Swarthmore at COP29

Ambition and a just transition
The Presidency briefing (conducted not by Kurtyka, but by one of his staff) happened at noon. I got there late again, just as the President’s representative was saying that the process of ramping up ambition would not end with COP24, but would come to a climax at the Secretary General’s climate summit next September. He also noted that the emphasis on a just transition introduced by the Polish presidency had been endorsed by almost 50 parties, but not by all parties. Still they were willing to include a reference to the declaration (on just transition) in the decision, which this representative seemed to take as “an endorsement of all parties on a just transition.” I’m very curious to see how this plays out.

RINGO welcomes the IPCC SR1.5
Tracy Bach announced that “as a constituency and individually as research scientists, we welcome the IPCC report.” She followed up by saying, “RINGOs don’t advocate for policy positions; we advocate for good process.”  Referencing an earlier question, Tracy then said, “You invited us to engage. It would be helpful to have insight into how we can assist you.” The minister thought about that, taking some time, and replied, “Perhaps we can help each other come up with an answer to that question.”

YOUNGO poses specific challenges
After starting with an appreciation for several contact opportunities, one of the YOUNGO reps asked about the lack of concrete guidance on loss and damage and the persistent brackets around 9.5 (finance). He also asked what COP24 wanted to offer as a way for universities and youth to participate in NDCs.

YOUNGO’s second rep expressed concern about current status in the rulebook for 3, 4, 5, 6–even the limited language there at present looks as if it will be left out of the work programme text. She also wanted to know whether any progress had been made on a carbon budget (individual, I think) and finance for local climate initiatives to meet more aggressive goals. 

The minister was silent for quite a while, then returned first to the question from RINGO. “I would see your support in your engagement with the parties, regional groups. We need them to show enough flexibility to have all technological issues finalized by 5 pm today, to have text ready for ministers to start big issues on political level. This is very practical guidance. To enable you to do this, have same debriefing on Thursday to update you on progress. It will be a good opportunity for coordination, discussion of how to enter the final two days of discussion.” (This is an unusual gesture, to add a second briefing from the presidency. The representative’s obvious effort to provide serious answers was also noted by experienced observers. At least one focal point [group representative] had boycotted the previous presidential briefing in protest at the previous cavalier treatment of constituencies.)

To YOUNGO, the minister gave thanks for the encouragement to consider non-state actors, and referenced a position paper encouraging parties to allow such participation.

Finally, the WGC (Women and Gender Concerns group) asked about the arrests of activists at the border. The minister noted that to enter the country there were two conditions: 1) a passport (and visa) in good order, and 2) not being registered as a threat to public order in the system. Poland was not responsible for the alerts in the system; the Polish border guard just implemented the law that was in place. He could not comment on specific cases because they were protected by a person’s right not to be… As the minister searched for the word “named,” someone behind me quietly supplied the word, “arrested.” There was a little ripple of reaction, and the speaker added, “What? Not the word he was looking for?”

Discussion moved on to a few other points–most notably, the idea that a target of 1.5 will be considered unless rule 16 is applied due to a lack of consensus–and then the meeting broke up.

Rule 16 is the consensus-breaking rule: any party can invoke it and the COP will simply hand the issue in question on to the next year’s conference. Are we headed toward a rule 16 moment? I sincerely hope not.

Once during each of the past few COPs, the co-chairs of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement have held a briefing for the various non-state actors at the COP.

I’ve heard from some of the more experienced RINGO attendees that Jo (left) and Sara (right) have done a terrific job, especially in comparison with the former (male) co-chairs.

I came a little late to the briefing, too late to hear the co-chairs’ opening remarks. I was just in time to hear a round of questions building on the metaphor of the Paris Agreement as a baby, growing toward toddlerhood (someone told me that Sara might be the one who started that metaphor, much earlier than this particular meeting). BINGO said something like, “We want to help the baby learn to walk. One of the issues with the baby wandering the halls is transparency–not that one wants a completely transparent baby.” Everyone laughed.

ENGO took the metaphor further: “We are concerned about the health of the baby. There is the transparency of the rulebook. Going forward there are political and technical issues: finance, loss and damage. How can technicalities be addressed? Is there any thinking about how good proposals from last week could be brought forward?”

Women and gender took the metaphor home: “The baby has been born, but what future will the baby be living? Where are rights in the rulebook? For the baby to survive, it needs rights.”

