I hope our negotiators didn't choose their specialism from a magazine quiz...

Last week I told you about how many new faces there are around these negotiations, with quite a few of them to be found in the UK negotiating team. I said that I thought that this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, new life, new solutions.

However some of you may be thinking, yes but this is a complicated and difficult process, how can these new people help us sort it out when they can’t even be up to speed yet?

Well don’t fear because as many new people as there are here, we still have some old hands too. And at this session in Bonn the UK old hands have really been driving some parts of the negotiations along.

Because our lead negotiator doens’t lead on everything…

It’s funny but in a year of adopting a negotiator I have never touched on the different types of negotiators in my blog, I guess it’s never to late to provide the basics…

So here I go to try and explain what really goes on in the team.

So if your delegation is big enough (UK’s definitely is, Tanzania’s is not…) anyway, if your delegation is big enough you have negotiators to deal with all the different parts of the text. Negotiators will specialise in a certain area such as forests or technology and know very little about others. If you are part of a negotiating bloc you may also have negotiators who deal with that. For example the UK delegation has negotiators who deal specifically with EU negotiations.

And to add one more level to the mix you also get two very different types of negotiators. Political and technical.

Political negotiators deal with the wrangling between countries over what everyone is going to do.

Technical deal with the…well the technical bits…. the hard core details of how all these mechanisms we are saying we will use will actually work.

The UK have some of the very old timers in both sets.

This means this week we have been hearing British accents in both the more political negotiations of the LCA (long term cooperative action) and in the technical aspects of the KP (Kyoto protocol).

Our UK head of delegation has stepped up and is now leading for the EU in the LCA (the political bit) and our forests guy is leading the EU in the forest mechanism sections of the KP (the technical bits).

Though they are both British we have been hearing their voices coming from the Spanish seat. This is because the EU negotiates as a bloc and it is the country who currently hold the EU presidency who will speak on behalf of us all, at the moment this is Spain therefore their seat is where our UK EU negotiators sit (just one more unfccc quirk…).

I’m sorry, this has been a rather technical blog on negotiators today.

But the reason I’m telling you this is because it means the UK really have some influence within the EU negotiating team at the minute.

Lets hope thay are using it well!

And to lighten up my rather technical blog I thought i’d tell you that I saw ALL of the UK delegation at the party on Saturday to say goodbye to Yvo de Boer!

And I can only see this as a good thing, positive moods can only lead to positive negotiations!

The polar bear one is the oldest one in the book...

Every day that passes at the UN it gets a little harder to write a blog. I mean there’s lots going on of course, in fact we have now started to talk about substance here in Bonn which is a good step. But this process definitely does not move quick enough for our 24/7 idea of news!

Having been doing this for a year now it’s starting to sometimes feel like we are on constant repeat. We visit the same venues, we hear the same speeches from parties, we got to the same meetings (I write the same blogs….)

The process moves so slowly that we are still facing the same issues. Maybe we could just do the same actions, it would be easier…drag out the same props, no need to paint new banners.

In fact since the negotiators here seem to be such fans of repetition I was thinking about conducting a survey to find out what their favourite action of the past few years has been, then to save the effort we could just put it on again.

I won’t of course! Because it is changing this process, it is shaking things up, it is getting creative that makes coming here ok for me.

Actions are what makes this process bearable, I’ve said before (of course!) that it is taking action, making my voice heard, feeling like I can change things, that feeds my soul.

But with the process going so slowly we’re really beginning to have to think way outside of the box to come up with new ideas to make these issues exciting (well vaguely more interesting…).

However the more effort it takes, the more energy it requires, the tireder I seem to get, and I find myself getting slightly jaded.

The length of the struggle definitely takes the enthusiastic shine off me sometimes.

This is why I always like to take a little time out at the UN to think about why I am doing all of this. So this morning I did this and went to take part in a discussion about the climate justice movement and youth.

Justice is the reason I return to the UN time and time again.

But while I was there we got discussing how social movements always talk about the struggle for justice as an old struggle, one that we have been fighting for many, many years.

Then my friend made a point that has stayed with me.

The struggle may be old, but for every person who joins the movement it is new.

I realised we should never forget that.

I wrote the other day about how many new people there were around the UN

This is a new struggle for them.

Every time I come here it is a new struggle.

As more and more people join the movement there are more and more new struggles.

And from new struggles we might find new solutions.

And while we wait I’m just going to have to get even more creative with my actions….

Which is fine with me, because as tired as I get creativity always feeds my soul.

