For the last year and a half, Adopt a Negotiator has supported a team of dedicated young people to help push international climate negotiations at the UNFCCC toward delivering fair, ambitious, and binding solutions to the climate crisis.

This fall, we’re stepping things up – and we’re looking for a few more smart, dedicated, skilled individuals to join our efforts at the UNFCCC.

The Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA) is bringing a small team of negotiator ‘Trackers’ to Tianjin, China (Oct 4-9) and Cancun, Mexico (Nov 29 – Dec 10) to get to know their county’s negotiators; help track the talks throughout each meeting; and help peers back home understand what actions are being taken by their country’s representatives.

WHAT DOES A TRACKER DO?

Each member of the tracker team will commit to attending UNFCCC meetings in China and Mexico – arriving a day or two before each event to train and prepare.

Once there, each tracker will work hard to get to know their country’s delegation. They will work with GCCA partners to track meeting progress throughout each day.  Most importantly, using social tech tools like blogs, Twitter & Facebook, as well as traditional media channels like newspapers and radio in trackers’ home countries, trackers work constantly to keep their peers informed of progress in the talks and opportunities to get involved from afar.

The GCCA will cover travel expenses, lodging, and provide a generous per diem for each participating member of the team.

WHAT QUALIFICATIONS ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

You are a great communicator – You are excellent at turning the complex and hard to communicate events happening each day into compelling, accessible, creative, actionable communications across multiple channels and mediums. The Tracker’s primary tool is blogging – and you must be a skilled blogger – but mastery of other web tools like social networking, twitter, web video, as well the ability to tap into traditional media channels with large audiences like newspapers and radio shows are all key to each Tracker’s success.

You understand the landscape – Ideal candidates will not only understand climate change, they are also familiar with the UNFCCC’s history, it’s inner workings, and it’s role in addressing climate change.

You’ve got empathy – You understand that climate change affects people in different situations in different ways all over the world – security, health, livelihood, cost of living, opportunity, etc – and you can tap into that empathy as you communicate with various audiences (including your negotiators).

You’re brave – In a short amount of time, each Tracker has to personally get to know their country’s negotiators; figure out how to get their ideas and opinions out to media in their home country; and take public stands on complicated issues.

You’re dedicated - During meetings, the hours are long and the work can be extremely stressful, but our ideal candidates understand the stakes and are dedicated to helping us make progress in this slow process in spite of any setbacks and challenges we face along the way.

You’re fast - Trackers must be able to rapidly respond to events and opportunities inside the negotiations and out.

We’re looking for qualified candidates from South Africa, Russia, Japan, China, Mexico, France and the United States. We’re also interested in highly qualified candidates from countries outside the aforementioned list.

HOW TO APPLY

You just read about being able to “rapidly respond to events and opportunities inside the negotiations and out”, so here’s your first test. If you’re interested in joining the Adopt a Negotiator project for the next two UNFCCC meetings in Tianjin (Oct 4-9) and Cancun (Nov 29 – Dec 10), please send an email explaining your interest and qualifications to Adopt a Negotiator’s project manager, Joshua Wiese, by 16:00 GMT, Thursday, August 26th at the following address:

joshua.wiese@adoptanegotiator.org

We look forward to hearing from you.

“I don’t want it to start raining brackets.”

I hope he packed an umbrella…

Because in the last couple of days it hasn’t just started to rain brackets, it’s also started pouring text. It’s a veritable thunder storm.

Last year I bashed on endlessly about the need to reduce the huge text they had down to a manageable size, so they could negotiate it properly at Copenhagen.

Needless to say that didn’t really happen.

As we resumed negotiations this year new texts were brought to the table, and to begin with they seemed quite a manageable size. But over the last few days as countries have been locked away in so called ‘drafting’ groups, and in contact groups on specific sections, new text has been falling from the sky in biblical proportions, and the documents have inflated to huge sizes again.

Sections of the text that were a manageable 3 pages are now heading into double figures, and there are so many options for every paragraph it’s getting hard just to follow where they are in the document. And that’s not just for me, a mere civil society observer. In the session yesterday if a country asked for clarification of which part of the text they were discussing once they must have asked a thousand times.

And with all this new text comes…yep you’ve probably guessed it…new brackets….

Tens, hundreds, thousands of them. So many that even if the chair had packed an umbrella I don’t think it would have helped him. So many we all need to run for cover.

Brackets in the text mean lots of different things and there are many different types of brackets, normal, square, curly, shall I go on?  So many in fact that yet again even the negotiators are confused. One negotiator yesterday asked for clarification of what the curly bracket meant in a certain section, and not a single person in the room could answer her!

But the one basic thing you need to know about brackets, is that they are not a good thing when it comes to solving climate change. Because the one thing they always mean, whatever they look like, is  ‘undecided’.