The co-chairs responded to these and other questions, stressing the limitations of their role as experts and facilitators: “When it comes to this role as experts, we are always going to be guided by the parties’ input and their take.” Sara said, “You must be tired of us telling you that this is a party-driven process. The value of having you here is to tell parties the importance of these issues.” (It’s worth remembering here that Sara and Jo are continuing to act as facilitators trying to help the Parties come to consensus.)

There was some reassurance: “The parties have not given up. They will address some of the proposals that came up last week, will see if they offer a path forward.” But there was also a caution, addressed partly to YOUNGO: “You were concerned about the risk of trade-offs. We are at the point of compromise to reach consensus. There will be trade-offs. We are looking for an outcome that is workable, has buy-in, but also remains critical and consistent with the Paris Agreement.”

Still, Sara, said, this rulebook was an important development, taking forward human rights, gender, Indigenous People. “The core part of the work you will see.”

They closed with a last encouragement to the focal points (and the rest of us crowded into the room and sitting on the floor).

Sara: “We always valued the opportunity to meet with you. It never felt like quite enough—one opportunity each COP. We loved hearing your questions. There has been a constant theme: it’s clear where your interests and priorities lie. You play a hugely important role and influential role in this process.”

Jo: “All power to your elbow. May you continue to keep Parties’ feet to the fire.”

At Paris, the Parties agreed to engage in a Facilitated Dialogue, concluding this year in Katowice. Many observers saw that facilitated dialogue as a dry-run for a global stocktake, since the first full global stocktake will only happen in 2023. Last year, in Bonn, the Fiji Presidency of the COP put a Fijian stamp on this facilitated dialogue, drawing on the Fijian tradition of storytelling, and launched the Talanoa Dialogue. Over the past year, everyone has been invited to take part in the Talanoa Dialogue, either by participating in a facilitated dialogue or by submitting a document to the UNFCCC. Cornell University made a submission, as did Cambridge University. Swarthmore, let’s sharpen our pencils!

Tuesday is the day for Ministerial Talanoa Roundtables. These were prefaced by an example of storytelling in the high-level session, immediately after the summary of the pre-2020 ambition global stocktake.

The COP President introduced the process, and the High-Level Champion Inia  B. Seriuratus summarized some of what the Talanoa Dialogue has produced, most notably a 2018 Yearbook and Summary for Policy-Makers demonstrating the breadth of commitments by nonparty stakeholders: cities, regions, investors, civil society (including, I believe, 9000 cities, 2400 regions, 6000 businesses).

Then the participants in the model dialogue came to sit together at the front of the stage. Seriuratus facilitated.

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim was the first one invited to tell her story. Here’s a rough transcription:

“Climate change is a big crisis. Indigenous communities resolve by sitting down and sharing stories on reality. Women do this. I will only talk about the third question: how we get there. Indigenous people, we create the pathway of how we get there. We live in harmony and protect the environment because this environment is protecting us.

“A man who has hundred of cattle go for grazing: he make sure they have access to water and pasture. He doesn’t call the cattle a of home, b of home. They all have names. He looks at print in soil. We put our print in the soil to know who is whom. We [don’t] just sit in the back and we know if each one is home or one is missing.

“We do that because we have to take care of each of them. We don’t just count 100. Each solution matters. Each one matters.

“We have this window of action, this action taken by Indigenous People. We have to implement it right now; we have to do it all together. Finance matters, action matters. Time is not in our behalf.

“As Indigenous People what we teach in this history is how we live all together, how we get action where it is not happening. We cannot choose what we will do–we cannot choose energy and leave transport because another country is doing it.

“Indigenous People are 370 millions, 4 percent of the population, but we are protection for more than 80 % of world biodiversity. How we get where we are going.”

The Polish minister Henrik spoke second.

“History is very interesting and my age also allows me to reminisce more than 20-30 years, back to the 1970s when Poland as country depending on Soviet Empire developed a very extensive industry and mining. At that point in Silesia many mines opened and hundreds of thousands of people worked in mining and heavy industry. Emissions from coal were over 470 million tons—a huge volume compared to modern times.

“Surely all of us know the story of solidarity, the transformation of 1990s. (Does everyone still know this story? Do Swarthmore students know the story?)

