It’s Getting Hot In Here

COP15 in Copenhagen this December – the meeting where governments are set to decide whether they will come together to lead on solving climate change peacefully, or whether they force us to take things into our own hands – is not the only UN meeting on climate change this year. There are three important ‘intersessional’ meetings of the UNFCCC bodies and working groups – ‘Bonn 1′, in Germany for the first two weeks of April, ‘Bonn 2′, for the first two weeks in June, and ‘Bangkok’ in September. In addition, there is a meeting of heads of state in New York in September as well. This blog series covers updates on the negotiations as ‘Bonn 1′ and the youth activities there. There are between 20 and 30 youth in attendance, from Europe, Australia, Africa and North America.

The program of events at Bonn 1 is found here.

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Friday 27 March, 2009

Welcome to Bonn! Would you like some acronym soup? It’s our signature dish, served fresh at the UNFCCC pre-sessionals today, before next week’s AWG-KP & AWG-LCA inter-sessionals where nations of the world will meet to discuss LULUCF, REDD and REDD+, and MRV-able commitments from Annex 1 nations, among various other things.  I hope that the G77, AOSIS, the LDCs and JUSCANZ will be able to reach agreement.

I am in a big room at the ‘Maritim’ hotel in Bonn, Germany, for the ‘Pre-Sessional events’ – before the proper negotiations start on Sunday. There is a long desk on a stage at the front of the room, where the Chair of the session sits, alongside a rapporteur and the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer – who looks positively bored. I sort of feel sorry for him. There are rows of desks for the 196 countries of the world, with two seats of each. Then maybe another 300 seats for NGO representatives at the back of the room, which quickly filled up. For people who arrived late (like myself and about 50 others) we can sit on the floor in the corridors. There are also far too many lights on – a large star-shaped arrangement of decorative lightbulbs, crystals and mirrors adorns the ceiling.

Today, the Chairs of each of the UN negotiating bodies are giving presentations, giving their summary of the state of negotiations and their recommendations for focusing discussion over the next few weeks. They are taking clarifying question-and-answers from the plenary floor. It is a lot like in any consensus-based meeting of activists where we agree on the process before going on to discuss the content – except their all wearing suits and being very ‘polite’ – to me, the room seems bereft of the passion which should be evident when dealing with such important issues as the very future of the planet and humanity. And there are certainly no twinkling fingers in the air when someone says something that we support.

Negotiation and debate about the content has not yet started – this begins at the odd time of 3pm on Sunday – but we are already seeing many nations laying their cards on the table.

The Chair of the AWG-LCA (Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action) outlined his summary of the ‘Shared Vision’ that had been discussed in Poznan. His three central points were heartening: integrating climate change action with the eradication of poverty, a global transition to a low-emission future, and a science-based goal for reduction of GHGs. He then recommended that further discussions focus on long-term global emission reductions pathways, before opening the floor to questions. Most comments came from the most-affected nations.

Costa Rica and China both accused this focus for discussions as being too narrow, not the comprehensive ‘Shared Vision’ that they and the G77 supported. (The G77 is a group of at developing nations who negotiate together as a block.)

‘A shared vision is not just about emission reduction – it’s also about the level of financing for mitigation and adaptation.’

Brasil and Tuvalu piped up also:

‘A shared vision should include statements on minimising the impact on the most vulnerable nations’

Bangladesh stated that adaptation must also be included in a shared vision.

Barbados chimed in that at a technical session describing exactly what ’science based targets’ means (Monday, 1:15pm), they would like the opportunity ‘to present the scientific analysis behind the targets that they and AOSIS (the Alliance of Small Island States) propose’. The targets that AOSIS proposed are, of course, the most ambitious targets proposed by any party in the negotiations – as they are the nations most at risk. The science that they wish to present takes the most recent IPCC report and then goes further, with even more recent science. As the youth, we will support and work with the AOSIS nations to ensure that their messages are heard.

The most exciting statement of the morning came from the Marshall Islands. They themselves admitted jumping the gun a little and wanting to get straight into content of negotiations and debate, rather than these ‘process’ sessions, saying that is was because of the urgency and passion that they feel with the climate issue. We expect their statements to be repeated during negotiating sessions next week.

They said that the LCA ‘Shared Vision’ document ignores the concept of urgency, which is becoming ever-more apparent to anyone who is paying attention to the science. Then came a series of strong statements which sounded very familiar to any of the youth who had been in Poznan:

‘Science must not take a back seat to short-term economic concerns… if it does, this will ultimately lead to an unsignable agreement… We are in the uncomfortable position of negotiating for our sovereignty… our fundamental human rights… our survival. And our survival is not negotiable.

In Poznan, the Chair’s summary of the ministerial sessions stated that any agreement must ’safeguard the survival of all nations and people.’ End quote.”

Their impassioned words were received with an acknowledgment of the urgency that they feel, but a deferral of their issues to scheduled discussions next week. Boo.

Youth at Bonn 1 will be working together to promote the survival principle, to apply moral pressure to delegates through a new ‘How Old Will You Be in 2050?’ campaign, and we will be making ourselves visible as youth through various actions and media stunts. We will meet with delegations from the countries who promote policies similar to our own, and we will support their voices, as well as meeting with those countries whose policies are backwards, and applying pressure. We will be share our plans for the lead-up to COP15 – from youth movements and social movements more broadly – and discover how our negotiating allies would like to be involved. Our allies primarily include AOSIS, the LDCs, and Bolivia and Venezuela. Many of these nations are understandably frustrated with the UN negotiating process, especially as the science becomes more urgent, and we hope to help them channel this frustration into positive action.

Youth will also be meeting and organising within ourselves, on our plans for the rest of the year and into 2010. We will address the questions of how we will build the youth movement, how we will continue to work within the social movement space and the NGO space how we will relate to the UNFCCC process and to the public, and what activities we will undertake together to achieve our goals.

This evening’s session – ‘A workshop on issues relating to the scale of emission reductions to be achieved by Annex 1 countries’ (Read as ‘Will rich countries bother?’) should be fun – it could also be the first time that we hear from the negotiators of the Obama administration.

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Keep an eye on Its Getting Hot in Here for more updates.