COP21 Days 8-10: Working through Sticking Points

Although I have had the amazing opportunity to be at Le Bourget while countries are working towards a new climate agreement, a lot of the proceedings from the past several days have been as mysterious for me as for a completely external observer.

Ministers and delegations have been furiously negotiating through the past several nights to revise the agreement text and slowly work through the myriad of options and brackets. An incredible amount of progress has been made over the past couple days, and the most recent draft – available on the UNFCCC website – is much shorter and cleaner that what was submitted to Ministers on Saturday.

A few key points, however, have been particularly difficult to work through. Countries agreed to hold an “Indaba of Solutions” at 11:30pm on Thursday, 10 December so that final compromises could be made in time for an agreement to be reached by the end of the COP on Friday. (Started at COP17 in Durban, South Africa, “indabas” are an informal meeting set-up where all countries gather around the table to voice their concerns and make compromises.)

So what are the main sticking points?

• Ambition. While every delegation has called for an ambitious agreement, the options remaining in the text suggest that some delegations have been taking that commitment more seriously than others. For the overall purpose of the agreement, countries have been considering below 2°C, well below 2°C (with a commitment to rapidly scale up efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C), or 1.5°C. As the COP21 Twitter campaign #1point5toStayAlive clearly illustrates, a 1.5°C increase is the only viable option for Small Island Developing States. What has made this seemingly straightforward discussion more complicated is ensuring that this goal matches with the reality of national commitments. The way current Intended Nationally Determined Contributions stand, we are more realistically looking at a 3°C increase. Countries will have to seriously ramp up their commitments to bring us down to a 1.5°C increase.

• Differentiation. There is a clear divide between developed and developing countries on how these two country groups should be represented in the agreement. Developed countries argue that the dynamics of the international community are constantly evolving, and it is no longer accurate to have a strict bifurcation of country groups. They are calling for language that would allow for current developing countries to take on additional commitments based on how their national economic situation evolves over time. Developing countries, however, argue that this division of countries is still a very accurate reflection of reality internationally. They feel very strongly that this, combined with the historical responsibility of developed countries for current climate change, justifies respecting the country categories introduced in the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

• Support. The debate on finance is very strongly connected to the discussion around differentiation. Developing countries would like to include strong language on the importance of new and additional support from developed countries in order for developing countries to be able to fulfill their commitments. Developed countries would like to soften that language so that while developed countries commit to provide financial support, there is a less stark divide between country groups. This discussion also extends to capacity building and technology transfer.

• Loss and damage. No matter how ambitious international efforts are, some countries – especially SIDS – will still be confronted with loss and damage associated with climate change. Vulnerable countries are calling for an article in the agreement that clearly establishes and outlines parameters for a international mechanism on loss and damage. Many developed countries are worried that this will translate into lawsuits against historical emitters in the event of extreme weather events and would like to keep mentions of loss and damage in the agreement as vague and as minimal as possible.

We are now well into the final day of COP21, and we're all eagerly waiting for the announcement of the final Comité de Paris meeting, where the final agreement will be shared with Parties.

COP21 Day 7: Cities as Climate Change Leaders

Ministers and delegations are furiously negotiating the draft agreement text. The facilitators for the four thematic groups provided an update on progress in yesterday’s plenary, and while some groups had made more progress than others, each group made positive comments about initial progress and promised a more thorough update tomorrow (for more on the negotiation process, see yesterday’s post).

Things outside the bilateral and informal consultation rooms are deceptively quiet, with no news outside the normal flurry of side events. So while I wait for an update at the next plenary, I thought I would focus today’s post on an issue that has gotten a lot of attention at this year’s COP: the important role of cities in combating climate change. 

A Climate Summit for Local Leaders was held on the margins of COP21 at the Paris City Hall on Friday, 4 December. Cities and sub-national government also featured in a number of official side events. The Premier of Québec spoke at Action Day (see my Day 4 Post), profiling the carbon market that Québec has established in cooperation with California. With the proceeds of this market, Québec will contribute $252 million to the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), making it the first sub-national contributor to this global fund.

Premier of Québec Philippe Couillard discussing Québec's carbon market at the COP21 Action Day.

C40 cities, a network of megacities committed to addressing climate change, also partnered with Yale University to organize a side event on “Energizing Climate Action through Broader Engagement and City-Scale Climate Finance.” To profile the progress made by cities around the world, C40 also announced their 2015 Cities Awards at COP21. I was particularly pleased to see that Washington, D.C. had won the green energy award for its Wind Power Purchase Agreement.

