{"id":31,"date":"2015-11-29T21:11:15","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T21:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop21\/?p=31"},"modified":"2022-03-09T21:39:21","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T21:39:21","slug":"no-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/2015\/11\/29\/no-surprises\/","title":{"rendered":"“No surprises.”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Christiana<\/a>
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“No surprises.”\u00a0 That was the emphatic message from Christiana Figueres this afternoon at a security briefing before the kickoff of COP21 tomorrow.\u00a0 Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC (and also Swarthmore class of 1979), emphasized the security challenges of the conference, which tomorrow will bring together almost 150 heads of state.\u00a0 She said that that is the largest number of heads of state that have ever come together anywhere, for any reason, in one day, even at other UN events.\u00a0 What “no surprises” means in this context is that security will react rapidly to anything unexpected that happens anywhere in the venue.\u00a0 So while she didn’t say so in so many words, I took her to be saying in part that any sort of outcry \/ demonstration \/ interjection could have negative consequences, as anything surprising would provoke an “immediate reaction” from security.<\/p>\n

She emphasized the importance of participation from “civil society” and stressed that it would be possible for people to make their points and have their voices heard\u2014as long as security was aware beforehand of what they planned to do.\u00a0 She said that a “legally-binding agreement” that is “fair” and “transformational” is “the star that we are reaching toward,” but added, “We have to keep our eyes on the stars, but we also have to keep our feet on the ground.”\u00a0 And the ground, in her metaphor, is a security atmosphere that is very tense right now.\u00a0\u00a0 Kevin, the head of security (at right in the photo above), repeated the “no surprises” theme, but also said to the assembled group of observer delegates, “we will work with you to achieve your goals.”<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Figueres extended her “no surprises” theme to the negotiations, saying that the COP President will bring no surprises to the floor, and that she didn’t want any from other parties, either.\u00a0 I don’t know enough about how these negotiations work to know how surprising a statement that is.\u00a0 I presume that it is intended to apply to how debate occurs on the floor, rather than implying anything about flexibility (or lack thereof) in what a final agreement might look like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“No surprises.”\u00a0 That was the emphatic message from Christiana Figueres this afternoon at a security briefing before the kickoff of COP21 tomorrow.\u00a0 Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC (and also Swarthmore class of 1979), emphasized the security challenges of the conference, which tomorrow will bring together almost 150 heads of state.\u00a0 She said that … Continue reading “No surprises.”<\/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\/31"}],"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=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}