Each day, Fred Heutte, lead volunteer for the Sierra Club’s Federal and International Climate Campaign, is providing updates about the day’s events at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference.  I will reprint these in this blog with his permission.

Fred Heutte

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9 — There was a lot of anticipation for the release of a new negotiating text, but when it finally appeared Wednesday afternoon it was immediately clear that it lacked ambition even in the limited political bounds of this COP.

A lengthy evening review session of the Paris Committee showed general support for the French presidency’s process going forward, but highlighted a great many concerns across both the draft Paris Agreement and the COP decision.

While the text reduced the draft Agreement from 22 down to 14 pages and removed a lot of brackets, all the key issues remained and in some cases the opposing proposals were even farther apart.

Art in the Green Zone at COP 21.

THURSDAY, DEC. 10 — This was a pivotal day for the negotiations. After being postponed several times, a new text was finally issued just after 9 p.m. After a brief Paris Committee meeting, there was a two-hour break while countries and observers separately reviewed the new revision.

The new draft arrived in the proper order. Now the draft COP 21 decision goes first, and the Paris Agreement is attached as an annex. This sets up the final COP plenary on Saturday, which will adopt both as a single package.

The new Paris Agreement text is now 14 pages, and removes most of the brackets and many of the minor options. Remaining are key issues that will be in play until the hour, early Saturday morning, when the French presidency determines things are close enough to propose a final text.

Broadly speaking, as we knew for the last couple of years during the development of the Durban Platform and the run-up to Paris, this will be a deal reflecting the political state of play among the world’s nations at this time, and not fully encompassing the reality of climate change and the what the science is saying.

Within that context, our reaction to the Thursday text is fairly positive, and it is going to be the high water mark for this process. It is much better on the five-year cycle of stocktaking and new contributions (plans for mitigation, adaptation, etc.) from all countries, quite good on the process for providing finance to developing countries and language supporting a progressive increase post-2020 from the $100 billion per year level, a strong long-term climate goal, and moving forward with a coherent technology transfer program with social and environmental integrity.

The text is weaker on other aspects and particularly messy on loss and damage, where the U.S. “safe harbor” language ruling out any liability or compensation is now on the table and threatens to undermine the entire loss and damage section.

Our assessment of the Thursday text

What we like:

• 1.5 degrees referenced in Article 2
• Long-term goal of greenhouse gas emissions neutrality within the second half of the century guided by science
• Five-year cycles of INDCs starting in 2020
• Global stocktake for mitigation and finance every five years starting 2023
• Floor of $100 billion climate finance with cycles of review

Parts we don’t love:

• Just transition, human rights and other elements of the “Paris principles” only in Preamble, which is non-binding language — but at least they are there
• Transparency and verification are still in flux with options

Ministers pulled another all-nighter to respond and try to influence the text behind closed doors. In these last hours we are pushing hard to retain the strong parts of the text and against the bad options that remain.

Informal very high level negotiations will continue throughout the day on Friday and a final text may now appear on Saturday morning, with a Paris Committee and plenary meeting probably around noon, but clearly the timeline is a moment by moment matter at this stage.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[x] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries,
start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[x] Wednesday 2 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Thursday 3 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Friday 4 – revised ADP text 8 a.m.
[x] Saturday 5 closing ADP plenary, COP plenary
[x] Monday 7 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[x] Tuesday 8 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[x] Wednesday 9, Paris Committee
[x] Thursday 10, Paris Committee
[ ] Friday 11, Paris Committee
[ ] Saturday 12 (extra time), closing COP plenary

Each day, Fred Heutte, lead volunteer for the Sierra Club’s Federal and International Climate Campaign, is providing updates about the day’s events at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference.  I will reprint these in this blog with his permission.

Fred Heutte

SUNDAY, DEC. 6 — While no formal sessions occurred on Sunday, the French presidency was engaged in a constant round of consultations with groups and countries both on the emerging content of the Paris agreement and COP 21 decision and on the process for the rest of the week. Four subgroups set up on Saturday began their meetings:

• Support: means of implementation (finance, technology, capacity building)
• Differentiation, in particular with regard to mitigation, finance, transparency
• Ambition, including long-term goals and periodic review
• Acceleration of pre-2020 Action, Workstream 2 excluding pre-2020 finance

MONDAY, DEC. 7 — The two-day High Level Segment began. This is a regular feature of every annual COP where ministers give 3-minute speeches (many of the texts are available on the UNFCCC web site) while one-on-one and group discussions are happening all around the conference center.