As long as we have a text that contains huge numbers of brackets we have a text that will not lead to meaningful action on climate change.

At the minute all we can seem to do is take shelter and watch the rain from a safe spot.

But we have to remember to not loose hope.

Because someone once told me…

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

Brackets!

Today, the delegates are going to leave Bonn and not return until June next year (for a new session of SBI and SBSTA), but one day still remains. The last day of negotiations is basically always the same, in the morning, the delegates use to finalize the documents they were working on during the week and in the afternoon they meet in plenary session to vote and express some concerns or comments.

However, and before this traditional last day of negotiations, the delegates still have a lot of work and still have a lot to negotiate. And since the talks in one of the working group (LCA) are closed to observers, we do not really know what the outcome of this week is going to be. Furthermore, this morning, the chair of this contact group was really vague and unclear when she met the civil society. Such a blurry situation!

The second working group chaired by John Ashe is still open to observers and the session we attended yesterday afternoon was just unbelievable. During the first hour, the delegates were negotiating on the substance of the draft text, but after this first hour, the rhythm of the talks totally changed, and a bracket war started.

At the beginning, it was a really intense discussion between the European Union and Brazil about an option that EU would like to get rid of in the text.  After that, all the parties started to add brackets everywhere they could. European Union even asked to put asterisks into brackets, asterisks referring to the “economy in transition” status of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Of course and in order to preserve their interests protected by this status, the lead negotiator of the Russian federation came in the room to remind the parties of this importance of the derogatory status for these three countries. Straight after, the funniest statement was given by the delegate of New Zealand (actually, I am not sure that it was New Zealand…) who asked the chair to add “curly brackets” instead of “brackets”. Of course, some of them raised the question of the “curly bracket” and asked for more explanations, that nobody could really give!

Finally and in order to simplify the talks, the delegate of Saudi Arabia not surprisingly proposed to put a bracket before the title and a second one in the end of text. It is what we could call Saudi pragmatism!

We don't have to queue anymore, but we are still not in!

On Monday, everyone of us in the Maritim heard the Head of the US delegation deliver a really strong statement on the importance of civil society participation in these negotiations. With a few strong words, he reminded parties why NGOs have to be kept in this process.

Firstly, civil society representatives are actually more than just observers of the talks. By helping the most vulnerable countries and the smaller delegations, our participation contributes to make these talks fairer and more balanced, between rich and poor, developed and developing, tiny and huge delegations. This role played by civil society ensures more equity.

Secondly, civil society (if it is useful to remind you of this) represents the citizens. Wherever they come from, whatever they think about climate change, civil society organisations represent the diversity of citizens from around the world.

However, since Tuesday this crucial role of NGOs seems to have been forgotten by the parties. Since you delegates decided to draft the texts, civil society and NGOs have been kicked out of the room. Of course, we do understand that this process of negotiations needs some calm and secrecy to work, but we also have some concerns about the total lack of transparency in these negotiations.

Furthermore, by closing these doors you also send such a negative message to the 6 billion humans whose lives depend on the decisions you are taking behind these doors. Soon, hopefully really soon, humankind will have to implement what you are thinking and writing herein. Then how will we change this world that needs to be changed if nobody has understood you. By opening the doors, you not only let the eyes and the ears of billions of people coming in to understand you, you mainly let us prepare with you a safer future.

Delegates, it is not too late to make civil society inclusiveness and transparency two really core principles of the UNFCCC negotiations. Even if civil society looks at you, even if we sometimes criticize you, and even if we sometimes disagree with you, we are all here to make our common future safer and to preserve this world for the next generations.

Delegates, let’s open the doors!

Sessions that go on for hours and end with them moving a comma.
The Saudi’s talking about their loss of oil revenue as an impact of response measures to climate change.
The lack of any real urgency.
The horrifically low ambition.
Brackets.

Oh and this..

In order to keep going here you have to look at the small things.

Small victories won one by one, small steps on the way to the future you desire.

And the small things each day that make you smile…

Like catching a delegate on facebook

The knowledge negotiators are human too (that sign is telling them how to use their microphones… )

A reminder that the next COP is somewhere warm you’ve never been before.

Music that helps you keep the faith.

Your team (and that’s definately a small thing at this set of talks!)

The chink of light at the end of the tunnel…

The task a hand is huge. But in the small things we can find the hope that keeps us going, that gives us the faith that we can, and will, get there.

This morning at the climate talks in Bonn a wedding took place.

Youth activists ‘married’ annex 1 countries (that’s the developed countries) to the Kyoto Protocol (that’s emission reductions) with the message ‘true love needs commitment’.

