, he stated that trees and nature-based solutions a better option. However, he cited that with the decline of the use of petroleum products, the world will still need a carbon source for industrial products.

What do you guys think about carbon capture? Will it be necessary if we overshoot the 1.5 mark?

I just wanted to mention a program called the Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. There are ten of these AAAS fellows at COP: the picture here is of Gillian Bowser, a professor at Colorado State University who has brought a group of students to the negotiations here. You may have also seen a picture of my colleague Liz Nichols in earlier posts.

Part of why it’s important to have these scientists here is that one big argument at the international government level is how seriously we should take science. (I believe we need to take the science very very seriously.) AAAS fellows are getting a lot of practical experience about how policy and science relate to one another.

Maybe some of you will one day be scientists, professors, AAAS fellows!

 

The second half of the title is aimed at Jennifer Peck and any other economists who might be dropping in. 😉

If you don’t want to read on, here’s the argument in a nutshell: John Schellhnuber sat down last night with Nicholas Stern and they agreed that the problem with Nordhaus’s work on climate is that it does not consider non-linearities–the assumption throughout is that we can get to 3C in a steady state of gradually rising temperatures.

This panel began with talks by Richard Betts and Katy Richardson of something known as the Helix project, which is working to create much higher resolution models of climate with real-world applications. I arrived at the beginning of the food part of the panel, and I’ll try to represent that in a separate post, but the big ticket item here was John Schellnhuber, founder of the PIK: the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the top-ranked climate think tank. He gave a terrific and fairly terrifying if low-key presentation. As John noted, the room was terrible: the slides were barely visible due to lighting issues, and the fans periodically made the presentations almost inaudible. But here’s the webcast for the panel as a whole. I encourage you to watch it.

 

Here is (the start of) my rough transcription of the first part of the talk, plus some of the Q&A.

John began by saying, almost casually, “We will miss the target. The question is by how much.” He noted that “this is the most important session of COP 24, and it should not be happening in a side event. The question is how much can we bear and still sustain civilization.”

John’s critique of the SR1.5 is familiar: they just went back through existing papers, looking for consensus. “The picture is too rosy; they are not dealing with non-linearities.”

This past summer’s devastating drought in Germany was caused by the meandering of the jet stream, itself due to the warming of the Arctic: as the temperature differential between the Arctic and warmer regions decreases, the jet stream moves into a series of curves (raspy [sp?] waves, apparently 7 of them over the surface of the planet).

We are seeing more synchronicity of extreme events due to the “holding pattern” created by these planetary wave dynamics.

PIK tried to publish a paper about these planetary wave dynamics back in 2001, but it was rejected by all reputable journals (which is when John knew he was onto something important); it was finally published in PNAS in 2013.

John proposed thinking of tipping points as the vital organs of our planet.

What will happen, he suggested, was that as we pass key tipping points, these organs will be transformed. Some will die: the coral reefs. Some will be transformed: the Amazon will turn from tropical rainforest to savannah.

The Greenland ice sheets are experiencing non-linearities.

Regional weather patterns will also be affected: Pennsylvanians might pay special attention to the impact of a weaker Atlantic overturning (which may be helping produce our harsher winter weather).

John’s major point was that we have hit major tipping points already: the die is cast.

John compared the tipping point with glacial melt to removing the plug from a bottle. This slide was actually a simulation, so it’s worth going to the webcast, to get the fuller effect here (among many other reasons).

The Paris Agreement was a kind of guardrail: at 2C, we pass or engage some five tippoing points–but if we go above, then others follow (the Amazon, the Boreal forest, El Nino, permafrost, and so on). This was the “second most important slide.”

There was also a global map of potential tipping cascades, but my photo is too blurry to read. I’ll include the photo below, bad as it is, just as a basis for saying that the little globe in the middle of the diagram is far more likely to fall into a hellish red hot area than it is to wobble its way to a safer landing zone.

There was some “good news” in that PIK has gotten better at forecasting El Ninos and monsoons, and that improvement has the capacity to save millions of lives–but that seems like small potatoes in view of the destruction forecast by the presentation as a whole.

John thought methane hydrates were indeed a sleeping giant, but he thought that tipping point wouldn’t kick in for another thousand years. “But we should be funding research on this! We can’t wake that giant!”

Someone asked all the panelists to tell one story about 3C global heating in Europe. Richard pointed to the forest fires in Spain, Portugal, and Greece and one of the most confident predictions in the new modeling. John replied, “With 3C sustained globally, we would have a temperature rise of 4.5 in Europe. Southern Spain would be part of the Sahara.”