“We were coming out of a period when all cars filled the roads, we paid no attention to air pollution. In the 1970s when houses were built, no one paid attention to heat permeability or costs of heating because we had a lot of coal availability.

“After the 1990s, we started closing down the burden of heavy industry–not far enough, but climate and air protection in Poland was gaining attention and having some effects. Now we are concentrated on transportation, electromobility: at least hybrid cars, the number of cars is growing—effort has to be vast—city centers suffer the most from the pollution. We created an electromobility fund—introducing public transport program—changing busses from diesel to electric.

“We also have huge emissions from single-family houses. Our energy is based on coal but our share of coal is diminishing; we still have fumes, but we are using the best technologies, reducing sulfur by 30%, NOX by 50%. We still have CO2 emissions. There is still the challenge of heating single-family homes—and today is the first snow of winter–in order to try to rise to challenge, implementing large scale (25 billion euro) modernization of 1970s houses. We will replace windows and structural elements to produce a 50% reduction in heating, with a reduction of 18-20 million tons of carbon emissions per year. This includes replacement of old boilers and stoves with clean gas-based heating. We want our residents to benefit, to pay smaller bills for heating live in friendlier houses. Changes to climate policy should be accepted and supported by residents.

“We have crossed a long path from the last century to today’s challenges.”

Ms. Radna [?] of Iceland (sorry, no photo!)

“A century back, Iceland was a country of the north, with long and dark winters. We had to do something to improve living standards. We had two energy transitions: 1) electrify with hydro and geothermal, and 2) geothermal. Geothermal has been the most significant factor in improving life in Iceland.

“How were we building renewables on a large scale last century? We started small—individuals, farmers, entrepreneurs. A farmer could build a small hydro system using river running through his land. He could utilize geothermal—he looked at a hot spring and wondered, “Can I use it to heat my house?”

“To improve more significantly, we had to scale up. Hydropower stations and geothermal were assisted by state. Mid-century, the state went in as big actor, mitigating risk (sharing with municipalities): it supported research, funded the national power company to build hydropower system and grid.

“Of course, there were challenges along the way as we developed geothermal. It took resilience and stubbornness. When trying new things, they don’t go as predicted in first round. The state had to rely on foreign loans; the state had to provide capital to build the system. It created a long-term contract with power-intensive industries which now use 80% of our electricity. Iceland is not first place aluminum smelting companies thought of sending their business…but now…

“So we have been building power stations in beautiful places. Iceland is a beautiful nation—should we utilize everything or conserve some? This is a big issue for the public.

“What challenges are waiting? Transport and fisheries still rely on fossil fuels: this will be a challenge for us. Iceland has promised to be carbon neutral by 2040: the state is engaging stakeholders and businesses in dialogue.

“There are no magic tricks. If something doesn’t work, you have to try something else. Individuals have to understand us, business and policy-makers have to understand each other.

“One thing about inclusiveness and getting people to understand: you have to have gender equality—women participating on all levels.

“It is not impossible to decarbonize and improve the economy at the same time.”

Prime Minister of Fiji

“Last night I returned from the Middle East. I was in Lebanon, then Syria, then Golan Heights in Israel. I also met up with two prime ministers, in Lebanon and Israel. Everyone knows about the issues in the Middle East. Does everyone know about the Pacific?

“We are all in one canoe. We must participate in sailing that canoe into safe harbor for our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. We need the political vision that will help take us in this canoe to this safe harbor. If you think you are safe, not vulnerable—you will be vulnerable if we don’t follow what the scientists have told us—and I commend the scientists for the report.

“Where are we? In Poland, the first snow. On the other side of the world, it’s nice and warm—our children would want to come and play in snow, but then they would want to go back.

“We need funds: billions of dollars to provide for adaptation. And we need to commit ourselves to look at our NDCs–more ambition so we can reduce emissions as we promised ourselves by 2050 to zero.

“Let me tell you something about what’s happening in the Pacific: Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu get hit by cyclones about every 6 months. Winston was a category 5 cyclone. We didn’t know how strong it would be. We have never seen devastation like that caused by Winston: not only infrastructure but also agriculture—no more foodstuffs. Now villagers are worried about the next cyclone. Villagers demand seawalls and hurricane shelters, not just on the coast, also those on rivers.