As the talks continue here in Bonn and time ticks down towards the end of the 1st KP commitment period in 2012 the message was for annex 1 countries to step it up and commit to ambitious targets that are legally binding post 2012.

Because we <3 KP…

How far does acting as one go?

Today we have been shut out of most of the negotiations, everyone is in drafting groups working on text and so observers are not allowed in. I hope you don’t mind if rather than rant about that, or wax lyrical on the texts they are likely to come out with, I take today’s blog to muse on something I’ve been thinking about this week.

People who know me know I don’t really like people telling me what to do.  I find it difficult changing who I am to fit in somewhere and I’m likely to rebel quite dramatically if forced to. You will never find me wearing a suit at the UN, you will quite often find me barefoot and from time to time you will find me dancing around like a bit of a loon. There’s nothing saying you can’t do any of these things here, so I don’t see the problem.

My sense of me, as an individual, as the way I present to the world and in what I choose to do, the way I choose to act, is important to me and I’ll rarely change it for anyone.

But why is this important in the context of being here at the UNFCCC? Well to help solve climate change, as civil society, we need to act together. We need to show a united front, that we are a unified movement working for change and demanding action from our leaders. One of my biggest hates is squabbling within the movement, people putting down other people’s way of doing things or claiming they care more because of the way they choose to do things. I also hate over branding, where NGOs are so brand conscious it effects the work they are doing and how they will work together to the detriment of doing something bigger.

But in my asserting myself as an individual I also hate being defined by this bigger thing, by the movement. Being forced to wear the same t shirt, use the same message, speak as one voice.

At the minute I’m struggling with this, with how to reconcile these two things. I love our movement, I’ve put my whole life into it. I think its beauty is in it’s diversity, we need all kinds of people and we need to monopolise every approach we have, and I think generally we do allow the space for that.

But I also know to win this we need to show how big we are. And we do that by getting some form of unity, some form of common message and dare I say it some form of common branding.

It’s this part where it gets hard for me, and I’m sure for many others. I just don’t want to go with the group all the time. My soul violently objects to becoming what someone else dictates it should be.

But thinking about this makes me shiver a little. Because that’s exactly the problem negotiators have here at the UNFCCC all the time. To solve this problem we need an agreement that everyone can sign up to and play their part in. We need a common message. We need, in some ways, a common brand.

The UNFCCC is being stalled by countries who don’t want to sign up to this because of national interests. Who can’t or won’t change their position, or work for a treaty that gets the best deal for our world as a whole, because of something going on in their country. Be that producing oil, mass consumerism or relying on coal for all their energy. Some countries don’t want to change and therefore aren’t productively taking part in these negotiations.

So where does that leave me?

Should I change who I am to work for the good of the movement? Should I go along, take part in things I don’t necessarily support or think are not doing things in the right way. Should I conform to the brand of the movement, speak the common message?

(fyi I wrote the rest of the blog several times, each time changing what I thought!)

But the answer I have finally come to, is…

Inherently no, but sometimes yes I should. And so should everyone else.

Working for the good of a group takes compromise. We need room for all types of people and all ways of doing things in our movement and we should all be able to do things the way we want to. But within this we also need to support each other, and that may sometimes mean taking a back seat and letting things be done in a different way. A way you may not choose. And working for the good of a group means we support all these ways even if that means changing something we may not want to.

To do this without  loosing who we are though, the biggest thing we need is respect.

I expect to be respected at the UN whether I wear a suit or shoes or not. And I’m glad to say mostly I am. I’m respected for what I know and what I bring not what I wear.

We need respect because with it comes a willingness to work together. The one thing I’m sure of is that we can’t solve climate change alone. But that doesn’t mean we all have to be the same.

If we respect our differences the rest will start to come.

That’s true for me, for you, for everyone in the movement, and for the countries here at the UN.

And thankfully it means I won’t need to put my shoes on any time soon…

Parties Only and NGOs ... out!

No comment required!

Today, just two meetings are open, a first one this morning on LULUCF and a second one this afternoon on Annex I parties’ emissions reductions. Such a busy day! And we NGOs are just… kicked out of the really important meetings.

When I came to Bonn on Sunday, I still believed that United Nations are a model of transparency!

