Monthly Archives: December 2009

Impressions of a COP15 novice

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Day 2 at COP 15

Introduction: I am attending the COP15 meetings in Copenhagen as Communications Director for Third Planet, a non-governmental organization (NGO) non-profit foundation, along with Third Planet’s President, Robert Farmer. We are endeavoring to post our daily impressions of the conference. It has already become apparent that this is a large undertaking because of the amount of activity packed into each day. However, we shall do our best …

Not quite Day 1. Monday was largely ceremonial, and now the work of the Conference is really getting underway.

We started Day 2 by catching the bus near our hotel and commuting to Copenhagen’s city center with the locals. From there we boarded the metro and travelled to the conference headquarters at the Bella Center, a total journey of about 30 minutes.

I am amazed by the sheer volume of cyclists here – there is a dedicated cycling lane curbed from the motorized traffic, and it is very well used by business men, business women in high heels, and school kids alike. There are bicycle shops everywhere. We even saw a fellow cycling home with his Christmas tree in the bicycle’s basket. But I digress …

Having taken care of all the preliminaries of registration exceedingly late on Sunday evening, we were able to head straight for the entrance security when the COP began, past lines of hopeful late-arrival registrants.

Everything is very streamlined and well run. Security is tight and efficient. It’s like going through airport security (belongings into baskets, belts off, computers out, etc.), but lines move quickly and everyone is in a friendly and hospitable mood. (We have this daily airport security check to look forward to.)

There are well over 30,000 people attending in a facility designed for 15,000, so the UNFCCC issued a statement that if necessary they will be limiting the numbers of delegates from each organization. Our registration ID barcodes are scanned after we pass through security – this is how the UNFCCC controls the number of delegates from each organization.





At COP15 in Copenhagen: the head of the Third Planet delegation, Robert Farmer

At COP15 in Copenhagen: the head of the Third Planet delegation and the non-profit foundation's President, Robert Farmer





We check our coats and proceed with the peaceful throngs through to the large open general congregating area. Along the way we pick up the official UNFCCC Daily Programme giving us the scoop on the day’s activities. We pass two large groups of indigenous peoples singing to the crowd to attract attention to their cause.

The television news interviews you may have seen from the COP are recorded on an open sky bridge overhanging this central area. Far below them, in a sea of people at café-type seating at round tables, we nab a rare vacant table along the walk leading to the main Plenary area in the Tycho Brahe hall. We are surrounded by country delegates planning their strategies for the upcoming plenaries. Laptops are everywhere, as are semi-depleted cups of coffee and bottles of water. And croissant crumbs.





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Third Planet's President is seated at the table directly under the white banner.





Everyone within sight is working. Delegations, discussion groups, etc. People seem to be very calm, not hurried but purposeful.

The rest of our morning is occupied with studying the Programme and the accompanying literature we’ve accumulated so we can strategize our conference plan. After a very good cafeteria-style Danish lunch of endive and orange salad, scalloped potatoes and baked stuffed chicken breast (imagine cooking for 30,000), we head over to Hall H where the Side Events rooms and Exhibits Hall are located. We spend the afternoon visiting the booths, collecting relevant reference materials, and engaging the exhibitors in dialogue.





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Robert at the UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) Exhibit at COP15





Groups of young people are seated in circles here and there on the floor holding impromptu discussion groups. Many sit cross-legged working away on their laptops:





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This Side Event is being held in the Victor Borge meeting room.





COP15-3 Today there are a lot of organizational meetings (adopting agendas organizing the work for the session, election of officers for the session, etc.) going on, involving the subcommittees under the Framework. Here’s a peek through the door at one of the Side Events taking place in one of the Exhibit Hall meeting rooms: For a more in depth look at just what is going on at the COP15 meetings, please see Robert Farmer’s post: http://thethirdplanet.org/blog/2009/12/cop15-communique.html.

Our evening was spent back at the café table area working on our computers, surrounded by even larger tables of delegates planning their strategies. We learn from a lovely young journalist, Jaspreet Kindra of the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) that the large group is from Mali, and the other group is from Zambia. Jaspreet has been accompanying the Mali group all day to get an interview and when the group breaks up the Ambassador is ready for her interview.

It’s now about 8 o’clock in the evening and we’re ready to call it a day.

We head for the coat check, then on to the Metro to return to the hotel. A woman next to us is wondering if she’s on the correct train. We get to talking and find out she’s a Party delegate from Israel – who is staying at the same hotel as us – and what’s more, she’s from Jacksonville (moved to Israel 30 years ago) for heaven’s sake! Small world. The three of us cover a wide range of subjects on our way back to the hotel by train then bus.

It’s been a long and stimulating day. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we are scheduled to take an Energy Tour – can’t wait to see what the day brings.

A COP15 communique

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Here we are, Tuesday, Day 2 of COP15. Yesterday’s opening ceremony and formal opening of COP15 and MOP5 (the COP serving as the 5th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol) are behind us and the work has begun in earnest to grapple with the text of what is being considered a Copenhagen accord.



Day 2 at COP15, Tuesday December 09, 2009

A few of the 30,000+ participants viewed from the media sky bridge.



For those in our public audience who are interested but don’t want to be bored out of their gourds on the whys and wherefores but would like to follow along with our posts I think it is important for you to have just a little understanding about the crucial role that two relatively obscure negotiating groups have on the final Copenhagen outcome.

I’m referring to the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA).

I know your eyes are starting to glaze over already but stay with me. Just keep the following notes close at hand when you’re reading our posts and you’ll understand clearly why Third Planet will be glued to all the meetings of AWG-KP and especially AWG-LCA.

