{"id":148,"date":"2015-12-03T22:32:26","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T22:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop21\/?p=148"},"modified":"2022-03-09T21:39:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T21:39:20","slug":"what-negotiating-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/2015\/12\/03\/what-negotiating-looks-like\/","title":{"rendered":"What negotiating looks like"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IMG_1591\"<\/a>
Screenshot of video feed from negotiating room – alternate versions in brackets.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We’ve talked about “the negotiations” a lot, but what are the negotiators actually doing during those hours that they spend behind closed doors?\u00a0 They’re talking about language.\u00a0 I got a chance to see that first-hand (albeit at a slight remove) today.\u00a0 I was in a hallway in the building where most of the negotiations are taking place, and one of the video monitors in the hallway was showing a feed from one of the rooms.\u00a0 Mostly the video was of individual country delegates speaking, but briefly it showed the image above, display the section of the agreement text that presumably was the subject of current discussion.<\/p>\n

At first glance, it looks pretty dull\u2014most of us have edited texts before, and sometimes argued over wording details.\u00a0\u00a0 But if you look closely at the paragraphs above (which are on page 28 of the new draft text released this morning<\/a>), and think about how things differ if one option vs. the other is chosen, some of these things really make a difference in outcomes.\u00a0 Text in brackets indicates different possible wordings (per the U.N. editorial conventions<\/a>), so if you look at Option 1, there’s a big difference between choosing “Decides” (it will really happen) vs. “Invites the President of the COP” (might or might not happen, depending on what the President does).\u00a0 And either of those is pretty different from Option 2, where it’s certain that nothing will happen before 2020.<\/p>\n

And what’s happening (or possibly not happening) here is “stock-taking”, getting together to assess progress, and possibly increase effort, toward the goal of decreasing future warming.\u00a0 And what precisely is that goal (“referred to Article 3, paragraph 1”)?\u00a0 It is\u2014you guessed it\u2014still being negotiated, but it reads in part (after referring to yet a different article and paragraph):<\/p>\n

“Hold the increase in the global average temperature [below 1.5 \u00b0C [or] [well] below 2 \u00b0C] above pre- industrial levels by ensuring deep cuts in global greenhouse gas [net] emissions;”<\/em><\/p>\n

Clearly there is [work still to be done] [progress still to be made] [drama ahead]\u2014stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve talked about “the negotiations” a lot, but what are the negotiators actually doing during those hours that they spend behind closed doors?\u00a0 They’re talking about language.\u00a0 I got a chance to see that first-hand (albeit at a slight remove) today.\u00a0 I was in a hallway in the building where most of the negotiations are … Continue reading What negotiating looks like<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}