Pour cela, il suffit de procéder à une lecture un peu attentive de ce texte et de le comparer au rapport AR4 du GIEC qui jusqu’à présent et jusqu’en 2014 fait encore référence.

Dans le premier paragraphe du texte, les Etats signataires rappellent la nécessité de maintenir l’augmentation de la température moyenne globale sous la barre de 2°C. Cela rappelle les engagements pris au cours notamment du G8 de l’Aquila au cours également de l’année 2009. Mais, soyons honnêtes que cet objectif soit inscrit dans le texte de négociations lui donne une portée juridique ou du moins internationale, et c’est plutôt un point très positif.

Cependant, il existe certes l’ambition, mais reste la question des moyens offerts pour arriver à supporter cette ambition. Et en inscrivant l’objectif de 2°C, les Etats ont mis la barre très haut, et les réductions qui devraient en découler doivent être particulièrement importantes conformément à ce qu’indique le rapport AR4 du GIEC.

En effet, comme le rappelle le tableau ci-dessus, afin de garder l’augmentation de la température globale sous la barre des 2°C, il est nécessaire de réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre entre 50 et 85% d’ici à 2050 en gardant 1990 comme année de référence. Pour atteindre cet objectif de 2°C, il faut cependant réduire de manière drastique et surtout rapide les émissions, selon les experts du GIEC, il faudrait avoir 2015 au plus tard comme année où les émissions seront à leur maximum. Il faudrait ainsi réduire entre 25 et 40% les émissions de pays développés d’ici à 2020 pour atteindre ce pic d’émission et seulement espérer rester sous la barre des 2°C.

Voici ce qu’indiquent les experts du climat, mais ce qu’on prévu les chefs d’Etat réunis à Copenhague est différent. L’engagement devant se faire sur une base volontaire, les Etats ont annoncé un par un quels étaient leurs objectifs nationaux. Globalement, la réduction, d’après le secrétariat de la Convention, serait inférieure à 20 %.

Il y a l’ambition ou l’affichage politique et il y a la réalité climatique. Et là, nos chefs d’Etats ont largement failli à Copenhague. Le souci, c’est qu’il en est exactement de même concernant l’argent pour l’adaptation, mais cela fera l’objet d’un prochain article.

You can choose how to look at this picture...

The UNFCCC is all about text. The texts are what everyone comes here to negotiate over. Pages and pages of legal speak laying out options for the things we could do to tackle climate change. One day we will all agree on the same text (yes I’m in an optimistic mood today…) and that will be signed off as the world’s response to climate change

They wanted to sign off on a text  in Copenhagen. This was what they worked on for the last few years.

But we all know how that story ended.

So here we are back in Bonn.

However we haven’t just started working again on the same texts we took to Copenhagen. Last time we were at the UN  in Bonn, in April, everyone agreed that the chairs of the two big working groups could go away and take all the text they had from the last few years of negotiations and work it into a new text.

Then start the negotiations here afresh.

Today as the LCA (long term cooperative action) and KP (Kyoto Protocol) negotiations got underway we heard countries speak about this new text for the first time.

I sat in the LCA plenary and listened to countries reactions. On the whole we had no major disagreements. Most countries were vaguely happy with using it. Which means we can begin to slowly move forward. However a few people did have things to say. The USA were unhappy because they didn’t see enough of the Copenhagen accord in it. Bolivia were unhappy because they saw too much….

For the next two weeks we will be working on this text and how we go forward with it.

Last week I read a speech by David Foster Wallace.

“If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important – if you want to operate on your default setting – then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren’t pointless and annoying. But if you’ve really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars – compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff’s necessarily true: the only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.”

Listening to the reactions today made me think.

Countries only see what they want to see. They operate on their default setting. They could probably write what they are going to say in these plenaries without even looking at the text.

I could write what they are going to say without looking at the text!

Maybe it’s time for them to think, to really pay attention to the text and to learn that they have other options.

Because we all get to decide how we are going to try and see it.

Imagine if all the countries consciously decided to come to these negotiations, look at the text and be constructive. Imagine if they decided that getting to an agreement quickly has meaning and then acted on it. If they looked at how they could make the text work, not just what is wrong with it.

Reaching consensus on such complicated texts does not come easily.

If we are ever to achieve it we need to decide what we worship.

Is it our own sense of winning? Is it our own interests?

Or is it our beautiful planet and all the people who live here?

As we begin the first real set of negotiations since the ‘failure’ of Copenhagen there has been much talk over whether the UNFCCC has a place anymore in the world’s response to climate change.