Cities are estimated to be responsible for 75% of global CO2 emissions, making it even more significant that such a great amount of progress, interest, and determination has been shown by global city leaders. Looking beyond COP21, this is definitely an area of climate change work that I will be closely following!

For more on cities and climate change, see:

• UNEP, “Cities as Climate Change”: http://www.unep.org/resourceefficiency/Policy/ResourceEfficientCities/FocusAreas/CitiesandClimateChange/tabid/101665/Default.aspx 
• The Compact of Mayors: http://www.compactofmayors.org/ 
• Climate Summit for Local Leaders website: http://climatesummitlocalleaders.paris/ 
• C40 Cities website: http://www.c40.org/ 
• Winners of the City Climate Leadership Awards 2015: http://www.c40.org/awards/3/profiles 
• Newly released UN Report on The State of City Climate Finance 2015: http://www.citiesclimatefinance.org/2015/12/the-state-of-city-climate-finance-2015-2/ 

COP21 Day 6: Gearing Up for Week Two

As I mentioned at the end of my post on Day 5, the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) held its closing plenary session on Saturday morning. This plenary session marked the official transmission of the draft agreement and decision to ministers (under what is being called the “Comité de Paris” – Paris Committee).

Delegations get ready for the closing ADP plenary session.

Saturday also was “Action Day” for COP21. Started in last year’s COP in Lima, Peru, Action Day consists of a series of high-level panel events around themes key to that year’s conference. The panels are structured to highlight innovative climate change projects and include calls for action from a range of public and private sector climate change activists. Action Day programing started after Saturday’s closing ADP plenary session so delegations could attend. For me, this seems like quite a clever way to have negotiators take a step back after a very intense week and remember the bigger picture of why they are in Paris battling over brackets and options.

Hollande making his closing remarks at the COP21 Action Day

The negotiations resumed this morning, and informal consultations will be divided into four thematic groups:

1. Means of implementation (finance, technology, capacity building)
2. Differentiation (in particular with regard to mitigation, finance, transparency)
3. Ambition (including long-term goals and periodic review)
4. Acceleration of pre-2020 Action

As things have now kicked to a higher – and more informal – level of discussions, I am not going to be able to sit in on these consultations. I will, however, get to follow the plenary sessions that wrap up each day of negotiations. These sessions will be transmitted live on the UFCCC website, so you can also follow along!

Ministers and negotiators have a very tight schedule this week. The agreement has to be submitted by Thursday at the latest for final legal revisions and translation. The COP Presidency is, therefore, aiming to have a first complete version of the final agreement by Wednesday.

To follow the Comité de Paris plenary sessions, see: http://unfccc6.meta-fusion.com/cop21/ 

To read the draft agreement and decision texts submitted to the Comité de Paris, see: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/adp2/eng/11infnot.pdf 

For more on the organization and structure of the Comité de Paris, see: http://unfccc.int/meetings/paris_nov_2015/in-session/items/9320.php 

COP21 Day 5: The Challenging and Crucial Role of the Session Facilitator

As a continuation of yesterday’s post, I wanted to focus in on the important role of the facilitators in text editing and negotiation sessions.

For each of the spin-offs and informal meetings of the spin-offs, two delegates temporarily take off their negotiating hats and become moderators for the discussion among country delegations. Their job is to guide discussions and make sure that countries stay on task and deliver a revised text within the specified deadline. While one co-facilitator calls on country parties and reacts to their comments, the other integrates their feedback into the text (which is displayed on screens throughout the room) and notes raised country plates so countries can intervene in the correct order.

Participants crowd into the overflow room for one of the final meetings of the contact group
tasked with revising the draft Agreement and Decision texts.

What makes the job of a co-facilitator uniquely challenging is that he or she is moderating a discussion among sovereign countries. The co-facilitator cannot refuse a request made by a delegation. He or she can only try to provide guidance when the conversation seems to be going off track. As one facilitator said yesterday, “Yes, you are sovereign and have the right to reintroduce text, but going down this path may not lead us to the product we want tomorrow.”  

I have also heard several facilitators say, “I am in your hands.” A discussion on finance yesterday was starting to spin in circles, and several delegations sought advice from the facilitator on the best way to move forward. In a rather poetic response, the facilitator said that while he can make suggestions, it will not make a difference if countries are not willing to engage and cooperate with one another. A facilitator can provide advice, but it is ultimately up to countries what they will achieve and what progress will be made in the drafting sessions. 