Someone from the climate observatory in Brazil asked why John was so much more pessimistic now than he had been in Paris. He replied with three reasons: 1) we have more scientific knowledge showing that we are entering the slippery slope; 2) the complete lack of action since Paris, despite heroic efforts on various parts; 3) the election of madmen like Trump and Bolsonaro.

That pretty well blew out my day. I had a migraine, but even without it, I think I would have found it hard to focus. The projections don’t surprise me: I am a card-carrying climate pessimist at this point. But it’s oddly difficult to hear one’s views confirmed so authoritatively. I keep hoping someone will persuade me I am wrong. Apologies for the bad slides and the bad news.

 

I study urban governance of climate change, so while at the COP I am focused on conversations regarding ‘sub-national’ and/or ‘non-state’ actors (to use common UNFCCC language), and in particular conversations regarding cities.

To some extent, city-level discussions are out of place at a UN conference, which hosts negotiations among federal government representatives. However, when it comes to addressing climate change, national-level negotiations may not be the most effective. Or rather, it would be “insufficient” – as one speaker said today – “to have a theory of change that relies exclusively on national governments.”

As of this year, the UN published data that over 55% of the global population now lives in urban areas, and this number is expected to still grow significantly over this century. One social scientist describes the modern age as blanketed in an “urban fabric”, such that all regions – cities or rural – are influenced by a globalized, urban-centric culture. A majority of the planet’s people, built infrastructure, and economic assets are based in cities. So cities are generally important to the modern world. But for all of the above reasons their involvement is also essential to achieving the goal of limiting planetary warming to 1.5C.

This fact is strongly recognized in side events at this year’s COP, though it seems to me it hasn’t quite reached the high-level negotiations. In these past two days, I have heard local representatives from many countries talk about successes in their cities, and how these changes are essential in order for their countries to meet their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as committed to in the Paris Agreement.

There are other exciting developments in the works. The IPCC recognized a need for more research and data on cities, and so held the first CitiesIPCC conference in Canada this past March. Additionally, some of the scientists who wrote the IPCC Special Report on 1.5C also released (at a session yesterday! See picture below) a summary of the special report specifically written for urban policymakers.

Finally, novel networks have been developing within countries, such as: #WeAreStillIn in the US (which both Swarthmore College and Swarthmore Borough are signatories of), the Japan Climate Initiative, and Alianza para la Acción Climática in Argentina. I also learned today that there is a fairly new network of these networks, called the Alliances for Climate Action.

It will be a fascinating political science and climate policy-making question in the years to come as to how to incorporate such non-state actors (which include not just cities, but also businesses, higher ed, civil society, etc.) into international climate negotiations. There needs to be a place for them at the table, and this has the potential to shake up the standard practice of state-focused negotiations. As another speaker said today, it will only be via “constructive engagement” between state and non-state actors that we will be able to sufficiently “accelerate NDC implementation.”

The final open contact group on GEF (Global Environment Facility) guidance happened after lunch Tuesday.  Some context: Iran believes it can’t get funding because the US blocks it. South Africa is speaking for the African Group of Nations, which itself is part of the G77 and China (in other words, most developing nations). China is not present in the negotiation, so presumably its interests are being represented by the G77 or other allies. The US doesn’t recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation. Japan is part of JUSCANZ along with the US; the EU is a Party to the COP in its own right, with its own representation in addition to individual state delegations. The EU joins JUSCANZ in the Umbrella Group (UG).

When people fight about language, it’s because they believe it has real-world consequences for them, for their ability to get funding for projects to protect their people (and perhaps in some cases, the funding will grease some palms–some of the delegates here are pretty frustrated with a culture of corruption in their home countries). (Me too.)

From the US side, we might note the difference between “Welcomes” and “Notes.” This is from a handbook on diplomatic language prepared for delegates from least developed countries:

 

Urging is another word the US tends not to like:

This was the language on the projection screens at the start of the meeting: 

CoCHAIR
Introduction: It’s not done until it’s done. We will go through the text as far as we can, knowing that the whole decision is in the brackets until it’s done. If we can lift the [more local] brackets, that’s a good thing: finding common ground.

What you see on the screen is the last text…

IRAN
You just said the whole text is still in brackets. We request you keep old text until…

CoCHAIR
This is the old text.

PALESTINE
We may use the “Takes note,” so we can remove brackets for the first paragraph.

CoCHAIR
We have a proposal to change “welcomes” to “takes note”—the rest of paragraph one will stay as is. We can live with that? Good. Paragraph 2.

JAPAN
We can agree with “note” as long as don’t delete “with concern” in ¶2.

EU
We would like to keep “welcomes.” (Is the US blocking “welcomes” here or is a developing country unhappy with the low level of replenishment?)