And in consequence whether it is worth us all being here pushing them forwards.

I’ve put A LOT of thought in to this over the last couple of months, after all I invest a lot of time, energy and emotion coming to these negotiations. If they are no longer relevant I could definitely save a bit of my soul.

But through much thinking and soul searching I have come to the conclusion that I do believe we need these negotiations.

However I think before Copenhagen the way we were looking at them was fundamentally wrong.

The way I see it, finding the solution to solving climate change requires us to look at the big picture. We have to respond as a world. That’s what the UNFCCC is supposed to be about.

But the big picture isn’t a beautiful framed photo, in fact at the minute it’s not even a picture.

At the minute the big picture is a jigsaw puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle with many thousands of pieces.

From USA climate policy, to you cutting your emission 10% in 2010. From community groups in Kenya planting trees to the UNFCCC coming up with a global framework for countries making required emission reductions. Every piece of action that any of us can do is a piece of the jigsaw.

Pre Copenhagen we put all the pieces in the box….

At Copenhagen we shook the box….

After Copenhagen we expected to open the box and the jigsaw to have miraculously come together….

We all know that’s not how jigsaws work!

In 2010 is time to start constructing the jigsaw properly.

Anyone who has ever done a jigsaw will know the first thing you do is find the corner pieces.

Then you put some of the edges together, maybe a section of the detail in the left corner, a bit of the sky in the top right. Slowly and surely you build sections of the jigsaw, slowly and surely you see the picture emerge.

It is only at the very end you slot it all together to reveal the whole picture.

Therefore all action to solve climate change does not need to happen here at the UNFCCC. In fact action HAS to happen elsewhere. Countries can go away and work on things, work internally, work together, work in partnerships, in small groups.

We can all go away and work on it, work individually, in our families, in our communities.

As we work on it, as we put these pieces together, parts of the picture will begin to emerge. As the picture begins to emerge then we can then start slotting in the UNFCCC parts and bringing the jigsaw puzzle together.

Putting all the pieces in the box and just shaking may seem tempting. It may seem the best way to get out our frustration, but it will not get us there.

Doing it this way may seem slower, we may not be able to see the picture as it emerges, we may feel we are never going to get there.

But doing it this way means we can get there and we can do it on time. Doing it this way means we can come to the UNFCCC with many pieces of the jigsaw already in place, means we can come here and achieve things.

Doing it this way means it is worthwhile to come here, means it is productive and important. Means we CAN put the jigsaw together, then sit back and look at the big picture before it’s too late.

As another round of UNFCCC negotiations begin, we have to start taking some of these pieces and slotting them into place!

Because the big picture is beautiful. The big picture is the amazing, clean, just future we all want.

I’m looking forward to seeing the picture emerge over the coming months and years. Both at home and here at the UNFCCC.

Thats why I keep coming back.

That’s why we need the UNFCCC.

And just imagine being the one who gets to put the final piece of the jigsaw in place!

No trilho do Protocolo de Quioto, foi sugerido que seja elaborada uma avaliação técnica das promessas de redução de emissões feitas pelos países desenvolvidos (Anexo B) e seus impactos. No entanto, Rússia e Japão estão bloqueando a realização desse trabalho talvez porque não queiram que se torne oficial o que todo mundo já sabe: as submissões feitas pelos países ricos não são nem um pouco consistentes com os cortes de redução de emissões de gases de efeito estufa recomendados pelos estudos científicos mais recentes (manter o aumento da temperatura média da Terra abaixo dos 2 graus centígrados). É o que estão chamando de gigatonne gap. Por causa dessa posição, os dois países receberam o prêmio Fóssil do Dia, um prêmio dado para os países que mais atrapalham as negociações.

É, foi um domingo perdido. É ainda mais frustrante perceber que não só o dia de hoje foi perdido. Fica cada vez mais difícil acreditar que um dia negociadores de mais de 190 países vão deixar essas picuinhas de lado e começar a priorizar o futuro dos seres humanos que estão aqui representando.

Segue abaixo fotos do domingo em Bonn.

Domingo de sol...

Plenária do AWG-LCA adiada

Essa tela me lembra algum evento não tão distante no passado

Yvo de Boer esperando a sessão começar

Sitting, waiting, wishing (and trying to stay sane)

Após quase 7 horas de atraso, começa a sessão do AWG-LCA

Al momento sono ancora dentro la plenaria (sono le 5 di pomeriggio) aspettando che finalmente cominci la riunione del gruppo di lavoro sull’azione cooperativa di lungo termine. Voi vi chiederete, dove è il problema? Bhè, il problema consiste nel fatto che la riunione sarebbe dovuta cominciare per le undici e trenta di questa mattina.