That being said, the personality and approach of a facilitator can impact the direction of discussions. In one of the final meetings of the contact group, the facilitator was audibly stressed about the remaining time and was trying to quickly move countries through a final read through of the text. This approach backfired. Because country delegations were confused about the process for providing comments on different sections of the text, a large part of the session ended up focusing on procedures instead of comments on the actual text.

Finally, as neutral parties, facilitators are able to try and help move the negotiations forward when things are not advancing quickly enough. Yesterday, for example, the different spin-off facilitators worked late into the night to produce a bridging proposal that shortened the negotiating text by ten pages. Countries agreed to use this shortened text as the basis for future discussions (while, of course, wanting to provide feedback on the key points they felt the facilitators did not capture).

As of Saturday morning, the initial revision process for the agreement has closed, and it is now up to Ministers to take us towards an ambitious agreement.

To learn more, the following NPR article does a really great job of introducing the two co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP). The ADP was tasked, both over the past year and during the first week of negotiations, with preparing the draft agreement that will be negotiated by ministers next week. http://www.npr.org/2015/05/11/404200241/two-guys-in-paris-aim-to-charm-the-world-into-climate-action

COP21 Day 4: Articles, Paragraphs, Options, and Brackets

As I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post, country delegations are currently revising the draft agreement proposed by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This revised text is to be finalized by the end of this week so that it can be taken to the ministerial level and the final round of negotiations can begin. 

Yesterday and today, I’ve sat in on meetings dealing with revisions to the mitigation and finance sections of the agreement, and I wanted to give you a clearer picture of what these meetings and the agreement revision process are like.

Delegates settle in for another round of text revisions.

To start, the text is broken down thematically and spin-off groups are formed to treat these different areas of the text. For example, there are spin-offs dealing with Mitigation (Article 3), Adaptation and Loss and Damage (Articles 4 and 5), and Finance (Article 6). These sections cover a number of paragraphs of the Agreement and Decision texts – more than can be dealt with efficiently in the large spin-off group. The spin-off, therefore, meets to identify sticking points in the text and then breaks off into informal meetings to deal with these issues individually. The spin-off then reconvenes, each informal group provides an update, and the text is revised accordingly. 

Screens like this one are scattered throughout the Conference Center so delegates can follow
what spin-offs and informal meetings are happening when and where. With the impromptu nature
  of some of these meetings, they are often not on the official agenda.

What does the text look like after all of these revisions? Much like with spring cleaning, to clean up a mess, you first have to make a mess. As spin-offs are integrating feedback, different possible phrasing is added in brackets. When there are differences of opinion for entire paragraphs, several different options are provided. The goal is then to consolidate these different options and remove brackets as much as possible. As you might imagine, delegates are more successful at this in some sections than others. In some cases, a delegation (or a group of delegations) is able to put forward a “bridging proposal” that merges and simplifies the different options. And in other cases – as several delegates pointed out in one of the spin-offs today – you reach a point when a drafting group is no longer able to progress until a discussion is made at the political level.

Delegates are working tirelessly on revising this text, but it is a long and complicated process. And there are a lot of options and brackets left that countries are going to have to weed through over the next eight days.

COP21 Day 3: Layers upon Layers of Meetings

I wanted to focus today’s post on just how much is happening and being discussed at COP21. While I hinted at this in the Day 2 post on subsidiary bodies, I was able to attend a range of different meetings today and thought this justified a closer look.

Having taken the time to really dive into the different agenda items for today, I can understand even better now why the US delegation sends a small army to every COP.

The COP has a special app, and the agenda section – which is updated every morning with the events for that day – is broken down into exhibits, meetings, press conferences, side events, and events organized by the French delegation (because a little self promotion never hurts). And each section contains several events happening simultaneously. The meeting section in particular contains a range of different events, from regional coordination meetings to breakaway discussions on paragraphs of the agreement text to formal plenary meetings.

A shot from the informal consultation I attended this afternoon.

To make things even more multi-layered, I discovered today that there are also informal consultations that are not included on the official agenda. Not to mention the impromptu, corridor and closed-door meetings that happen within and among delegations. So where do you go and what do you focus on, especially when you’re a small delegation without a time turner so you can attend several meetings at once?

You pick your battles and learn to trust that countries with similar priorities will protect your interests. There’s a reason why the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) has a twice daily coordination meeting. Delegates provide updates on the strategic issues they were able to discuss and other country delegates are given the chance to react and express any concerns they may have.

And so continues my experience at COP21. News and social media this week is going to continue to focus on side events and civil society activities, while delegates are busy providing their comments and, where possible, consolidating options on the draft agreement text prepared by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This revised text is supposed to be ready by the end of this week so that next week, negotiators can then dive into making choices and compromises and reaching a final agreement.

