“WUSTLatCOP”-er survives Day 1
Day 1 of COP22 is complete and I am sitting in the library of our Riad with the two other students I’m traveling with reflecting on the overwhelming, but encouraging experience that we’ve had today… We started with an early and long (much longer than it needed to be) bus ride to the Conference Venue, which is just a little ways outside of the city in a canopy village erected specifically for the conference negotiations and events. After some running between overflow rooms and dealing with sound and technical difficulties Beth, Noe, Clayton, and I settled in to watch the Opening Ceremony and Plenary of the COP22. Despite watching on a screen from a remote room I felt the weight and dignity of the event - it was history in the making (that I got to be a part of!!!). There were many opening speeches by dignitaries (COP21 President, Ségolène Royal; COP22 President, Salaheddine Mazouar; Executive Secretary, Patricia Espinoza; Chair of the IPCC, Hoesung Lee; and Mayor of Marrakech, Mohammed Larbi Belcadi). And, though the speakers highlighted their areas of expertise, each one of their talks highlighted themes of implementation, action, collaboration, and transparency moving from Paris in the Marrakech negotiations. The historic nature of the Paris Agreement has been held up over the past year and now, as many of the speakers highlighted (and as many individuals highlight in more direct conversations), the Paris Agreement is sitting on a precipice and will either launch into intense movement forward or fall flat because of a lack of follow through during these negotiations.
After the Opening Ceremony, the Opening Plenary began during which time the new COP22 President coordinated some of the logistical features of the conference negotiations and set the ground for more content-based conversations to take place. Even within this more logistically facing conversation, there were disputes -- most noticeably, Turkey’s desire to be considered under a special circumstance within the confines of climate financing and access to support funding despite their current characterization as a “developed country.” The public conversation last for about fifteen minutes before the new President suggested a five (actually thirty) minute recess for him to collect feedback from concerned parties. At the end of the recess he presented his findings and suggested that Turkey’s plea not be codified quite yet, instead electing to continue consultations over the next two weeks. There were no objections to his suggestion and the remaining logistical items were reviewed. What is interesting about this short negotiating tension is that the real problem solving happened in one-on-one or small party conversations that took place outside of the huge plenary conversation or public discussion. I am interested to continue following what is stated in very public forums and what “nitty-gritty” is left to be solved when the observers, other party delegates, etc are concerning themselves with other features of the Conference...!
The Opening Ceremony and Plenary took us through to lunch and after grabbing a quick “sandwich avec fromage” from the lunch hall, our group split up into different side events to start experiencing the other components of COP Conferences. I attended three different events:
The CDM Pre-2020 - What’s Next for the Carbon Market Champion?
Understanding the NAP-NDC Linkages: Experiences from the Philippines
Urgencies in Fundamental Climate Research following the Paris Agreement
These sides events each had a unique focus (as demonstrated via the titles) and showcased the intensely diverse range of issues that encompass climate change. Considering that all of these issues must be represented and in consideration with whatever COP Negotiators develop, it is no wonder that making progress takes such a long time…! One challenge that arises with the breadth of issues is the ease with which involved parties can become silo-ed in their issues, which arose in the third panel. Another related challenge is the communication gap that arises between different parties. During the question and answer section of my second side event, many citizens of the Philippines stood up to share their pushback and ask questions of the government officials who were presenting. I loved watching the interplay between government and citizen, though I can imagine that it was deeply frustrating (in distinct ways) for both sides.
The WUSTL at COP crew regrouped after our Side Events and explored the country pavilions together; however, by the time we got there most of the events (and swag giveaways more importantly - but not really more importantly) were over. We did catch the tail end of a talk being given at the France Pavilion. None of us really knew what was happening; however as we walked over a very eager greeter explained that the person speaking was a big deal professor in France, so we stayed for about twenty minutes. The presentation was really fascinating. It was also the basis for my first time using the real-time translating headphones, which was pretty dope.
We left the country pavilion (with many a-schedules in hand for future swag acquisition) and traveled from the Blue Zone to the Green Zone, which is the area where citizens not involved in the negotiations or conference are able to learn about climate change initiatives taking place in a variety of sectors. I attended my last two talks for the evening -- one focused on Youth’s Role in Advocating for and Understanding the Loss and Damage Mechanism and another, which was a round-robin presentation by a variety of university researchers highlighting their “in” for climate change. Again the extreme breadth of issues came to light from these presentations. While a distinct takeaway from this portion of my day was the different (and crucial/important) role that different demographics of the population can play in these negotiations. Even just within the two evening talks I went to the tones were completely unique from one another. While the Youth Panel was very activist oriented - focused on pushing governments to hear the needs of citizens and make radical decisions - the Research panel focused more on, understandably, the objective production of knowledge and how researchers can draw in support and interest for both their own research and climate change as a larger issue through their research. I think that I will be thinking about navigating these differential responsibilities and my personal role within this world (and beyond) as I continue to attend side events and negotiating meetings. I know there isn’t a right or wrong role and I do think that all groups are important for these negotiations to happen in a transparent and equitable way; however, I also think that discerning my personal position and/or value that can guide where I place myself will be crucial in this and many future spaces that I occupy.
With all of that, I sign off and head to bed! It’s about midnight in Marrakech and we have an early RINGO meeting tomorrow morning for which I have to be up and ready to go. Future updates will hopefully be more succint with the same detail -- I’m sure as negotiations decisions start coming out there will be many interesting and unexpected happenings.
Anywho… thanks for reading and enjoy the above pics from the past couple of days!
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