Disclaimer: This post is excessively long as it was a series of reflections on each of the events I attended on the first day. I expect the length to be shortened as the conference goes on and I develop a better understanding on concepts, context, and language of the negotiations.
One of the most gratifying thing of my preparation to the conference was activating my network. When I was given the opportunity to attend the Climate Change Conference (or SBSTA50), I was not very prepared, and I had about a week to figure out logistics, content, and intention for my participation at the UN event. So I went on to Facebook and Instagram, and I activated the incredible network the United World Colleges, and College of the Atlantic gave me. In less than a week, I had a place to stay, a group of people to connect week, and a list of suggestions as to how to approach the experience. I am really thankful for the people that is part of these networks, they are more often than not willing to help and mentor those of us growing and learning, it is a really humbling experience to work with them.
Having said that, I had a vague idea of what I was getting myself into. I ended up renting an AirBnB in St. Agustin (about 40 minutes away from the UN Campus) with folks from a French organization called CliMates (click here to check out their website). Some of them are also new to the negotiation space, but most of them had a previous background working for the UN. We spent our first night together preparing for the conference and sharing knowledge and experience about what we were about to get ourselves into. By the end of the night, I had downloaded the Climate Action Network App, the UN Climate Change App, the DB Bahn Navigator, was part of two new Whatsapp/Slack groups, and was one step more prepared to go.
Demand Climate Justice #pollutersout
So what is it like to arrive at the UN? I started the day at a small protest coordinated by the Demand Climate Justice Network (DCJ), with folks from Corporate Accountability, UK Youth Climate Coalition, SustainUS. The campaign they are promoting is #pollutersout (check this link for more information on it), where they are trying to create Conflict of Interests policy and push big polluter corporations (such as Shell or Exxon) out of the negotiation spaces.
Being a tiny Chilean boy from Linares who grew up in a very small world, coming to the UN (for the second time in my life, the first time being a Model United Nations in The Hague in 2013) is fascinating and impressive, although also very confusing. I mention this because not many people from the community I was born in gets to leave the town, let alone come to the United Nations, and is one of those experiences where culture plays a very significant role in making successful relationships and networking, and to become assimilated might be a rather difficult process. To me, this is a reflection of global, regional and country-wide inequality which seems to play a role in the context of Climate Negotiations.
YOUNGO Spokescouncil
The first meeting I attended was an introduction to YOUNGO, the Children and Youth Constituency of the UN. The space is organized and held by young people from all over the world and as a constituency it has a space in the plenary sessions of the UN, this means that it has got a voice and it has the opportunity to make interventions during the negotiation space. In other words, this is “the voice of young people of the world” and it is a very inspiring space, although it is as important as it is problematic. It is too early for me to make an assessment on the demographics of YOUNGO delegates at the conference, but most seem to be familiar with the space and the environment which is reflective of a very specific type of education, an education that is not necessarily something that I have seen present in Chile, the country where COP25 will be held next year, although once again full disclaimer: I have not lived in Chile in six years, for which I am not totally familiar with how political education is currently being dealt with at a high school and undergraduate level in the country. Important area to do more research in as we head into COP25 work.
Press Conference:
After YOUNGO’s meeting I went to a press conference held by DCJ. This event was of particular importance for me to begin learning about the narrative around issues of climate justice. The press conference congregated Demand Climate Justice, Third World Network, Action Aid International, Global Forest Coalition, Viento Sur and Corporate Accountability. All of these organizations talked about climate justice from multiple perspectives and most of them were represented by individuals coming from the Global South (India, Nepal, Chile, Colombia), consistent to the philosophies behind their demands. In the context of Climate Change (CC) and Global Inequality, not all countries are prepared in the same way to face the impacts of CC: cyclones in Mozambique or floods in Kerala are significantly more devastating than those in the US; in the same manner, reparations to infrastructure takes a lot longer in the former countries than in the latter. This is due to many reasons, but one of the most prevalent in these organizations’ discourse is that of finance. Other themes discussed were Agriculture and Food Systems (including Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay); and a conflict of interest policy that has also not been articulated, leaving mostly countries in the global south vulnerable to the impact of big polluting corporations in climate negotiations.
UNCC: Learn
After the press conference I attended a session from United Nations Climate Change: Learn platform, where they gave us an overview about their way of integrating Climate Change Learning in nation-wide educational systems which was incredibly interesting. For more information, I recommend check their website but I will probably be writing a short post on their approach soon. Their top 5 tips in developing Climate Change learning in developing countries are: Involve everybody, make it visible, bring the environment and education sector together, build the capacity of learning institutions, and think about resource mobilization from the very beginning. In a context where Climate Change education is becoming crucial in addressing the issue, and in the context where there are large groups of youth from all over the world getting involved in environmental action and social change (with youth movements like Extinction Rebellion and Youth for Future gaining momentum) the UNCC: Learn platform offers a good opportunity to build well-informed youth environmental movements, which in my eyes falls under the line of Peace Education as well and I believe should absolutely be included in the development of Peace Education Programs.
Outcomes from COP24
Later in the afternoon, I attended a panel presentation organized by the Third World Network on the Outcomes from COP24. The panel included Wael Aboulmagd, Head of Delegation (HoD) of Egypt; Ivan Zambrana (HoD) from Bolivia; Zaheer Fakir, G77 and Chair Coordinator of Finance), and Ravi Prasad, HoD of India.
While recognizing the progress on international agreements, the panel also highlighted ongoing conversations that have not seen much progress including: common time frame, finance, and issues of transparency, stressing the issue of Finance in the context of Loss and Damage, a big concern for developing countries vulnerable to Climate Change. One of the biggest questions Ravi Prasad proposed was: how will equity be operationalized in the implementation process? He also stressed that in terms of agenda, some aspects of the Paris Agreement have no shape including: sustainable ways of living, production and consumption; Climate Justice; Circular Economy, production system; and leadership of developed countries. The latter theme, came up several times and there seems to be consistent agreements amongst the representatives of the parties that I had a chance to observe on the fact that there needs to be better articulation on how developed countries are going to contribute to mitigation and adaptation strategies for developing countries. The HoD of Egypt emphasized this several times: developing nations want to do the work but they lack the resources to do so effectively, for which developed countries need to take leadership in supporting Climate Change initiatives.
Specific to the theme of finance and international cooperation was contributions to the GCF. The GCF has a goal of 100 billion USD to finance mitigation and adaptation initiatives. The number does not seem impossible when you consider that the US spends over five times the GCF’s goal on their military spending. One of the things that I understood (or rather I am in the process of understanding) from Zaheer Fakir’s presentation was that while funding for the GCF has been progressively increasing, the issue is a lot more complex than just numbers. For instance the type of funding, whether I is a loan or a grand, makes a huge difference in the approach to climate projects. If the funding source is a loan, then the money must be repaid, which means that the project must generate a particular amount of revenue. What happens is that many of the mitigation and adaptation strategies do not necessarily bring back revenue, although they might save stakeholders from larger spending due to climate catastrophes. In that context, is that another problem is created within the issue of funding.