By UN Rep Ayuska Motha, AIWC Cologne
We are now in week 2 of a 3 week block of virtual sessions for our UN Rep work at the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, actual negotiations on implementing the Paris Agreement to keep global warming to below 1.5C are not taking place right now. Since greenhouse gas emissions trajectories urgently need to be realigned with a 1.5C world by the end of this decade, delays in these negotiations are bad news! To prevent a complete standstill on UN global climate action during the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person negotiations twice a year have been replaced by virtual dialogues so that all 191 countries that have signed the Paris Agreement can continue to work together.
So far, as we saw in last spring’s virtual meetings, there have been quite a few technical and internet connection challenges, making progress slow and frustrating at times. Additional lessons learned from last year are that virtual meetings need to be limited to several hours per day, as well as rotating the time of day to cater to different time zones. For example, for the first week the times of the meetings were commonly 3 to 7 PM (Central European Time). The second week was 11 PM to 3 AM, and the final week will be starting around 4 AM and continuing until about 8 AM. So this time, we all have the experience of learning what it feels like to be up at odd hours of the day and night trying to listen and stay focused.
There are a few sticky issues that still need to be ironed out and were carried over from the last COP (Conference of the Parties, the UN Climate Negotiations) in Madrid in 2019. As is evident, we are quite overdue on coming to an agreement. This is why discussions still needed to take place, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The topics to be discussed further include climate finance, the global stocktake (a way to take a global, long term view of climate progress), the rules for an international carbon market and establishing common time frames for national climate pledges.
Toward the end of the 3 weeks, informal documents will be prepared to capture the progress made, and will be made available prior to the closing of the meetings. There have also been requests for additional meetings prior to the in-person COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021, so there may be additional meetings (either virtual or in-person) in the next few months.
To facilitate an in-person COP being able to take place, the UK just announced that they will be providing COVID-19 vaccines for all COP26 delegates. It is still not clear whether NGO observers like us and journalists will be included. Many observers have been requesting more information on COP logistics by the end of these virtual sessions. This news does give us hope that negotiations will be able to continue soon. Countries might be able to plan ahead and be able to feel that all are working collectively and equitably on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.