IRAN
If Japan is proposing to link paragraph 1 and 2, we propose a linkage between 1 and 2 and 10 and 11.

Palestine and Japan are demonstrating flexibility. Iran is taking aim at later paragraphs that are a source of significant conflict between the US and most other countries.

CoCHAIR
We know everything is connected to everything, but let’s take it piece by piece. Let me give you some thoughts from the past. After replenishments, contributions are still welcome. In the last round, some developing countries contributed and increased their contributions. From the chair’s perspective, “welcoming” is appropriate. (The chair is pushing both sides: China and others who have some money could contribute to the fund too; but as chair, he’s holding to the majority view on “welcomes.” US, look for a little flexibility.)

Let’s move on. Some suggested that Parties could agree on absolute amounts instead of percentages. Could you express yourselves on that? EU?

EU
We would be ok with “recognizes with concern,” but would do full stop…

CHAIR
…or just take out the brackets…

EU
And the text with it.

CHAIR
Of course the text with it. (The Chair accidentally suggested that the EU would agree with the point it wanted removed from the text.) 

IRAN
Percentage: why can’t we keep the percentage?

CoCHAIR
Other views? (Presumably, everyone already knows why the EU is proposing to remove the percentages, so the chair doesn’t want to dive into that question himself.)

SWITZERLAND
We are also willing to have not the percentage but figures as a compromise. We propose to retain “welcomes.” If the numbers are absolute amounts, “with concern” should go away.

CHAIR
All right. We are not making much progress. Paragraph 3. (He’s just trying to get through the text to see if there’s anything people are willing to agree on. So far, there’s not.)

SOUTH AFRICA
We are happy with “welcome.” We need to delete “overall financial package” from paragraph one. It’s misleading to have the figure. In paragraph three, we understand that the percentages may be questioned. If we take out 46 %, we should add the word “significant.”

EU
Neither numbers nor percentages are correct—the figure depends on the exchange rate, the time you compare numbers (at the beginning or end of the replenishment)…

CHAIR
You are opposed to numbers because these are misleading. We have a proposal from South Africa to capture the numbers with the word “significant.”

IRAN
Since we are starting with “recognizes with concern,” we have to say what we have concern about. We have to include the percentage for assessment tool, to give a dry sense of what we are concerned about.

CHAIR
I remind you—this is looking back at GEF 7 (replenishment): this is all just commenting on water under the bridge. Everybody younger than me in the room, which is everyone, should follow the example of looking forward. We’ll park it for the time being. (Many of these points seem valid to me, but I agree most with the chair that it’s time to get moving and find some agreement. South Africa’s compromise seems like one way to do that.)

Here is the lead negotiator for Australia, in black, leaning forward on her phone: many of the delegates really are very very young. There’s a lot of consultation going on via text and/or WhatsApp.

CHAIR
Para 3. (Whispered consultation) The Secretary is proposing becoming an inf inf (informal informal, closed to outside observers) to work. 

They don’t kick us out, maybe because there is then some progress made on paragraph 4: substitute “projected” for “potential.” Everyone agrees that the current version of paragraph 6 micromanages the GEF, offering an inappropriate level of guidance. (The EU was particularly strongly opposed.) ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA offers a different version of paragraph 6, offering a way for new national entities to be certified to apply for funding from GEF. The US is relatively welcoming to this new wording but suggests this idea is covered in its new version of paragraph 9. Liz and the ANTIGUA rep have a quick huddle. ANTIGUA’s not ready to let go of his language for paragraph 6 yet.

Paragraph 9 is a stylistic mess, but 10 and 11 are the real minefield for the negotiation–a red line for the USA. The US is proposing to strike the first long stretch in brackets and substitute the second shorter stretch in brackets.

CoCHAIR asks the US to read out the proposed language on paragraph 9.
Is that acceptable?

IRAN
At this time we do not accept.

ARGENTINA
We are more comfortable with the original language.

LIBERIA
We have to consult with our groups—it is very important to have access for national agencies.

PALESTINE
We like the new language. 

EU (arguing against the first bracket.)
Biodiversity, desertification, chemicals, etc. GEF has to follow this guidance for all of them. If we agree to this, GEF will have nothing for Stockholm. We have to look at the bigger picture. 

I am speaking in name of 38 countries who all together are biggest donors to GEF. (You people need to listen to us if you want our money.)