Buon segno (vuol dire che si sta trattando qualcosa di importante all’interno delle sale chiuse agli osservatori e alla stampa)?

Cattivo segno (vuol dire che non trovano accora un accordo sul da farsi)? Come al solito è impossibile da sapere fino a che non ci saranno le dichiarazioni ufficiali,  ma fattostà che è dalle dieci di questa mattina che sono seduto su questa sedia aspettando che finalmente si cominci.

Nel frattempo la definizione che qui a Bonn è più sulla bocca di tutti, o in altre parole quella che desta la maggiore preoccupazione a livello negoziale, è “Gigatonne Gap”.

noia noia noia

Cosa vuol dire gigatonne gap? Tradotta letteralmente in italiano vorrebbe dire: buco di gigatoni, ma in realtà è semplicemente la differenza tra il livello delle riduzioni di emissioni di carbonio promesse dai vari paesi e il livello reale necessario affinché ci sia una buona probabilità di mantenere il riscaldamento globale sotto i due gradi centigradi.

Questo divario di gigatoni tra quanto serve e quanto promesso è racchiuso in una forbice che va dai 5 ai 9 gigatoni di anidride carbonica equivalente – ricordo che un gigatone equivale ad un miliardo di tonnellate.

La principale causa di questo divario è soprattutto dovuta alla mancanza di volontà e ambizione mostrata dai paesi durante le trattative dell’anno scorso e dagli espedienti utilizzati dai paesi per mascherare le loro presunte riduzioni nelle emissioni.

Sono sicuro che si battaglierà molto su questo argomento, sia all’interno dei negoziati stessi che tra i diplomatici ed il mondo delle ONG e della società civile.

Nel frattempo la giornata sta per finire anche se ufficialmente ancora non è cominciata.

Stasera dovrebbero annunciare anche il numero delle future conferenze e la loro dislocazione.

A questo punto, con niente altro da dire visto che non è successo praticamente nulla (a porte aperte), non ci resta che aspettare e tenervi aggiornati attraverso commenti.

So much time to wait I had time to get a sketchpad out, looking down over an empty plenary...

Today has been a lot of sitting around and a lot of waiting. As I write this we have just heard that the plenaries have all been delayed again. We were supposed to start at 11am…then 1pm…then 3pm…now who knows! But they have also announced that the furniture in the hotel is being dismantled at 6pm…so either they will all be continuing negotiations sitting on the floor…or things are going to be rather rushed!

All these delays does not means things aren’t happening, to the contrary it means lots is going on behind the scenes (the delays are because they are all in other meetings trying to agree things). But it does mean that we in civil society have no idea what is going on.

All we can do is sit, wait and wish.

Wish that something would change, that this process would start moving. Wish that they would just sort it out, so we can all go home feeling that coming here at least achieved something!

Wish that it didn’t cost 2.5 euros for a brew here!

But while we wait for any news and drink our extortionately priced cups of tea, there are a couple of things that have been discussed this weekend, in and around the negotiations, that are interesting and worth a mention.

First is THE GIGATONNE GAP! This is a new exciting phrase (especially if every time you say it you use a stupid voice…) that has been being thrown around all weekend. Basically the gigatonne gap, is the gap between what we all say we’re going to do in terms of emission cuts and the level we have said we will keep temperature rise under (currently 2 degrees). It’s not new news that these two figures don’t add up and that there are many many loopholes pushing the numbers even further apart, but now we are all drawing attention to it and calling it the gigatonne gap.

The explicit focus on it will hopefully push countries towards more ambition and not dressing up inadequate targets and trying to pass them as ambitious, and will highlight where there are glaring loopholes so no one can try and cover them up. Hopefully by the next time we meet we will have research and official papers into this issue which will push the issue further and maybe lead to some answers…

The second big talking point this weekend has been civil society participation at Cancun, where this years COP will be held in December. This has been a very hot topic of conversation over the last few days and one I will no doubt return to over the year. But the crux of the issue is, after the debacle of Copenhagen, things are not looking great for civil society access and an open and transparent COP 16 in Mexico in December.