Indigenous people’s flotilla, Sunday, December 6

The French presidency began setting up new subgroups on:

• Adaptation and loss & damage
• Preamble
• Forests
• Cooperative approaches and mechanisms
• Response measures
• Facilitating implementation and compliance

With all negotiating sessions closed and only the daily “stocktake” at 7 p.m. on screens and the webcast, civil society observers including the Sierra Club were very busy finding out what was actually being discussed and the stress points on a wide range of issues. The stocktakes are basically a place to put the best possible face on the state of play and also to see if there are serious objections on process or the substance. So far, with very little actual removal of options, and the strong leadership of the French presidency, there haven’t been any serious objections.

A major development of the day was the re-emergence of a 1.5 degree global warming target alongside the long-established 2 degrees. This is roughly the Sierra Club position (supporting 350 ppm). Quite a few countries including Canada and Australia are indicating openness to 1.5 degrees as at least something to aim for, joining over 100 developing countries that have long supported a 1.5 degree goal.

TUESDAY, DEC. 8 — Work continued throughout the day in closed ministerial meetings. In the evening, COP President Fabius laid out the procedure for the rest of the week:

• An initial draft of the final Paris Agreement and COP decision by 1 pm on Wednesday afternoon. We anticipate the Paris Agreement draft will probably be reduced from 22 pages to around 15.
• The draft will be released for the Paris Committee at 1 p.m. (later moved to 3 p.m.), then a break of several hours to study the new draft. A second Paris Committee meeting will then be held and this is a critical moment because options are now being taken off the table and the final trade-offs among key elements will start to emerge.

Civil society including the Sierra Club pushed hard throughout the day for the package of human rights, gender equality, just transition, rights of indigenous peoples and other elements that will signal that the Paris Agreement is not only an agreement of governments but will also actively include all people.

A new ministerial group met in the evening to discuss these and other elements as part of the Preamble. On the “just transition” language, which the Sierra Club has strongly supported alongside the trade union movement, countries offering support included Brazil, Argentina and Canada. And in a positive step forward, the United States and Norway said they would support just transition not only in the Preamble but in Article 3 (mitigation) — thanks in part to a Twitter campaign by the AFL-CIO, their first ever on climate.

On the substantive issues, we heard report backs from a small group meeting with the French presidency that many parts of the draft Paris Agreement are not strong at the moment.

Some of the problem areas include lack of a specific date for the “long term goal” for emissions reduction, no process for updating nationally determined contributions before 2020, and no adaptation finance before 2020 and vague provisions after that, and a standoff on loss and damage.

The larger questions of how much real “review” the whole Paris Agreement will have, and how much finance developed countries will provide to developing countries, especially the most vulnerable, remain the big crunch issues for the rest of the week.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[x] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries,
start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[x] Wednesday 2 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Thursday 3 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Friday 4 – revised ADP text 8 am
[x] Saturday 5 closing ADP plenary, COP plenary
[x] Sunday 6 [COP 21 closed, informal consultations]
[x] Monday 7 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[x] Tuesday 8 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[ ] Wednesday 9, Paris Committee
[ ] Thursday 10
[ ] Friday 11 closing COP plenary

further info: phred@sunlightdata.com

Each day, Fred Heutte, lead volunteer for the Sierra Club’s Federal and International Climate Campaign, is providing updates about the day’s events at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference.  I will reprint these in this blog with his permission.

Fred Heutte

FRIDAY, DEC. 4 — The Compilation Text becomes the Bridging Proposal

The conference resumed Friday morning with the issuance of a revised text and a new “bridging proposal” from the ADP co-chairs consisting of a reduced form of the text with some consolidated language. While the length didn’t decrease all that much, from 46 to 38 pages, there were fewer “brackets” — disputed parts of the text. A lot fewer, in fact — the brackets decreased from about 1700 to under 900.

In the past, whenever the COP president or ad-hoc co-chairs have presented a reduced form like this, there has usually been a long delay while countries and groups review whether their key options have been retained.

In October, when the ADP co-chairs put out a reduced text that removed a lot of options, there was an immediate outcry and most of the pieces were put back. But this time, after about a three-hour break, Parties were willing to try and move forward.

Sierra Club booth in the Climate Generations space.

Friday afternoon, they tried to do so in several stages. First, they began going through the text section by section. This lasted long enough for Parties to go on record on Article 2 — the human rights, just transition, gender equality and other elements broadly supported by civil society.