Margaret, the LCA Chair

In the article I wrote yesterday, I gave a quick summary of the ongoing negotiations in Bonn. After two days of discussions, the image of these talks is now clearer. After the really intense KP plenary session of Monday morning, the delegates participated in a workshop about mitigation targets, and the different aspects of the negotiations on emission reductions. Following what has been said today by the Chinese delegates, this workshop was really helpful and useful to the negotiations. But let’s be honest, this workshop was really terribly technical…

In the other working group (AWG-LCA) a major event happened in the evening when some of the delegates were having fun at the traditional opening ceremony. The Russian delegation decided to walk out of the negotiations because the proposal of spin off groups made by the chair of the group was not clear enough. In other words, they asked the secretariat to submit a real document to the negotiators in order to explain how and when they are going to work on the different topics. This was finally resolved this morning when Margaret took the floor and she invited the delegates to read the schedule of the next four days. After quick and clear discussions the delegates agreed on the schedule and started working…. on Tuesday, one day later…

As they maybe thought that the next drafting sessions were going to be really rough and that the parties were going to discuss a lot, they decided to kick NGOs and observers out of the sessions. Such a pity. I now always have this feeling that when the negotiations are really interesting the delegates decide to restrict the access to the talks. One of the reasons why they do not want to open to doors to observers it is also because some countries “play” a role in the open negotiations and sometimes in the closed discussions they can accept compromises that are not always the position they were proudly defending.

Even if we can see some progress in these negotiations here in Bonn- they have started drafting a text, they have decided to discuss the really important issues (such as the gap between the two commitment periods) – the process is still so slow. From now, there are just four weeks left before Cancun, and if we carry on working at this rhythm, it is really not sure that we will get a consolidated text. The spectre of Copenhagen is still in everybody’s mind and a lot of delegates understand that we are not negotiating fast enough.

However, some parties can take advantage of this slowness, for example Japan which said yesterday that its emission reductions targets were not for the Kyoto Protocol. China and some other developing countries highlighted this point several times today.

Are we just negotiating slowly, or are we trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol? That is the question.

Thanks @Anna Collins for correcting this article.

Trying to blog about the same thing over and over again has left me stumped for puns!

I’m stumped, completely stumped, I can’t think of a single back to Bonn related pun that I haven’t already used. This is our 3^rd time here this year, 4^th in total and the 6^th week the tracker team have spent in the lovely (yet it has to be said slightly dull…) city of Bonn.

I have literally been at the negotiations for just a few hours yet it feels like we were never away. I can only imagine how delegates who have been doing this for years must feel.

But with the tracker team consisting of only me and Florent for this session there is a lot to get up to speed on from my first missed day. And with such a small team we’re both also going to have to master the art of hardcore multi tasking to keep up to speed with the blogs, twitter, youth stuff and of course actually following the negotiations this week.

If only the negotiators could get on with some hard core multi tasking too…

Because though there’s a lot for me to get up to speed on here, it has to be said, I didn’t exactly miss much progress in the negotiations in the last 36 hours. ‘What!’ I hear you cry ‘the UNFCCC didn’t make any progress in the last 36 hours of negotiations. We can’t believe it…!!!’ (sorry I shall try keep my sarcasm to a minimal but the UNFCCC does bring it out in me…).  But yes, once again we are sat in Bonn discussing the same things we have been discussing for years. And I can’t think of a new pun about the lack of progress either.

Today however one thing has changed, there is a new murmur in the corridors. There’s a new paper on the block and it’s causing a bit of a stir. This paper is the so-called document /10 (sounds thrilling doesn’t it…).

But document /10 is rather important. Because it is in document /10 that the UNFCCC has finally said (with slight anna paraphrasing),

“Guys we need to discuss something. We seem to have a problem…

We seem to have run out of time!”

Yes the UNFCCC have finally admitted something that to the rest of us has been rather obvious for a while. We do not have time between now and the end of the Kyoto Protocol first commitment period (in 2012) to agree on what happens next.

‘What!’ I hear you cry again, ‘but that still gives us 2 years of negotiations how can we have run out of time????’

Well perhaps it becomes clearer when you realise that even after the first commitment period of the KP had been negotiated and agreed on, it still took 7 years to get enough countries to ratify it for it to come into force…

And we haven’t even negotiated, let alone agreed what happens post 2012! So we can’t even begin to try and ratify it.

Put simply, we have a problem. Another gap, here at the UNFCCC (they seem to be springing up all over the place…). And because we have so many of them I can’t think of a new pun for this either, please mind the gap had definitely been rather overdone.

But pun or no pun, document /10 deals with this new gap. In document /10 the secretariat have set out ideas for what we do from a legal point of view if we cannot agree a new commitment period and are faced with this gap between the first and second commitment periods (or the gap between the first period and whatever we get instead of another commitment period).

This gap begins on Jan 1^st 2013.

Pun or not, this is no laughing matter. We are currently looking at having no decision on action to tackle climate change from the 1^st of Jan 2013.

Some might say we need to start working this out, and we need to start getting somewhere in these negotiations fast!

If me and Florent can do it this week why not the negotiators too? Let the hardcore multi tasking begin.

And I guess one of my many tasks, in the spirit of this blog, is while they all discuss the options in document /10 I should find some way to make it a pun.

The UNFCCC don’t make this blogging business easy do they! Answers on a postcard please…