COP21 Day 2: What’s a Subsidiary Body and Why Does It Matter?

With the exception of my rather illustrious surroundings, my experience at the COP today could have just as easily been a busy but normal work day during my Fulbright-Clinton Fellowship.

One of the Samoan delegates (my former supervisor) was asked to co-chair part of the agenda for the 43^rd Meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI). My day, therefore, largely consisted of doing background research and taking notes on reference documents to help my supervisor prepare for this meeting.

This work area was my home for COP21 Day 2.

What is the SBI, do you ask? It is one of the two permanent subsidiary bodies of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (The other is the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice [SBSTA]). As you might guess from its name, the SBI’s primary function is to report on efforts to implement the Convention. It reviews national reports on climate change activities and uses these reports to assess how well the world is doing at implementing the Convention. The sessions co-chaired by my supervisor will focus on the national reports submitted by developing countries. Attendees will review the status of these reports and information on technical and financial support provided by a Consultative Group of Experts and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). (The GEF funds projects connected with the UNFCCC as well as other international environment conventions.)

Why is this important? While negotiations around an international climate change agreement is the central and most pivotal part of any COP, it is by no means the only thing happening. The Conference is also a key place for countries to ensure that existing agreements are respected and implemented. In particular, it provides an avenue for countries to check in on national efforts to measure, report, and verify their commitments from previous COPs.

Outside of my computer screen, the Conference itself also remained fairly calm today. The morning was marked by a meeting on challenges and solutions for climate change in Africa. During the meeting, François Hollande pledged that France would invest 2 billion euros in renewable energy projects in Africa by 2020. And François Hollande and Ségolène Royale spent the afternoon inaugurating the Climate Generations Area (an area connected with the COP that is open to the general public).

To find out more about what is discussed in this post, check out the following web pages:

• “Convention Bodies” http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/convention_bodies/items/2629.php 
• “Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI)” http://unfccc.int/bodies/body/6406.php 
• “Developing Countries: Promoting Transparency and Accountability” http://unfccc.int/national_reports/non-annex_i_natcom/items/2716.php 
• "What is the GEF" https://www.thegef.org/gef/whatisgef 
• "Hollande pledges 2 billion euros for green energy projects in Africa"
  http://www.france24.com/en/20151201-hollande-pledges-2-billion-green-energy-initiatives-africa
• "Climate Generations Area" https://egc.cop21.gouv.fr/

COP21 Day 1: Welcome to the Circus

COP21 kicked off with the arrival of 150 Heads of State (including Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Samoa’s Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi). The plenary sessions today were, therefore, filled by opening speeches. While this may seem like a lot of hot air taking up precious negotiation time, Su Wei (Head of the Chinese Delegation) made the important point that the presence of these Heads of State will help create the political momentum and pressure needed to arrive at an agreement.

As an addition to the official Samoan delegation, I am unfortunately unable to attend the plenary sessions, so my day largely consisted of taking in my surroundings. By the end of the afternoon I had attended an informative side event on key issues for COP21 and begun conducting background research for the delegation. But for now, let’s focus on setting the scene.

The conference center essentially consists of a series of very large, warehouse-style buildings. What they have done with these buildings is truly impressive. (Whether or not it is too impressive is perhaps a topic for another post.) 

For starters, art work – including a mini Eiffel Tower – is scattered throughout the conference center.

Vegas is not the only place with a mini Eiffel Tower

Flags at the main entrance of the conference center

The delegation offices and pavilions are beyond anything I could have imagined. From the dance performance outside the Peruvian pavilion to the large, hanging globe with moving meteorological images at the US Center, you almost feel like you’re at a world fair. And behind all the pomp and circumstance are offices where delegation members can privately meet and strategize. It’s important to note that not all delegations have these pavilions/offices; it’s a plus that a country – or, in the case of Samoa, an intergovernmental organization like the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) – elects to pay for.

A cultural performance at the front of the Peruvian pavillion

The main presentation area for the US Center comes complete with a floating globe 

Finally, the conference center is filled with crowds. Lots and lots of crowds. While each hall has a large amount of seating, people were still circling in search of available chairs, plugs, and computers. And while it may not have been the original intention, much of the larger artwork also become spillover seating.

Work spaces are available throughout the conference center - and fill up very quickly.

Conference center artwork also serves as extra seats when there are no free spots to be found.

Overall, Day 1 was a very full day of discovery. And now, let the actual negotiations begin!