The co-chairs’ bridging proposal only retained the human rights and gender language but also copy-and-pasted the rest into the preamble — the position taken by the United States and Norway which got them (and Saudi Arabia for broader blocking) a Fossil of the Day from Climate Action Network.

Supporting the Article 2 language were the ABC countries — Argentina, Brazil and notably, Canada, which under the new Liberal government is a lot more responsive to the broad wishes of the Canadian public.

But the section by section review soon bogged down, and Parties agreed to state only key points they wanted added to the text. That also moved very slowly, and just when it looked like the session would go on all night, around 8 p.m. the ADP contact group agreed to adjourn for the evening and let the co-chairs prepare a “reflection note” summarizing all the requests for additions to the bridging proposal.

This was a remarkable and nearly unique development. The UNFCCC negotiations are renowned for going hours and days repeating existing positions, which may add to slightly better understanding of where countries stand, but often amounts to just marching in place. Because trust among countries has been so weak, especially since COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009, there has been very little willingness to let session chairs move the text forward.

So these developments Friday evening signalled two things: the strength of the French presidency’s consultative approach and overall strategy for COP 21, and the universal recognition that with the clock running out, continuing long-established negotiating patterns finally had reached the end of the line.

2013-15 Review Not Adopted

One more important development happened Friday. In the separate closing plenaries of the SBI and SBSTA, there was a political defeat for vulnerable developing countries and their many allies including environmental NGOs.

AOSIS (small island states) and LDCs (least developed countries) have long advocated for a 1.5 degree C global temperature goal (roughly equivalent to 350 ppm), going beyond the 2 degree goal of the political statement in the Copenhagen Accords, later formalized at COP 16 in Cancun.

In 2010, after a major battle with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, there was agreement to assess both the 2 and 1.5 degree targets in light of the emerging science, especially the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC issued in 2013-14. This was called the “2013-15 Review” and was conducted jointly by the SBI and SBSTA.

The Fifth Assessment Report concluded that 1.5 is still a possible outcome, if emission reduction efforts ramp up substantially and quickly, and a committee report reflected that conclusion. Since even a 2 degree global temperature increase would cause severe problems in vulnerable countries, and might result in abandonment of some small island countries due to storms and sea level rise, 1.5 degrees is the maximum reasonably safe level for many parts of the world.

However, Saudi Arabia (with support from other OPEC countries) blocked adoption of the 2013-15 Review, and the matter has been referred to the COP for possible action next week.

SATURDAY, DEC. 5 — The Bridging Proposal becomes the Draft Paris Outcome

Saturday morning, the big question was whether the ADP would have an agenda fight over the bridging proposal and the co-chairs “reflection note.” But in a very short ADP contact group followed by an ADP closing plenary, there were no objections to handing the package off to the COP, now labelled as the Draft Paris Outcome and consisting of the draft Paris Agreement and the draft COP decision.

And the ADP, the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, went out of business and into history.

Again there were concerns about stalling or agenda fights, but when the COP plenary resumed shortly after 6 pm, it became clear that all groups were ready to move forward, and the Draft Paris Outcome now contains the texts for consideration by ministers over the next several days.

COP President Laurent Fabius got agreement to a simple structure for the negotiations through Wednesday or early Thursday:

• Four subgroups, each with co-chairs, one minister from the global South and one from the North:
• An “open ended contact group” informally called the Paris Committee, which will have at least a daily stocktaking meeting that will be on screens in the conference center but not on the Web.
  1. Finance and means of implementation (MOI), to be chaired by Ministers of Gabon and Germany
  2. Differentiation, especially as it relates to mitigation, finance and transparency, to be chaired by Ministers of Brazil and Singapore
  3. Ambition and Long-term Goal, Ministers to be decided (we learned Sunday one will be Catherine McKenna, the new environment minister of Canada)
  4. Pre-2020 sction (“Workstream 2”), though finance under WS2 to be discussed under Finance group, with Ministers to be decided
• Separate “legal and linguistic” technical committee to review the draft text on Wednesday and Thursday.

Fabius made it clear the COP presidency intends to finish the negotiations on the text Wednesday or Thursday morning at the latest, with the possibility of final “crunch issues” being decided at the top level while the text is going through legal review. That would lead to final adoption of the Paris Agreement Friday evening, if not precisely by the 6 p.m. official deadline.