So here’s the essential background our public audience needs:

  • The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the governing body of the international climate change treaty known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
  • The treaty came into force in 1994, now numbers 194 member nations, and its text “encouraged” emissions reductions pending a future agreement to “commit” nations to binding emissions reductions.
  • The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997, established binding commitments but only for 37 industrialized nations and the European Community. There were no corresponding reduction requirements for the developing nations including China, India and Brazil. How this came about is a whole other story but better kept for another day.
  • The Protocol garnered sufficient signatures from industrialized nations to finally enter into force in 2005 and as of today, 190 nations have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
  • The only industrialized nation not to have ratified is the United States.



International media interview area on the sky bridge above the COP15 hall area.

International media interview area on the sky bridge above the COP15 hall. Many of the TV interviews you see are taped here.



Why is Copenhagen so important?

  • Emissions reductions under the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol must be met by 2012.
  • Many industrialized nations are not expected to meet their 2012 emissions reduction commitments which will likely make them subject to international financial penalties.
  • COP15 was designated two years ago as the Conference of the Parties to reach agreement on a more aggressive, strengthened second commitment period beginning in 2012.
  • COP13 in Bali two years ago established two working groups to:
    1. Hammer out the text for the second commitment period of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, and
    2. Hammer out the text for the “full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action”. i.e. finance, technology, capacity-building, adaptation, and mitigation. The latter to be discussed in closed informal sessions along the lines of: what to do about emissions from the United States, China, India, Brazil and all others?

So here we are at COP15 exactly 15 years after the Framework Convention on Climate Change came into force negotiating what could be the last hurrah to avoid abrupt climate changes caused by the escalation of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

The final texts of AWG-KP and AWG-LCA are the key to our climate future and that’s why over 30,000 individuals are attending COP15.

To give a sense of the importance attached to these negotiations let me offer just one personal interaction in today’s events:

It’s 7 PM, many groups of delegates are huddled together throughout the 16 catering venues in the Bella Center. I’m at my computer in one of the venues. At tables drawn together in front of me is a group that interests me. I’m told it’s the delegation from Mali. “Mali? How many delegates do they have?” 20. “They have 20 party delegates?” A quick search on the Internet and there they are: Mali, one of the poorest nations on Earth. And they have 20 party delegates! My how times have changed. I remember meeting a diplomat from Sudan at COP6 in The Hague. He was a meteorologist and his country’s only delegate. How much of a voice do you suppose he had? And at COP15 Mali has 20 delegates.

It all makes for an interesting two weeks I can tell you that.

Five possible COP15 outcomes

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A recently published COP15 briefing guide from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a London-based non-profit research institute, offers five possible outcomes from the COP15 negotiations beginning next week in Copenhagen.

If you know little about the climate change negotiations process, this briefing is a very good place to start.

Beyond the headlines of country emissions targets, and the much less-voiced need for genuine assistance to the developing world, lies the fact that as a community of nations — friend and foe alike — a new international agreement on how we will tackle climate change is in the works. And will be until one is agreed upon.

The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , which came into force in 1994 with 192 Parties (nations) including the United States, is an evolutionary process.

On the 15-year road to Copenhagen, the Parties have ushered in the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty attempt at binding global emissions targets, and today we’re seeking its improved successor.

What will its form take?

This briefing lays out the issues, the players, the hot topics and possible outcomes in concise style, and importantly to Third Planet, comes from the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) an independent non-profit research institute working in the field of sustainable development since its launch in 1971 by one of our all-time favorites, Barbara Ward (1914-1981). (Barbara Ward, an economist, wrote Spaceship Earth in 1966, co-authored Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet with René Dubos in 1972, and wrote many other books on sustainable development. She was considered a pioneer in sustainable development long before the term came into popular use.)

The following comes directly from the IIED briefing.

Governments gather in Denmark in December 2009 for what is perhaps the most important meeting since the end of the second world war. December is the deadline they have set themselves for agreeing on action to tackle climate change, and the COP15 conference in Copenhagen is where hopes are high that a new global deal can be struck …

Negotiators in each [Ad Hoc Working Group] track must agree [to the] text for parties to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol to adopt at COP15. Whatever happens, COP15 will have a fundamental impact for years as some of its possible outcomes are legally binding and others are not. – iied Briefing, November 2009

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

These are the five possible outcomes as seen by IIED:

  1. No agreement. COP15 could end without agreement, with the expectation that talks resume in 2010.
  2. A decision or set of decisions. This is the weakest agreed outcome, but could be combined with one of the following stronger outcomes.
  3. A political ‘implementing agreement’ that is not legally binding and through which each state decides its own goals and how to reach them according to domestic laws. This is favoured by the United States, but opponents say that unless the targets are internationally binding, and there is a compliance mechanism to enforce them, such an agreement will be flouted. Developing nations also fear that national approaches could allow developed nations to use domestic laws to discriminate against their exports if their production entails emissions.
  4. A single new legally binding agreement (Copenhagen Protocol) that replaces the Kyoto Protocol and includes additional issues such as adaptation to climate change impacts. Such an agreement could include mitigation commitments for the United States, plus actions for major developing nations.
  5. Two protocols. An amended Kyoto Protocol that improves on what has already been negotiated plus a new legally binding agreement as described above. Most developing nations want this.

LINK

Download the excellent IIED Briefing here:

http://www.iied.org/climate-change/media/cop15-for-journalists-guide-un-climate-change-summit