{"id":408,"date":"2017-11-06T21:49:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T21:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/?p=408"},"modified":"2022-03-09T21:39:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T21:39:19","slug":"cop-23-day-1-a-fijian-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/2017\/11\/06\/cop-23-day-1-a-fijian-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"COP 23, Day 1: A Fijian Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bula Vinaka!\u00a0 The 23rd<\/sup> UNFCCC Conference of the Parties started in Bonn today, presided over by Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji.\u00a0 Over 20,000 people are expected to attend what is being called the \u201cPacific COP\u201d, the first of these meetings to be hosted by one of the island nations most vulnerable to storms and sea-level rise.\u00a0 The COP 23 President focused on several themes during his opening statement<\/a>: urgency, \u201ctalanoa<\/em>\u201d (understanding and respect), involvement of non-parties, and assistance to those affected by climate change.\u00a0 These themes reflect the goals of this COP, which is expected to be a more technical meeting focusing on implementing broader goals set at prior meetings.\u00a0 This work will lead up to the 2018 meetings, in which Paris signatories have committed to take stock of their collective efforts and progress.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I checked out the pavilions in the Bonn Zone while Kyle and Aaron were at the YOUNGO meeting, since there was no OLD-O meeting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Fiji Pavilion inside the conference center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today I attended an event hosted by Climate Action Network-International on the \u201cYardsticks for Success\u201d of the Pacific COP 23.\u00a0 The panel emphasized two parts of the work being done at the COP this year.<\/p>\n

First, COP 23 aims to complete the design of the 2018 Talanoan Dialogue (Facilitative Dialogue).\u00a0 This is a process over the next year for Parties to collectively take stock of their efforts toward reaching their Paris goals and to inform the preparations of new nationally determined contributions for COP 24.\u00a0 The Fijian presidency has taken a strong hand in shaping this process already, renaming it using Talanoa<\/em> \u2013 a traditional word used in Fiji and the Pacific to\u00a0indicate inclusive and transparent dialogue meant to build empathy and trust.\u00a0 The dialogue will address the questions of: ‘where are we?’, ‘where do we want to go?’, and ‘how do we get there?’ in the months leading up to COP 24.\u00a0 The goal is to assess whether Parties are on track to meet their NDCs and to reevaluate their commitments, which are considered to be well-under the reductions needed to meet global climate goals.<\/p>\n

Climate finance is another theme of the work this year.\u00a0 Fiji has emphasized the need to establish financing for \u201cLoss and Damage\u201d due to climate change, with a focus on natural disasters.\u00a0 (The logo for the conference shows a small island being submerged by a cyclone-shaped wave<\/a>).\u00a0 Delegates also aim to increase the transparency around these funds, including agreeing on accounting conventions that reflect the climate relevance of funded projects.\u00a0 We’ll hopefully get to see how the process stands at the end of week 1 before we leave, and Sam, Shivani, and Chris will get to see what comes out of the second week of negotiations.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Fijian focus on engaging non-Parties and subnational actors is particularly interesting in light of the unusual US participation in the negotiations this year.\u00a0 The US has sent a formal delegation to the negotiations, which it is still a party to despite President Trump\u2019s announcement of his intention to withdraw from the agreement in 2020.\u00a0 The Fijian presidency appointed California Governor Jerry Brown as a special advisor to COP 23, who notably launched \u201cAmerica\u2019s Pledge<\/a>\u201d with Michael Bloomberg in July.\u00a0 The subnational US delegation seems likely to be a significant presence at the meetings.\u00a0 The US Federal Government is not hosting a pavilion for the first time this year: instead the \u201cWe Are Still In<\/a>\u201d coalition is hosting the US Climate Action Center, financed by and highlighting US subnational actors.\u00a0 It will be interesting to watch how these two groups participate in the meetings and how other countries respond to the two groups over the course of the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bula Vinaka!\u00a0 The 23rd UNFCCC Conference of the Parties started in Bonn today, presided over by Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji.\u00a0 Over 20,000 people are expected to attend what is being called the \u201cPacific COP\u201d, the first of these meetings to be hosted by one of the island nations most vulnerable to storms and … Continue reading COP 23, Day 1: A Fijian Welcome<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408"}],"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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}