That would be a near-miracle given the long history of UNFCCC meetings running late, later and very very late. But with an unambitious overall structure already pretty much locked in, the French presidency’s very strong, and political buy-in from the world’s leaders last week, it is a fairly possible timeline.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[x] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries,
start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[x] Wednesday 2 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Thursday 3 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Friday 4 – revised ADP text 8 am
[x] Saturday 5 closing ADP plenary, COP plenary
[x] Sunday 6 [COP 21 closed, informal consultations]
[ ] Monday 7 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[ ] Tuesday 8 High Level Segment, Paris Committee
[ ] Wednesday 9, Paris Committee
[ ] Thursday 10
[ ] Friday 11 closing COP plenary

further info: phred@sunlightdata.com

Each day, Fred Heutte, lead volunteer for the Sierra Club’s Federal and International Climate Campaign, is providing updates about the day’s events at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference.  I will reprint these in this blog with his permission.

Fred Heutte

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2 — The day was mostly occupied with Spin-Off Groups and an evening ADP stocktaking plenary that also included COP President Laurent Fabius.

Fabius and the ADP co-chairs expressed concern about the slow pace of the spinoffs.  We heard rumors that in fact Fabius was unhappy with the inability of the co-chairs to get more forward motion going on reducing options in the text.  But for those with some experience in the process, this is a pretty typically mid-first-week sag.

The problem, however, is that this COP doesn’t have another week and a half to wrap up.  The ADP’s work will be done Saturday, and then there are effectively three negotiating days next week to finalize the Paris Agreement.

THURSDAY, Dec. 3 — The ADP scheduled no less than 18 Spin-Off Groups during the day, a couple lasting as long as six hours. The topics ranged across the entire negotiating text, but again it was evident that only small amount of progress is being made on reducing options and finding convergence where there are two or three different positions.

In addition, the cross-cutting aspects of many issues adds to the complexity, because if movement occurs on one issue, it could affect the result in two or more others.  With a decade of experience avoiding uncomfortable results of that kind, negotiators again have chosen to play it safe.

Unlike the Spin-Off Groups which are off-limits to observers, the ADP Contact Group had its session on screens in the hall, but the results weren’t any better.  This lengthy session was split into two three hour segments, one before and one after lunch, then a break at 6 p.m., and a short stocktaking session.

The upshot was the very eloquent recital of very long-standing positions, and no apparent movement on almost any of the key questions.  While it was always expected that negotiators would be very cautious, things have moved slower than anyone hoped this week.

Compilation Text

Thursday morning, the co-chairs released a temporary compilation text, but only reduced the length by about four pages.  Now the hard part starts.

Thursday evening, facilitators for the Spin-Off Groups generally reported that progress was starting to be made but more time is needed.

But at long last, after four years and 12 official sessions of the ADP (some stretching across more than one meeting period), there is no more time for Spin-Off Groups and other informal meetings.  And now the ADP Contact Group will meet continuously on Friday to consider the new revised text and a separate document with bridging proposals, and try to make real progress by late Friday night.

Article 2

One important element does seem to be moving in the wrong direction.  Along with environmental and labor colleagues, the Sierra Club worked strenuously this week on Article 2 (Purpose of the Paris Agreement) to preserve the language referring to protection of natural ecosystems, just transition of the workforce and creation of decent work, human rights for all, including indigenous peoples, and gender equality.

The language was in part the result of efforts across all of civil society last year to come up with a package approach covering the social and economic rights of all sectors.  But the language has been stuck in a battle between countries wanting it in the legally effective “operational” part of the text such as Article 2, influencing all of the other parts, or the legally inconsequential Preamble.

The rationale is that these aspects of rights and responsibilities are not part of “the purpose of the Agreement” — as stated in the “long term goal” of the first part of Article 2.

But the Club and many others have been arguing that including this language is essential to show that the climate transition must not only be effective in reaching the long term goal, but fair in how the world gets there.  The Paris Agreement will be decided by governments, but only the people can give it life.

It all started Sunday evening when Norway proposed moving the language out of Article 2 elsewhere — to the adaptation text, and maybe the text on technology, or mitigation — well, it wasn’t entirely clear.