LIBERIA
GEF has a very complex portfolio and scope. We are working on finding a way to meet the goals of Paris agreement. The best way for us to have maximum impact is the GCF (Green Climate Fund). How did this session (on GEF) find its way into the text? GEF needs to find a way to see how best it can develop a business model to speak to national agencies in developing countries. I am consulting with my constituency. (Guidance to GEF is part of this agreement because GEF will fund the writing of reports mandated by the Paris Agreement, and this is the only mechanism for telling GEF that it needs to take on this new job. But LIBERIA is right that there’s some confusion about what this conversation is expecting of GEF–if I’m following correctly, which is a big if.)

CHAIR
Get a response within the remaining time, please. We will park it for now. (whispers.) I propose a compromise:

“Consider improving its access modalities, based on its own experience, and continue to monitor the geographic and thematic coverage, as well as the effectiveness, efficiency, and engagement of the Global Environment Facility Partnership.” (This cuts out a lot of the detail of the first bracket and replaces the specificity with “based on its own experience.”)

IRAN
I am trying to be naive and accommodate your good suggestion, however, Mr. CoChair, very frankly, the proposal you made is not a statement of the fact because the fact is that we haven’t seen any improvement in policies to be applied or actions to be taken. Therefore we are not able to accommodate your suggestion. We propose to keep the sentence as it is.

LIBERIA
I just noticed in the section it says within small island developing states! Why LDC’s are not mentioned here? We want to bring LDCs in.

In the climate finance landscape, national agencies are very important. The ultimate goal of trying to help them should include giving them tools and means to access them. In Liberia I work with many national agencies and the point of trying to work with national agencies cannot be overemphasized: it is important.

CHAIR
I was just trying to keep it short and clear. Please add LDCs. Para 10.

USA
As I think we all know, GEF guidance here is intended to apply only to policy, programming, and eligibility, and should certainly not guarantee or secure funding in any way…

CHAIR
This is an unacceptable red line to US. Who needs para 10?

IRAN
I am sorry I can’t go along with my colleagues from the US. The point of COP is to make sure all parties have access to GEF. We have highlighted the importance of making GEF transparent and central as per our common understanding. But GEF has not been able to fulfill finances and resources to all parties. Unfortunately, there are other influences on the GEF process to block access to funding developing countries. Paragraphs 10 and 11 are not a proposal from this delegation.

(IRAN made a reference to China requesting these paragraphs and another reference to the “diligence and cooperation of our colleagues here.”) I think Palestine reversed earlier support for the change, without rationale, but I can’t be sure. Maybe he got a text from someone.

CHAIR (after a little kerfuffle with EU about skipping over paragraphs 7 and 8, which had no brackets)
We have come to the end. We will submit this text with what we have now to presidency to give to ministers. Thank you all for your efforts on this one.

In the briefing with the APA co-chairs, Sara referenced “the dreaded drafting exercise.” I left that briefing to go listen in on some detailed negotiation around bracketed text about the GCF.

The session had started as a closed “inf inf” (informal informal, as opposed to an informal, which is sometimes open, or a contact group) but it had been opened at the suggestion of the AGN (Africa Group of Nations).

The text under discussion is projected on screens in the middle of the square of tables, and also at the sides of the room:

I arrived just in time to hear the start of some horse-trading. These notes are scrappy because it’s hard to grasp all the references and undercurrents. The discussion was focused on paragraph 6 of the document in question. My somewhat facetious translations are in brackets.

SOUTH AFRICA (speaking for African Group of Nations; delegations tip their name cards on end to show their desire to speak)
We retained the right to bring back the brackets of paragraphs 3 and 4 if our negotiating partners are not willing to consider the issues here. (If you all want to make progress more generally, give me some agreement here.)

NORWAY
It is important that when we are uncovering text that we should aim for harmonization. (Uncovering text = removing brackets. We have to bear in mind the work of other groups, too.)

CoCHAIR
Suggestions that there was better language than what we have here… [long whispered conversation with co-chair and secretary] We understand the concerns of each of you. I was very happy with the proposal brought by Norway.

Three agenda items (two discussed other negotiating groups) focus on the same issue. Therefore the language used here might be useful. In moving forward, we request Canada to work with Africa on the very correct language we think would be useful to use move forward. We are bombarding with you (Africa) with a lot of admin, but this is extremely important for you as you have said. (Can we take this out of committee, please, and let the opponents tackle the issue directly?)

SOUTH AFRICA
We need to have this discussion in public, so that we understand why Australia, Canada, Switzerland have spoken out against the language. We agree with Norway that there is a need for coherence. I am late for a HODs (heads of delegation meeting). We are not suggesting three different paragraphs. What we have here is a very specific mandate: we would like to see mandate acted upon….

We are willing to have a conversation with parties about this agreed language, why our partners have such opposition to this agreed language. It is very difficult to engage with lots of silence in this room. (JUSCANZ is obstructing progress and not acknowledging their bad behavior.)