“Many cannot associate climate change and the problems it brings in problems of agriculture and infrastructure: 44 dead; 33% GDP lost, hundreds of schools and of course homes. We are building back better.”

I will give the last word to Hindou, who was kind enough to take a selfie with me after the talk, and who responded to a question from Seriuratus about the role of women.

“Women can get us there. We are half of the world populations.

“If you take decisions without them, it’s a problem. Not just two women and three men at a table—gender balance there. No! You need to listen to what they are saying.

“I am talking about those who wake first, sleep last, and take care of communities. I am talking about teachers and healers. I am talking about my grandmother who never had a smartphone, who never saw the color of electricity, who never saw clean water from a tap, who continues drinking from river, this grandmother has lots of innovations because she makes predictions. She makes predictions about the next six months weather based on the trees, the birds’ displacement. When cattle lie down, they face south, rainy season is coming. This knowledge of these women–these women who lead us exactly where we need to go.

“Everyone deserves the same level of recognition.”

The pre-2020 global stocktake was originally the focus of the facilitated dialogue but it seems to have branched off into its own terrain with the introduction of the Talanoa Dialogue. (This separation from the Talanoa Dialogue is perhaps not ideal, but it’s hard to see how the two could have remained more closely intertwined.) This summary began before the ending of the RINGO session, so I came in toward the end of the IPCC chair’s report. He spoke very powerfully, I thought–I was taking notes as fast as I could…

“Even at 1.5C, adaptation capacities will be exceeded in some places. We all know the road we are traveling. Building coal plants now commits governments to decades of fossil fuel consumption. This affects people directly.

“We need to link climate policies with efforts to retrain workers move away from carbon-intensive sectors; we need to take a close look at the economics of climate policy.

“We need to move from fossil fuels to a new resilient economy, based on energy efficiency, healthy diets, and sustainable consumption choices. This will help with stabilization of climate and improve the well-being of all. The scale need not worry us: we know that the last 30 years have also seen unprecedented technological change.

“The combination of technological change and wise policy will be powerful.

“Every bit of warming matters.
“Every year matters.
“Every individual action matters.”

Manuel Pulgar summarized yesterday’s high-level discussions of finance, summarizing the issues emphasized in discussions on Monday.  “There needs to be a massive scale-up of finance; there are concerns about access to public and predictable financing; it’s critically important to have clear eligibility criteria for financing.” He did not, as far as my notes stretch, engage the question of funding for adaptation as opposed to mitigation, and this is one major point of dispute here in Katowice.

Minister Elvestuen summarized the ambition stocktake of the first week of COP24, emphasizing both what had been accomplished and the need to do more. On the plus side of the account were numerous examples of technical advice and capacity building, as well as financial support from GEF (the Global Environment Facility) and GCF (the Green Climate Fund). The GEF has funded nearly 1000 projects in 167 countries; the GCF has funded provisional projects in 96 countries. Elvestuen also summarized the session facilitated by Rachel Kyte Monday.

Finally, L(auren?) Fabius raised the rhetorical bar. (I’m sorry not to have a photo of his image on the screen.) Here’s a semblance of his speech:

“The Talanoa Dialogue is about telling stories. My story, based on COP21, tells briefly what could and should be a successful COP24.

“It should include the rulebook of Paris Agreement, with precisely defined transparency and accounting mechanisms. It should confirm 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius as our goal, a move to zero emissions. A CBDR principle (common but differentiated responsibilities) in relation to financing with at least $100 billion per year for mitigation and adaptation. It should set a more ambitious goal before 2025. A successful COP 24 could and should send a clear message that in Katowice we decide to step up.

“I underline that in my story Katowice must be very ambitious: why? Every report since 15 shows that we need to accelerate Paris. Most recent events and reports show [this]. Many of our NDCs are not sufficient and many are not properly implemented.

“In 2018 carbon emissions are rising by more than 2% when they were supposed to be diminishing. The world—the real world—is not on track. We need to do more and do it faster.

“The IPCC report on 1.5. shows the importance of fighting for every half degree; it shows the disastrous consequences of breaking that boundary.

“The real story is not yet written and can be different. We can still build a sustainable world for current and future generations–provided we achieve a drastic cut–and by drastic, I mean rapid, deep, and just–by everyone in every sector.