But today, the United States (which supports the elements but only if they are in the Preamble) joined Norway in blocking compromise language — and it appears this will tip the balance toward moving the language to the Preamble, where it is still vulnerable and not actionable.  While work continues in some of the thematic areas like adaptation to incorporate this “keystone”  text, some hope remains because both Brazil and Canada signaled strong support for keeping the language in Article 2.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[x] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries,
start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[x] Wednesday 2 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[x] Thursday 3 – Spin-Off Groups, ADP stocktaking
[ ] Friday 4 – revised ADP text 8 a.m.
[ ] Saturday 5 closing ADP plenary, COP plenary
[ ] Sunday 6 [COP 21 closed]
[ ] Monday 7 High Level Segment
[ ] Tuesday 8 High Level Segment
[ ] Wednesday 9
[ ] Thursday 10
[ ] Friday 11 closing COP plenary

further info: phred@sunlightdata.com

Each day, Fred Heutte, lead volunteer for the Sierra Club’s Federal and International Climate Campaign, is providing updates about the day’s events at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference.  I will reprint these in this blog with his permission.

Fred Heutte

TUESDAY, DEC. 1 — Today was mostly a day for opening plenaries and informal (non-public) ADP spin-off groups, and there is little of substance to report yet (but a huge amount of rumors), so it’s a good time to review the basic meeting structure of the UNFCCC.

Conference Structure

This year’s UN climate conference actually consists of five overlapping meetings. As of Tuesday, all five are now up and running for COP 21. To give their acronyms: COP, SBI, SBSTA, CMP and ADP.

At the top is the COP — the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Under the COP are two permanent advisory bodies — the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). The SBs meet twice a year, in June and alongside the annual COP.

Columns with flags for each country at the entrance to the Paris climate conference.

The SBI and SBSTA do a fair amount of routine work taking in updates and issuing reports, but they also play a wide variety of roles assisting the COP. The SBI, for example, sets meeting dates, manages elections for chairs and other positions for all the bodies, national greenhouse gas emissions inventory reports, and various technical reviews.

Among the things on the SBSTA’s agenda are oversight of the Nairobi Work Programme on adaptation, the Technology Mechanism, issues related to agriculture, the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, and so on and so on.

Going forward after the Paris Agreement is concluded, the SBI and SBSTA will actually become more prominent and important because they will also advise what is provisionally being called the CMA, the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement.

The Kyoto Protocol, which continues until 2020, is overseen by the Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of the Parties, usually called CMP (formerly COP-MOP).

And the temporary group set up at COP 17 in December 2011 to develop and negotiate the Paris Agreement and associated decisions is the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, always called the ADP. This group will probably go out of existence on Saturday, when it hands off the Paris Agreement and decision texts to the COP.

Information on all these bodies and their agendas can be found at http://unfccc.int/2860.php

Meeting Structure

Each of the five bodies — the COP and the SBI, SBSTA, CMP and ADP — have a formal decision-making body that meets in a Plenary. Those meetings are totally open to Parties, observers and media and are broadcast on the web. The webcasts can be watched (and a few hours after the fact, replayed) at http://unfccc.int/meetings/paris_nov_2015/meeting/8926/php/view/webcasts.php

The formal requirements for conducting business in Plenaries means that negotiating bodies like the ADP often create a Contact Group for much of their work. Contact Groups are still usually open to Parties and observers (but not, by tradition, to media), and not on the web. Today, for example, the ADP Contact Group reconvened and is guiding the remaining negotiations for the ADP this week. This is where reports from the spinoff (or Spin-Off) groups come back and countries debate the broad issues for the Paris Agreement.

Below the Contact Group can be a variety of even more temporary and specialized groups. Lately the term has been Spin-Off Group or SOG. These usually have a fairly narrow scope such as the Spin-Off Group on Capacity Building. Their job is supposed to be considering the options in the text and “finding points of convergence” and “landing zones.” But in practice, while they help clarify country positions on many issues, they haven’t proven very good at narrowing the options.

So — starting from the bottom in the ADP this week … the Spin-Off Groups will increase understanding of the options and maybe recommend some directions. The ADP Contact Group will convene daily for “stocktaking” and then a semi-final draft will be issued by this Friday at 8 a.m. On Saturday morning the ADP Plenary is supposed to approve the final draft and forward it to the COP, which will have a plenary on Saturday afternoon and set the stage for week 2.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[x] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries,
start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[ ] Wednesday 2
[ ] Thursday 3
[ ] Friday 4 – revised ADP text 8 am
[ ] Saturday 5 closing ADP plenary, COP plenary
[ ] Sunday 6 [COP 21 closed]
[ ] Monday 7 High Level Segment
[ ] Tuesday 8 High Level Segment
[ ] Wednesday 9
[ ] Thursday 10
[ ] Friday 11 closing COP plenary

further info: phred@sunlightdata.com