USA
We are concerned about the characterization that we are trying not to follow the language. The language is improperly constructing bodies. This needs to be solved at a higher level. Nobody is saying let’s not address it, but let’s not give instruction to the SCF (Standing Committee on Finance). (Unfair! We’re just saying it’s not our job to tell the SCF what to do.)

CoCHAIR
Everyone wants to operationalize. This is just a matter of clarifying some of guidance. We reiterate our request to our three colleagues. We hear Norway, repeated by the US now—it’s a matter of getting language in best places: where it falls, how we give the guidance. We request once again to see if you can sit and get better language than that, if you agree. If you don’t agree, we will bracket paragraphs 3 and 4. (Can you please work this out over lunch?!)

SOUTH AFRICA
It’s maybe better if you and Stefan (other co-chair) meet with acf and ltf (? chairs of other committees), just the four of you and you bring us a proposal. You understand the issues from this group; we are ready to be consulted by the four of you. I think it’s better that it sits somewhere else. (Africa is telling the chair what to do. Whoa. Also saying, it’s not going to be productive to try to solve this among ourselves over lunch–and besides, I have this other meeting.)

EU
This is an interesting [?]. We would like to suggest a gentleman’s agreement that if an interesting proposal comes out of this, that we agree to move forward. (Africa is the one being an obstacle here: can we agree to a limit on how much more of this will happen?)

SOUTH AFRICA
We want to clarify for our friends in the EU that we have no substantive disagreement to ¶4. We think it’s important to stop unilateral veto power of some parties moving forward. (I think this is aimed at the US and its power to block funding to states it considers enemies or invalid actors. In other words, let us remind you that we are not the bad guys here.)

CoCHAIR
Let us move to paragraph 10.

USA
For the US, this tone is unacceptable. We suggest changing “urges” to “invites.” (The US doesn’t like any language that suggests constraint on national sovereignty.)

CoCHAIR
Is this acceptable?

SOUTH AFRICA
We’ll have to come back to you.

CoCHAIR (looking around)
The rest of us accept. Africa?

PAKISTAN
Our preference would be to remain with the existing language.

CoCHAIR
OK, you can join the party.

BHUTAN
The current language emphasizes the urgency of the situation. This seems appropriate.

CoCHAIR (after more whispered consultation)
We have in principle agreed everything except two paragraphs in brackets. On paragraph 6 we will consult with co-chairs of other agenda items between 1 & 2 pm with colleagues in room 22. We will invite some of you. On paragraph 10 we invited 4 parties (US, South Africa, Bhutan, Pakistan) to come up with agreed language. If we have no agreement on ¶6, we will have to bracket 3 and 4.

SOUTH AFRICA
At COP22 the same language (in paragraph 10) was agreed: the situation has not changed since Marrakech.

LIBERIA
Those who haven’t come through with first pledges, we urge them to do so.

CoCHAIR
We have to end here.

*************

After lunch and a meeting on GEF guidance (see other post), the GCF guidance discussion picked up again:

The Secretariat passed out a three-page document for consideration (to everyone in the room, even observers). See below.

EU
What text are we considering, precisely: new text on the screens or the paper version?

CHAIR
What is in front of you.
(There is some general muttering.)

SOUTH AFRICA (picking up on the discontent)
We said that we would go back to bracketing 3 and 4 if…

CHAIR
So let us begin with…

EU (picking up name card and banging hand on it as a means of interrupting the Chair)
Richard, WHEN did you propose to go and develop something? It was when we were not in the room. (Ooh, he’s mad. Interrupting the chair and calling another party out by first name. Breach of decorum.)

CHAIR
This was not the intent but it was a request for the African Group to develop a compromise.

(The Chair has “the power of the pen:” by asking AGN to develop new text, he may have leapfrogged over what others consider an acceptable process.)

NORWAY
With these two paragraphs I really have trouble understanding why these should have been part of GCF guidance. I can’t see why we are discussing them in this room. Perhaps not everyone in this room is aware of the language in the Standing Committee on Finance (and then she read it out–I couldn’t keep up): the SCR (Standing Committee on Finance) ¶10 also requests in collaboration with [someone] to explore ways and means either to assess the needs of developing countries or assist developing countries in assessing their needs and priorities …adaptation…

I do not think that these two alternative ¶s will be acceptable in this guidance: they would not be accepted by people working on guidance for the SCF.

SOUTH AFRICA
Responding to something that you don’t know the context of is often unproductive. In this regard, it is unfortunate that Norway launched into this issue.

We are back to where we left off, with brackets on 3 and 4.