“When I was preparing for this talk, I found in my papers a personal letter from former secretary general Kofi Annan, written four days after the Paris Agreement: “COP 21 showed that change is possible if the necessary political will is there. Diplomats, scientist, business people, civil society came together. With political will and unity—all is said. We need a long-term political vision of what is necessary to a just and sustainable world.

“This second week is a political week. The Parties can have a positive role if they decide to act properly–or a negative role if they act not only as somnambulists as Gutierrez rightly called them but also as spoilers.

“In the names of all those who signed it (all of you) and for millions for whom this is their only hope: Live up to the spirit and letter of Paris. Act better, faster, together. We have four days to finish a job. It is short but it is vital.”

Hey guys, this is Saadiq. I had a packed day at COP24 today running around to meetings about very interesting stuff. I had meetings about Gender and Climate, the role of business in helping countries reach their NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) targets, ways to mitigate food waste, financing food projects, and a meeting about how to ensure equity in national actions to achieve NDCs. I’m going to briefly talk about two of the meetings, financing food projects and how to ensure equity in national actions to achieve NDCs because I found these really interesting.

The equity in NDCs talk focused on the research of academics who conducted case studies regarding the development of NDCs. It looked at how NDCs are developed by states and exposes what/who they choose privilege in these formulations. I had never thought of NDCs as being biased or problematic because these are supposed to be the ambitious goals of countries to ensure we stay under 1.5 C. What I learned is that certain countries could choose mitigation strategies that did not benefit their whole population. For example, dams could be built in one region while electrifying a whole other region would be ignored. There are no specific guidelines about ensuring equity from the UNFCCC (smh). I also learned that for some developing countries, the same consulting firms help formulate LDCs (Least Developed Countries) NDCs. Therefore, these firms, from the global north, could have great influence on what LDCs NDCs look like.

The second talk about food financing was hosted by the World Bank and focused on how to get financing to small farmers to support smart agriculture. This is supposed to be a bottom-up approach to greening the food system that takes into account and allegedly quantifies carbon offsets, gender equity and health impacts of projects before giving them money. (I would be interested to see how they quantify gender impacts.) They, however, failed to talk about efforts and policies to green big-agri which was suspicious even while saying that by  2050 agriculture will account for 70% of GHGs (Greenhouse gases). Yes, shocking right. On the somewhat bright side, they discussed how big banks are now taking climate change seriously by considering the environmental impacts of projects that want funding. They talked at length about case studies but again only related to small farmers who do not contribute as much to emissions as big-agri.

That’s all for today but stay tuned to see more rants. Pa!

Last week, protests were a kind of ongoing theme, and of course we arrived at the tail end of the biggest outdoor protest allowed here. I say allowed, but some folks here have told us that 170 activists were arrested at the Polish border.

Within the walls of the conference, however, some protest is indeed allowed. A little after 1 on Monday Wells Griffith, President Trump’s international energy and climate advisor, tried to push clean coal technology. He and his colleagues on the panel were shut down by chanting and singing.

In this picture, from the New York Times article Tuesday, you can see Ben Goloff from the back, just behind the plaid arm with the mic or camera:

And here he is outside in the hall, as the protest marches out of the room and down the hallway.

Later in the day, the developed countries involved in the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage were among those winning the Fossil of the Day award:

To celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Warsaw Mechanism, CAN presented a birthday card full of wishes the global community doesn’t ever quite fulfil.

But after the birthday celebration, Austria got a fossil all to itself, for taking incentives intended for carbon emissions reduction and using them to build coal, oil and nuclear infrastructure.

There’s so much theatre here: in the high-level sessions, the negotiations, the pavilions, the hallways. Part of me wants someone to design a more inclusive theatrical process to bring us all to a different place of deeper collaboration.

After the RINGO meeting, I went to the High-Level Session devoted to assessing mitigation efforts prior to 2020. There’s been a tendency on the part of some developed countries to plan for climate action after 2020 without undertaking any present action. The pre-2020 Global Stocktake is one way to try to increase ambition and urge countries to act more ambitiously and more immediately.

The session was launched by the COP President Michal Kurtyka, State Secretary in the Ministry of Energy in Poland.

His speech, laying out the procedures used in the global stocktake, was followed by another procedural speech and then the “High-Level Climate Champion” Mr. Inia  B. Seriuratu, Ministry of Agriculture for Fiji, launched a far more energetic call to action.