When the youth met with the Mexican’s we made the point that as much as we thought spending a week locked out of the negotiations in Cancun would be more fun than in Copenhagen (me and Andrea are already scouting out beaches…) it was simply unacceptable for this to happen. They made noises telling us this would not be the case, but there are still many concerns that need to be addressed.

Both these things will continue to be hot topics over the course of the year. But much like the negotiations today we will not get clear answers, or even more info, for some time yet.

Which leaves us back in the UN, sitting, waiting and wishing.

And at the moment I’m wishing we were having this meeting in Cancun too, so at least we could hit the beach while we wait for them to start!

Mexico feelings?

Pois então, hoje pela manhã, durante três horas, os países-parte da Convenção-Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre Mudança do Clima ficaram discutindo sobre o documento também entitulado “Organização e métodos de trabalho de 2010” proposto pela nova chair Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe (Zimbábue). Detalhe: o texto ocupa MEIA PÁGINA.

Basicamente a sessão girou em torno dos parágrafo 5 e 6 que diziam (antes e depois dessa sessão):

Não querendo soar repetitiva, mas a discussão aqui gira em torno da restauração da confiança, transparência, inclusão. O que fazer com o Copenhagen Accord (CA)? Quais são as implicações dele constar em um decisão da CoP-15, mesmo que na decisão apenas esteja escrito: “A Conferência das Partes tomou nota do Acordo de Copenhague de 18 de dezembro de 2009”? Para países como o Brasil (link 1 e link 2), o conteúdo desse acordo, se incorporado nos 2 trilhos  (que são os únicos fóruns legítimos de negociação), pode facilitar a conclusão de seus trabalhos, ou seja, a adoção de uma decisão sobre o segundo período de compromisso de Protocolo de Quioto e o cumprimento do Plano de Ação de Bali na CoP-16. Para outros, como Venezuela, é inaceitável que a incorporação do CA aconteça. Além disso, a maioria dos países e também a sociedade civil apoiam que a chair receba mandato para produzir um texto de negociação para a rodada de junho. É claro que esse texto não vai sair da cabeça dela, vai ser feito com base nos textos existentes, incluindo o CA.

Diante desse quadro, é pouco provável que um acordo legalmente vinculante saia de Cancún (CoP-16), mas acredito que as negociações possam avançar bastante até lá, principalmente em temas como REDD, financiamento, transferência de tecnologia e adaptação.

É difícil reconquistar a confiança de alguém e voltar a acreditar em uma relação, mas uma comunhão celebrada há mais de quinze anos não pode ser tão frágil assim… Se até o momento sobreviveu com todas suas manias (o que dizer da Arábia Saudita mau-caráter, da Austrália sabotadora e dos Estados Unidos impotente e chantageador?), por que vai ser agora que tudo vai desmoronar? Vamos deixar baixar a poeira e, aos poucos, tenho certeza que tudo volta a entrar nos eixos, ou melhor, nos dois trilhos. Quem sabe até o fim do ano, no México, o clima dessa relação não tenha esquentado um pouco?

On the first day of Copenhagen the Guardian said we had "14 days to seal history's judgement on this generation". But what is history?

Yesterday in plenary the Africa group said this…

“The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.”

It really made me think, it hit me quite hard.

Copenhagen is now history.

So the question, I guess, is…

Can we. Will we. Learn from it?

These three days in Bonn are purely talking about process, trying to work out how the UNFCCC can move forward from Copenhagen.

But what happened in those final few days in December is still very present in the room.

As countries make their statements there are many feelings that are being aired, and for want of a better word ‘squabbling’ about the process by which the Copenhagen accord was brought about.

To be fair, on this one I’m with the majority of countries who were locked out of the process and are well…a bit miffed!

But the thing is, Copenhagen is now history…what happened, happened.

We should not dwell on the past.

What really matters is, will we learn from it and how do we move on?

This morning countries spent three hours discussing a half side of A4 proposal, that the chair of the meeting had put together, on how they could do this. And they haven’t even agreed on it yet.

They will continue to do this until tomorrow evening.

This morning they spent a lot of time referring to paragraph 5

Paragraph 5.

The AWG-LCA further agree that the contact group will in its work utilitize working methods that are in line with the principles and practices of the United Nations and allow inclusive, transparent and efficient negotiations to be conducted. It requested its Chair to regularly consult negotiating groups on how this may be achieved.

They debated it for quite some time…

And didn’t reach concensus on agreeing to it.

It does not feel good sitting in these rooms listening to it.

Today, all we can really do,

is hope,

and pray,

that this time,

we WILL learn from history!

Because one day history WILL judge us.