Katowice COP24 Thursday Dec 6

Day 5 of the conference in the books!

I’m beginning to realize that I personally don’t love the negotiations.

They were cool at first to be a part of and witness, but these longer ones that are super detail oriented are a big headache.

There are tons of contention points throughout a dense 9-page doc. I’m thinking, much props to these negotiators for being able to handle everything because it’s certainly a tough job. Especially those dealing with multiple texts.

Plus, I’m not even seeing what’s going on behind the scenes where they’re having hours of late-night informal meetings.

They’re able to keep track of what others are saying, relay what might be their belief, but is more likely on behalf on their country, build relationships and connect with other negotiators, and stay energetic and active for a long week.

I think one other piece that bothers me a bit on the mitigation guidance discussions— basically the paper that will be provided to countries to help them prepare their NDCs — is that there are tons of optional statements and grey area, so at this point it’s also hard to say how valuable and useful certain parts will even be.

I suppose that’s the nature and challenge of international negotiations, though.

It is special to see the progression of the text, and I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts when the end rolls around.

The rest of the day, I went to two sessions.

Building a Spirit of Solidarity to overcome the climate crisis

This was an awesome session with nice timing for me. It was basically an inspirational session on handling climate change, mobilizing people and collaborating with an awesome panel. There was an IPCC Co-Chair, the Director of Policy and Programs for the UNFCCC, the coordinator for the Indigenous Peoples of Chad, and a few more.

They really hit on the fact that climate change is a human issue. We created the problem (I guess it’s not an objective statement, but I’d say close to one), and it takes understanding, empathy and love in order to work to fix it.

One of the panelists made the point that every individual can play their part by being more conscious about their eating, transportation and energy use. I think, in theory, that’s awesome, but in practice hard to get people to buy in because every individual plays such a small role. I’m not necessarily opposed to being more thoughtful myself, but I think regardless of what I do, there’s not enough love, understanding, etc in the world at this point in time that enough people will make lifestyle changes to have a massive impact. Could be wrong on that, though.

Then there’s the point of just connecting with nature, realizing how special the planet is and how insignificant we are, individually, in comparison, leading to the conclusion that we should give the planet more attention and care. I love that point and think anyone that really takes time to look at the beauty, think about it, and spend time in nature could see that.

There weren’t too many actionable things that came from the discussion, but uplifting to hear these people who have committed their entire lives to this, regardless.

Brazil & the Paris Agreement: a second drop off?

The second side event was this one. I was honestly a bit disappointed because I wanted them to talk more about the new president and what could be done.

There was a bit of that, mixed with lots of pessimism about their climate agenda and ability to keep forests clean, but not much of solutions moving forward.

It blows me away how massive Brazil’s economy is, and how big of an environmental responsibility they have, despite having such shaky and often unstable government. The Amazon is the second largest forest in the world and deforestation can have a massive impact on climate change. A bit scary, and makes me want to learn more about what’s happening there. Especially since I loved Rio when I was there.

With just a few days left, I have some larger reflections

• The conference has been way more exhausting to me than I anticipated. There is a nonstop buzz of people, conversations, and events. While it was wildly cool at first, it is also exhausting. Any minute where I’m not at an event, talking with people, or exploring, I feel like I’m missing out. Which, in general, you could just say — you have to be patient with yourself — but it’s hard here when I’m at the conference for a week and there’s a chance I’ll never be back. Also has been teaching me some things about my introversion vs. extroversion.
• I was thinking today also about how big of an impact the space and set up of the event has. For one, each negotiating room could subtly be impacting the outcomes. There’s lots of data on physical spaces that I’m not going to dive into (largely because I don’t know it), but more natural lighting, different seating structures, etc could play an impact on outcomes. Furthermore, the small size of Katowice has led certain parties to travel far in order to get to the conference. Japan, for example, said yesterday (I believe) that they have to stop negotiating at around 8 pm since they’re staying 2 hours from the conference. In a major city, that same issue would likely not have existed. Even the lack of food/long lines everywhere you go could potentially be impacting outcomes and negotiators
• So much high level discussion. I have felt like there’s been tons of high level discussion about the pressing issues and need to change without diving into tangible, on-the-ground solutions. It’s important to understand the problem and get people excited, but I have grown a bit tired of hearing about the IPCC 1.5 degree report.
• The fact that this exists is special, in and of itself. Is this conference, the UNFCCC, and all else related the best allocation of these resources to solve climate change? I couldn’t definitively say yes. That said, I think the existence of this conference is some signal of care and of how challenging the problem is. 22,000 people have gathered here over two weeks to work on fixing the planet. I was thinking about why that might be, and that, likely, many of these people have felt a connection to the physical earth. To nature and all of the beauty and love that exists. They’ve taken that love to try and support a healthy future and world. There are also the people that are directly being impacted by climate change, but I think right now, those numbers aren’t a particularly high percentage of the attendees. It just shows that there’s this really special connection people have formed. I mean, some have dedicated their entire lives, wholeheartedly, to solving this problem, which is inspiring and wild to me.

Onward.