As is the way of conferences, however, that speech was followed by a relatively tame panel discussion. Rachel Fyke moderated a panel of speakers from Grenada, China, Poland, Australia, and the EU.  Melissa Price of Australia was the only woman panelist.

Predictably, but perhaps also as part of the positive focus of the Talanoa Dialogue, each speaker focused on what their Party had accomplished in the last two years.

Poland (above) is rolling out programs right now, one focusing on energy efficiency in single family homes (projected to cut 18 million tons of greenhouse gasses). Their other major program focuses on electro-mobility: turning public transport electric (from a current diesel fleet of busses). They are supporting 44 cities in adaptation strategies—the most anywhere! (His exclamation point rather than mine.)

Simon Steel of Granada was both blunt and eloquent: he complained that developed countries were supposed to lead the way on climate action, but they had not demonstrated much leadership. The Doha Amendment (an extension of the Kyoto Protocol) has not yet entered into force because only 122 countries have ratified the amendment, and 144 (another 22) must ratify to reach the 75% threshold for it to enter into force.

Grenada’s climate action has involved “liberalizing the energy sector” by breaking the 88 year monopoly of the primary energy provider. “This has put us into the international courts of arbitration, but you see our ambition.” (I wonder what other views of this “liberalization” might be.) Grenada has ambitious plans for geothermal, which is a resource for much of the Caribbean. They are also planning to increase energy efficiency and solar.

“As for the stocktake, performance has been mixed—and that’s being polite,” Steele said. “Developed countries pledged to emission reductions 25-40% below 1990 levels. They have achieved 11%. There is more work to be done. We haven’t made the progress we need to make. The Small Island Developing States are already suffering. A Category 5 Hurricane in 2017 left one island uninhabitable in Caribbean; another island had 200% of its GDP wiped out by the passing of hurricane. This is our new normal—contiue to face ravaes of climate change

Reports of the WMO, IPCCC (and others) paint a bleak and stark picture of the almost apocalyptic world that the most effective of us will face. We have a 12 year window to react: action is both financially and technically feasible—so there is hope.

International cooperation is a critical enabler for developing countries…. This is not about fingerpointing but how we can move forward as one global community in which some of us have more capacity, some require support in capacity building.

I seem to have missed taking a picture of the EU commissioner for climate action and energy. He responded pretty directly to Grenada’s points, stressing that all of EU countries had ratified the Doha amendment, that the EU remained committed to pre-2020 action as demonstrated by them having exceeded their reduction pledge (a modest pledge of 20% reduction from 1990 levels, currently 22% reduction), that the EU remained committed to the global target of 100 billion per year to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and that they are currently the largest donor to both the GCF and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).

China’s special representative also stressed China’s efforts and successes. Of China’s (also modest) 2020 objectives, two have been achieved three years early: 1) lower carbon intensity by 46% (the objective was 40-45%), and 2) forest coverage, which is now “much higher than expected.” Some of the translation was hard to follow, but China also mentioned electric vehicles (1.6 million), a carbon market with a trading volume of 33 billion tons—the largest carbon market in the world—as well as south-south cooperation in 29 developing countries (support in areas of early warning, reduction and prevention, efficiency, renewables).

Australia stressed its success in “incentivizing demand for renewables.” Melissa Price mentioned a “reverse auction mechanism” which “contracted 100 million tons of abatement since 2015.” The government will provide 1 billion in grants over five years, including some focused on Pacific nations; they share measurement, reporting and verification experience, such as helping in 2009 with Indonesia’s forest monitoring program, which they then expect Indonesia to share with others. There’s a reef initiative; Australian farmers are increasing their productivity. Their “Clean Energy Finance Organization” is the world’s largest green bank: they contributed 10 billion to organizations matched by double that amount of private investment. They doubled their investment levels from 2015 to 2020. Renewables will grow in mix by 23% to consumer by 2020. What can I say? It all sounded kind of weak to me.

The moderator Rachel Fyke said, “It’s clear that some things are working and working well—we’re still not where we need to be—where would you like to see the focus to be moving forward?”

The EU stressed structures and governance. Grenada said they needed more financing. China said we need to change our lifestyles (and no one picked up on that). Fyke challenged Poland and Australia more directly. “A signal must go out from this room.” Poland and Australia pretty much doubled down on what they were doing.

Then Fyke took questions from the floor.

India wanted to know whether the actions that had been taken were adequate (answer: obviously not). He mentioned significant gaps—up to 40%–noted in IPCC, but he also complained that the IPCC report didn’t do justice to the urgency of the issues: it didn’t call out those failing to act.

He proposed that any emission gap from this pre-2020 stocktake  be carried over to post-2020 (instead of letting Parties get away with failing to live up to their NDCs). Significant gaps in support (that 100 billion per year has not yet been achieved) should also be carried over. [I can’t imagine developed nations agreeing to this.]

Ecuador ramped up the pressure. She spoke fast and furiously: “None of the clear mandates have been met. We are moving away from the possibility of meeting targets, putting at risk our trust in process. The IPCC report clearly underscored the importance of efforts on poverty eradication—ministers recognized main countries responsible for situation have not met responsibilities: they are falling behind. This is the climate debt we have to the planet and to current and future generations. We need financing, tech transfer, capacity building. Kyoto was not met, Cancun not met: we hope the secretary’s report on pre-2020 will be updated regularly and used to determine opportunities for support.”

The Maldives got the last word on the panel: Concerns about progress led us to call for stocktake last year: we knew we were falling short—Small Island Developing Nations are uniquely vulnerable. We were startled by findings of the IPCC: without dramatic transformation, we could hit 1.5 by 2030. This shines a new light on the importance of pre 2020 action.

 

 

 

 

RINGO (Research and Independent NGOs) is committed not to advocacy but to evidence-based policy making and good process. Beth Martin, one of the two “focal points” of RINGO, gave us a great overview of where we stand in the process and where to find relevant materials and texts. In case you’re interested in following along at home, here’s some of what Beth pointed us to…

WARNING: this is a geeky post. It’s long and detailed, but it might give you a sense of how this meeting operates (perhaps)—or at least as much of that operation as I’ve managed to gather here.

This second week kicked off with a note from the COP President–Eriko posted the link back on Sunday. That note said a couple of things:

This note is a wake-up call. We’re not moving fast enough! Time to bring in the big guns! No more open discussion! The officers in charge of the subsidiary bodies are going to act as experts helping facilitate dialogue, and pairs of ministers (from different countries) will also be in charge of moving things forward. Part of the problem here is that the basic text of any agreement has to be settled by the end of Tuesday because then the ministers or high-level negotiators have to work out political disagreements and then the agreements are sent to Nairobi to be translated into all the UN languages and checked multiple times—all before being released on Friday.

This lets us know what are the major issues still needing to be negotiated. You can actually trace the process of negotiation up to this point if you go to the home webpage of the conference: https://unfccc.int/katowice. That takes you to something that looks like this (only the first image is a green-y picture of the venue):

If you scroll down, on the right hand side, below the grid of options, you can see “Session Information” and under that “Session pages.” You may have to squint to see it here:

If you click on APA 1-7, that takes you to a page for the sessions of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement:

Click on “APA 1-7 draft conclusions” and you can open a document (English) that looks like this:

And on later pages of this document, you can see the elements that have been under discussion:

This is how it works when a document is written by committee. You work on the problem parts rather than trying to write the document as a whole.

There’s been a lot of controversy over financing, especially “9.5” and “9.7”–Article 9, paragraphs 5 and 7. The debate on 9.5 addresses climate finance and 9.7 addresses “transparency” (also described as accounting). If you click on the link for SBI (Subsidiary Body on Implementation) on 9.5, you see the following:

Okay, that’s quite a few words to think about and argue over when you’ve got 10–20 people in a room negotiating. One key thing to know: brackets indicate something not everyone is wiling to agree to. So the entire document is in brackets at this point: nothing is set in stone. But the more detailed disagreements appear both in the preamble (before the numbered items), focused on which elements of the Paris Agreement are relevant to “recall,” and in the question of which part of the climate regime is officially going to look at the reports issued biennially (every two years): some people want the SBI (Subsidiary Body for Implementation) to be in charge; others want the synthesis to be sent to the CMA (Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement). Overall, though, the text is pretty free of brackets, once you get past the fact that the whole thing is bracketed.

Here’s another example, from SBSTA (Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technical Advice): again, the entire body of the text is bracketed, but beyond that, there’s debate about whether or not to include points one and two, five and six, and nine.

