Stonecutting in Bonn
Posted on 07. Aug, 2009 by Reed Schuler in Adopt a Negotiator, U.S.A.
Negotiators are returning next week to where I last tracked them – Bonn, Germany.
They’ll be working to “digest” the “indigestible” – massage a 200-page negotiating text, dense with contradictory and extraneous clauses, into a working document from which the rest of the negotiations may proceed.
In June, the document began with 50 pages. Country negotiating delegations peppered it with additions, leaving it the bloated and unmanageable 200 pages it is now. This effort to cut it down to size may sound like an administrative task, but this summarizing process will shape the final agreement and humanity’s response to climate change.
Like carving a block of stone, and with as much painful grunt work, negotiators will shave the text down until it the general shape of the final agreement emerges.
And that’s why we need to watch it closely.
What can I communicate to our American negotiators on your behalf?
What needs to stay in the text? Please give me feedback or questions as comments on this blog.
One important thing to communicate is if we want to get more developing countries on board, we need more international adaptation funding. I think we should take a look at the tens of billions worth of aid we’re already giving to countries regarding other causes and assistance, some of which may be poorly directed, and see if we can redirect some of that to the global climate fund countries are talking about.