Is that what it is all about? Debunking agenda fights, nomination delays and other process disputes

Once again, the past week of climate talks in Bonn has been stalled substantially by procedural disputes. Rather than discarding the relevance of the whole UN system on the basis of these unconstructive exchanges, it is important to understand that these agenda fights and other disputes actually involve important consequences for the substance of the negotiations and hence already contribute to some extend to finding common ground between countries’ positions.

Understanding the true meaning of the UNFCCC negotiations has never been an easy task. The multitude of acronyms and terms used only in the context of the climate negotiations certainly does not help to make these discussions understandable for the new comer, not to mention the level of technical complexity of some of the issues on the table. Beyond these first obstacles making it more difficult to understand the negotiations language, the observer face an additional challenge: reading beyond the statements of the negotiators to understand not only what they say, but also what they mean… This decoding exercise requires not only speaking the “negotiations language” but also to be aware of underlining elements and comprehend the general context of the talks and the deep meaning of the words.

Since the past Saturday was football-Saturday here in Germany (and across the continent), I’m going to give it a go and try a sport-related analogy on this issue (sport analogies are really popular among climate negotiator – more on this another time). The negotiations taking place here is a bit like seeing several teams playing a new sport (the climate talks launched a new negotiating track in Durban). For those seating on a back row of the stadium, it would probably be frustrating to watch the captains spend the first half of a game arguing over the number of players allowed at any time on the field, and whether they can use their hands and/or they feet to kick the ball. On the other hand, the fairness (and quality) of the game depends on ensuring that both teams agree on what rules apply.

The nationality of the referee
During the past week, this has been perhaps the most noticed process-related dispute: China simply call on the presiding officer to step down so as not to chair a meeting, arguing that the situation constituted a conflicted of interest. This statement unleashed a firework of obscure legal arguments. On this one, China clearly got away with some blame for going personal in a rather unprecedented manner rather than to make a more constructive proposal (on that one, you would not qualify as the “global citizen” my colleague just described).

The shape of the ball
The other two process-related dispute over the last week related to agreeing on the agenda of the two main negotiation tracks (the “AWG-LCA” and “ADP”). Discussions about the agenda basically relate to the shape and the size of the ball, as parties define what will be discussed and in which form the discussions will progress. This is perhaps the most frustrating to observe as it can seem as countries’ negotiators flying all around the planet, supposedly to address what might be the most important challenge of our generations, and getting bogged down to discussing for days whether or not to discuss something. Actually, a full session was spent on agreeing to the agenda last year in spring, and both our trackers Anna from UK and Alex from US eloquently expressed their frustrations with the situation.

At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that many agenda fights actually are about substance: whether an issue is included under the agenda of a particular session might actually make a huge difference at the end in terms of outcomes of the UNFCCC process.

In long term cooperative action discussion (AWG-LCA), the discussions last week concerned whether the agenda should include all the issues included in the Bali Action Plan (which originally fixed the scope of this particular negotiation track), or whether the discussions should be limited to addressing elements remaining undecided after Durban. Considering that many countries considered the outcome of the discussions in Durban unbalanced and in favor of the US position, they were unwilling to limit the scope of their work here on this document (check page 2 of this bulletin for a critical assessment of this situation).

The opening of the discussions under the new Durban Platform offered further excitements to process-focused delegates (and much frustrations to the rest of those in the room). In this group, China and others opposed to hold another discussion about raising ambition of mitigation policy. Surely, discussing more ambitious climate policies is a good thing. The issue at stake however is whether this discussion should take place under the other 2 negotiating bodies (in which the responsibility of the Global North and the Global South is clearly differentiated) or whether to discuss this also in the new body where the distinction between the richer and poorer countries is less strong. One can certainly disagree with the approach adopted by China (actually, China received a “fossil of the day” for its position in this discussion), but at least it is a helpful to keep in mind that this, as well as the LCA agenda dispute, is much more about the substance than just about the process.

So let’s say that the climate negotiations are a bit similar to a sport game: agreeing to rules that works for both sides is key to ensuring the fairness of the game, and long discussions related to the rules and process might be crucial to ensure that a fair game can begin. On the other hand, some of the teams have become expert in overplaying these discussions to prevent the real game from happening. Once on a football field, some will still be suddenly expressing their confusion and ask whether we should be playing ice-hockey instead. Clearly, there are countries that are more found on discussing the terms of the discussions rather than the content, and unsurprisingly those are often the ones with the least ambition in the talks.

Here comes Canada, never quite playing the same game than others…

Images: UNDP, FreeDigitalPhotos.net, ENB Climate, Groupon.co.uk