This is the text that was sent to the COP Presidency on Saturday, completing the work of the APA (Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement). Add all of the pieces of this work together (and I’ve only included two examples from a much longer list) and you begin to see how complicated these negotiations are.

We finally made it in! Just the walk back to the first meeting was fairly impressive. Most of the day, these ottomans were full of people conferring, resting, shmoozing.

Just past the elevator was this little corner for a “people’s seat.” Around the corner to the left are the big rooms for the plenary sessions.

The pavilions are fairly ornate: one woman was dancing in traditional dress in the Indonesia pavilion in the middle of the day.

This was right at 8 am, before the crowds. Much of the day, it’s all a little overwhelming and high stimulation.

Poland is pushing a “just transition” from coal to a green economy, but as with this exhibit, there seems to be more coal than green in the mix just now.

Still, Saadiq and I learned in the Food Loss and Waste side event that the apples given out freely are all “rescued” (from destruction on the basis of imperfection).

The RINGO meeting at 9 am was larger than I expected (about 100 people in the audience), and it was nicely organized and implemented. This was only about half the panel, a few minutes before the start of the session.

 

Melissa mentioned that we attended a Yale Network Dinner on Saturday, December 8, only hours after arriving in Katowice. One of the speakers at that event was an inspiring woman who said that she always numbers her points because people tend to remember numbered items better. So here’s my list from the day and a half that we’ve been here:

1. Saadiq and I moved on from the Yale dinner to a party hosted by the Climate Action Network in a club with an eclectic playlist. We were impressed by the venue. Every time we tried to leave, we would stumble upon another room with even better music. It beat any Swarthmore party I’ve attended till date (which isn’t a high bar). I noticed there were only a handful of attendees from the G77 countries at the party, and most guests were either from Europe or the United States. It was strange to be in a crowded club with deafening music and people of all ages from all over the world, and even stranger to think that we were dancing with negotiators at one of the most important climate change conferences. As Martin, our Uber driver from the airport, said, “it’s all one big party”. So far it seems like that to me too. Hopefully, that will change tomorrow when I actually attend sessions.

2. On our way to Krakow today (December 7), I sat next to an interpretor for the UN who translates from English to French, and English to Spanish. Surprisingly, she knew about Swarthmore (but she kept referring to it as “Swarth”). She was a Columbian-French freelance interpreter from New York who most often translates for the African Union, European Union, and UN bodies such as UNICEF and UN-Women.

I learnt some interesting facts about the work of interpreters. For example, they are officially only “allowed” to work for five-and-a-half hours a day because they tend to hit fatigue beyond that time frame and start making mistakes in the translations. Interpreters work in pairs and switch every half-hour. I asked how translating simultaneously works, whether doing everything in real-time meant that she occasionally missed words and whether she’s able to translate everything from one language to another when some languages do not have the same vocabulary. She gave me a bewildered look and said, “that’s the job”. You have to know when to stop yourself from working because it’s a high stakes job. Misinterpreting something could have wide-reaching implications at the UN, where translations are often published and incorporated in texts.

She translates from English to French 75% of the time, and one of her favorite words to translate is “accountability” because apparently, that word does not exist in French. There’s the word “responsibility”, but of course it’s not the same. She liked the precision of the word accountability, for which she needs three words to communicate the same meaning in French (Google translate does not have the French translation for accountability as I now know). French is about 16% wordier than English, so when speakers speak fast, interpreters can often sound like robots trying to squeeze in meaningful translations.

It’s another problem when speakers have thick accents that she cannot understand. “But then I look around in the room and realize that nobody else understood it either, so it’s okay. It just gets lost. So it’s the responsibility of countries and organizations to send speakers who are articulate when they speak.” That was an interesting take. Having the text in front while she’s translating always helps, she said. Even if she’s looking at it for the first time. “Then I can add intonations and make the speech more interesting.” Otherwise what gets noted down is a dry speech. “The UN Secretary General’s office is always very organized.” They share speeches with interpreters at least a day in advance. On the other hand, most other countries and small organizations that make speeches almost never share their speeches in advance, which makes it more difficult for interpreters and for the speakers to get their message across.

3. At the end of our day, we got a text saying the Polish delegation just published a document for how they want to second week of COP to proceed. Here’s the link: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Information%20Note%20by%20the%20President%20on%20the%20mode%20of%20work.pdf