Another year, another COP

So here I am in Katowice, Poland attending COP24, my 10th COP. There is a familiarity to the routine for us veterans: getting our official badges at registration, going through security, negotiating a maze of hallways, plenary and meeting rooms and exhibit halls, and running into familiar faces in the corridors -- COP buddies.

The entrance to the COP24 venue

But for anyone attending their first international climate meeting, getting that official U.N. badge is pretty exciting.

Jessica getting her first credentials for a COP

What has become the familiar to me, can be an overwhelming maze of confusion for newbies!

Navigating one part of "Section B" of A-G at COP24
(Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth)

The jargon and alphabet soup of acronyms of the UNFCCC alone can drive you crazy. The Daily Programme (why is there an extra "me" at the end of that word anyway?) is like an agenda, but the schedule and what events are open to civil society observers can change at a moment's notice. Side events, countless negotiation tracks, work programmes, APA, press conferences, climate actions, briefings, and yes, even informal informals. (I kid you not.) As a scientist, I shrug off the terminology; after all, the science community has plenty of its own. But at times, these conferences have a circus-like atmosphere.

A Climate Action
(Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth)

Over the years, I have learned to find events of interest to me, knowing I can get updates at a morning RINGOS meeting, over coffee with colleagues, or by reading key newsletters and bulletins like Climate Action Network's ECO (from the non-governmental environmental groups), the IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin, or the ones from Third World Network. Each provides a unique perspective on what is happening daily at the COPs.

Having coffee with a current and former student and a collaborator

Along with each new COP comes new jargon. Last year, although COP23 was in Bonn, Germany, it was officially presided over by Fiji. (I know which location I would have rather traveled to in November!)  A new process launched there was referred to as a Talanoa Dialog. Talanoa is apparently "a traditional word used in Fiji and across the Pacific to reflect a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue." In 2011, COP17 was held in Durban, South Africa and we had the Indaba sessions. This may sound good (and exotic), but these are traditionally conferences held by important men of the Zulu or Xhosa people of South Africa. (A substantial gender action plan was finally established at COP23.)

The "flavor" (or would that be flavour?) of the host country or city always permeates these events. This year, the Katowice Rule Book is the projected outcome and will serve as the operating manual, if you will, for the Paris Agreement. That agreement was forged (in Paris, of course) in 2015. Does it really take three years to develop the rules of an agreement that took 21 years of negotiating? Prior to this COP, this was all referred to as PAWP (the Paris Agreement Work Programme.) 😏

Key phrases that we are hearing early in this COP include the IPCC SR 1.5°C, the need to raise ambition on NDCs (not a new concept), and "Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration." You need to know a bit of Polish and Katowice history to understand that last one and to be familiar with the UNFCCC history for the others. If you are really interested, I provided links to help you out.

Also in these early days of the conference, I am hearing a lot about adaptation -- learning to live and minimize risk and damage to property and lives under a new climate regime or our new normal. Today, the WHO launched a special report for COP 24 "Health and Climate Change." Linking improvement of human health and saving lives to climate action is a pretty smart move, but also a bit ironic given the air quality in this coal-dominated country. 

Climate finance discussions are ongoing (still) and are particularly thorny when representatives from industrialized (developed) nations are in the same room as people from developing nations. There are significantly more references this year to climate-smart agriculture and landscape restoration as a form of resilience. For the later, think reforestation, but not necessarily with native or indigenous trees, but rather with ones that can provide food or a source of income. This may be good for people and for addressing poverty, but less so for biodiversity/other species. Conversations of balancing climate change action with sustainable development come up frequently at COP meetings. Balancing social and ecological needs - not so much.

In subsequent posts, I will discuss some of these topics in more detail. For now, I will leave you with the best quote so far from COP24 by fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden:

Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago.