Sierra club | Cathy's Class Blog

Sunday, December 6 – Elizabeth May, indigenous flotilla, sightseeing, ECO

December 6 2015January 11, 2016

Today started with a Sierra Club meeting at 10 a.m., with special guest Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party in Canada, and sent by the new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as part of the Canadian delegation to the COP 21 climate talks. May was president of the Sierra Club Canada for 17 years before going into politics to oppose the previous Harper administration.

Elizabeth May briefs the Sierra Club

Most of May’s briefing to the Sierra Club delegation was confidential, and in any case was so high level and inside Canadian politics that I did not follow some of it. But there are a few things I can pass along that are public knowledge. First, she talked a lot about the difference between 1.5 degrees C in warming and 2 degrees C. It is a big difference. Basically it means the difference between whether some entire nations, especially low-lying island nations and coastal regions, continue to exist. The chant at the conference “1.5 to stay alive” is not just rhetoric. It’s a very real issue for millions if not billions of people across the world (not to mention so many other species).

Another thing May said is that the Green Party of Canada supports a carbon fee and dividend proposal much like the Citizens Climate Lobby proposal – in fact, I think CCL may have based its proposal on the Canadian Green Party. This is the party’s official position. May is not a fan of cap and trade – she said it has a lot of overhead costs and is subject to manipulation, loopholes, and corruption. However, if I understood her correctly, she would prefer to see some form of carbon pricing over none, including cap and trade, which is important because Ontario and Quebec just joined with the California cap and trade market. California says it has learned lessons from the problems with cap and trade in the EU, and that its market will work better. The proof there is in the pudding, and we will see how this turns out.

Indigenous flotilla in Paris

After the Sierra Club briefing, I had to choose between two actions. One was at the Eiffel Tower, the other an indigenous people’s flotilla. I wasn’t clear on the Eiffel Tower action (though it turned out to be beautiful), so I went with the flotilla. It did not disappoint. A line of indigenous people spanned the bridge above the Bassin de la Villette canal where the flotilla was to take place, singing and beating drums. Then the canoes and kayaks came in, including the Sarayaku people’s “Canoe of Life” which had traveled 6000 miles to Paris from the Amazon.

Afterward was a press conference. I got in with my Citizens Voice badge and heard several speakers including:

Felix Santi (Kichwa): President of the Kichwa community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon, speaking about the Canoe of Life and the Living Forest concept;
Faith Gemmill (Gwich’in & Pit River/Wintu): Executive Director of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands, speaking on the Declaration to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground;
Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca): Native rights activist, environmentalist and actress, speaking on the Indigenous Women’s Treaty; and
Ena Santi (Kichwa): Sarayaku Council Member in charge of Women’s Issues, speaking on the Indigenous Women’s Treaty

Indigenous flotilla in Paris

They spoke about how indigenous people know better than anyone how to manage resources such as forests sustainably and with respect for nature, about the need to keep oil and gas companies from destroying resources to get to fossil fuels which must remain in the ground, and about a proposal they were presenting to the COP21 conference. See more coverage here.

After the flotilla I went to the Westin Vendome downtown to pick up my badge for the Earth to Paris conference taking place Monday. The organizers highly recommended that we get our badges in advance as that way we could skip the line for admission and go straight to security. I was glad I did as the security line was long enough.

Jardin des Tuileries

That put me downtown, which I had not as yet been to, so I took the opportunity to play tourist. First I walked the entire length of the Jardin des Tuileries, which is like the Central Park of Paris full of different kinds of trees. Lots of kids and families were about, and a guy even asked me for directions in French, so I must have looked like I knew what I was doing. At the far end of the Tuileries is the Louvre. I didn’t go in, but I did take some pics on the famous Louvre plaza which includes the modern pyramid. I’d like to find out how that pyramid got built there – it looks very out of place in the 16th century setting. But everyone including me wanted to get photos.

The Louvre pyramid

After that I got dinner at the best restaurant I’ve been to in Paris called Les Bis Repetita, which I found with the help of Yelp. One thing I like about French restaurants is that tax and tip are included in the price — so no guessing as to what to tip. Then I walked back toward Champs Elysees and saw the Ferris wheel lit up at night, which is a lot bigger up close than it looks from far away.

Champs Elysees

Along the boulevard itself up and down both sides was a huge Christmas fair. It was a couple of steps above your local or state fair in cheesiness, but fun nevertheless. There were carnival rides and games, lots of food stands, and stands selling Christmas decorations, jewelry, and the like. It also included several themed areas, such as one farm and zoo area filled entirely with animatronic animals. I wasn’t sure what to think, but it attracted tons of kids, and I was glad the animals were not real. I got the chance to use Fuze with my husband — I showed him the displays over video, while he showed me video of him playing with our very real cats.

Paris ferris wheel

Finally Sunday night I was on the editorial board for ECO, the daily publication posted by Climate Action Network. Throughout the day, members of Climate Action Network submit articles for inclusion the next day. Those articles go for editing suggestions to the entire mailing list first. Then the editorial board gets them. The drill was to arrive at the CAN hub at 9:30 p.m. and edit stories until they are done. There are up to five people on the board, and it usually takes until about midnight to get through the stories. Most everyone sees every story, so the result is suggestion after suggestion on the text. Then the lead editor, Kyle Gracey this week, combines and reconciles all edits.

One trick is that the stories must be suitable for an international audience, so you can’t use any idioms or special words or phrases that non-English speakers would not understand. The text must also follow all CAN official positions on the issues. I ended up totally rewriting one story because the text was so awkward. Others were very good. It was a fun experience that reminded me of my newspaper copy editing days.

Here are some more pics from the day:

So many badges, but I wish I had one more – to the Blue Zone.

Xingu Chief Raoni of Brazil at the indigenous flotilla. Read about him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoni_Metuktire

Jardin des Tuileries

Paris ferris wheel from the Tuileries

Christmas festival on Champs Elysees

One of the more popular rides at the Christmas festival on Champs Elysses

One of the more popular rides at the Christmas festival on Champs Elysees

PDA is practically a requirement in Paris

COP 21 State of Play – Days 5 and 6

December 6 2015December 26, 2015

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

Saturday, December 5 – ADP, People’s Climate Summit, Sierra Club dinner

December 5 2015December 27, 2015

This morning the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) released its draft negotiating text. This text is basically what last year’s negotiators in Durban are handing off to this year’s negotiators in Paris for finalizing a climate agreement that starts in 2020. The text started with a lot of alternatives in brackets — for example [1.5C] or [well below 2C] — and it was the job this week of the Durban committee to wheedle those brackets down before handing the text off to Paris . They got about half the brackets decided, but many others including the choices on temperature target remain.

One controversy arose in the wake of the new negotiating text: the rights of indigenous people, which had been mentioned in Article 2.2, were removed and put into the preamble. Even worse, this was done at the request of Norway and the United States. Indigenous groups were furious because they are among the people most affected by climate change. Article 2 is important because it explains the purpose of the agreement and how it will be implemented.

Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network discussed this with my Citizens Voice colleague Jeremy Lent:

Here is how Article 2.2 looked going into the negotiations:

[This Agreement shall be implemented on the basis of equity and science, in [full] accordance with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities[, in the light of national circumstances] [the principles and provisions of the Convention], while ensuring the integrity and resilience of natural ecosystems, [the integrity of Mother Earth, the protection of health, a just transition of the workforce and creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities] and the respect, protection, promotion and fulfillment of human rights for all, including indigenous peoples, including the right to health and sustainable development, [including the right of people under occupation] and to ensure gender equality and the full and equal participation of women, [and intergenerational equity].]

And here is how it looked coming out of the ADP:

[This Agreement shall be implemented on the basis of equity and science, and in accordance with the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances, and on the basis of respect for human rights and the promotion of gender equality [and the right of peoples under occupation].]

Rockstrom’s original nine planetary boundaries.

Today was Action Day at COP 21. Inside the Blue Zone, negotiators got to hear from people like Al Gore, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Johan Rockstrom, of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, whose pivotal 2009 paper in Nature established the idea of planetary boundaries. Outside the Blue Zone – in fact, outside the entire planet – astronauts aboard the International Space Station sent a message to negotiators.

Meanwhile I decided to visit the People’s Climate Summit and Global Village of Alternatives, a two-day festival in the Montreuil suburb of Paris sponsored by Climate Coalition 21. For people from Columbus, imagine a version of Comfest in which everything centers around climate and environment — then translate it all into French. There were sections on agriculture, energy, education, industry, culture, economy, biodiversity, and more covering about 12 city blocks.

This tree was held hundreds of ribbons expressing what people did not want to lose to climate disruption.

On entering the festival, I was greeted by a large wooden tree with hundreds of ribbons in all colors hanging from its branches. The idea was to write something close to your heart that you did not want to lose to climate disruption on a blank ribbon. Then you would tie that ribbon somewhere on the tree and take a ribbon that someone else had left that connected with you. My ribbon said “The creeks, mountains, and forests of Northwest Arkansas,” where I grew up and first learned to love nature. The one I took said “Sequoia National Park and all the beautiful trees in California.”

Some of the alternative living arrangements on display included styrofoam packaging that had been refashioned to grow plants, hanging art made from plastic bottles and other trash, and composting toilets that used sawdust rather than flushing with water. There were lots of food booths, lots of book booths, and lots of art. One particularly memorable piece of art was a huge replica of the Statue of Liberty with steam coming out of her lantern and the words “Freedom to Pollute” on her tablet.

Hanging art made from trash

There were also interesting actions. People on a bicycle built for four pedaled through the crowds. The Greenpeace polar bear wandered about, at one point with little kids trying to pull his tail. At another point, several people in mock hazmat suits and hardhats came through the streets pushing large barrels marked as containing oil. They would try to get people in the crowd to drink the oil, proclaiming it perfectly safe and pretending to drink it themselves, but then spitting it out.

Unfortunately for me, even though the website for the summit was in English, pretty much all the displays were in French so I couldn’t get a deep understanding of what a lot of them were about. However, there was no misunderstanding one woman who ran after me after I took a photo at her booth. For the second time on this trip, someone did not want me to take their picture – but in this case she was worried that I might be police or some sort of spy. When it became clear that I was just a tourist she lightened up, but told me that I needed to ask permission before taking any more photos.

This Statue of Liberty proclaims Freedom to Pollute.

After that I was not sure what to do. In the United States, this would be considered a public event and I would have a constitutional right to take photos. But now I was in another country that was on edge having just been through a terrorist attack. I walked around without taking photos for awhile, then saw a woman with a nice DSL camera. I asked her if she spoke English, and she did, so then I told her what happened and asked if I really needed to ask permission to take photos in a setting like this. “Absolutely not,” she said, apologizing for how I had been treated. I didn’t need the apology, but was relieved to find out the problem was one irritated person, not French law. I ended up talking with the photographer, whose name is Chris Dyn, for about half an hour about climate, environment, agriculture, and diet, and we became Facebook friends.

By then it was closing in on 5 p.m., and I needed to be at a dinner for the Sierra Club delegation at 6 p.m., so I started off. While riding the train back to the central part of Paris, I was checking social media only to find a post about an event that had started at 4 p.m. at the summit I had just left: Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein were holding a mock trial of Exxon in which they were calling a number of important people as witnesses, including the climate scientist Jason Box. How had I not seen or heard about that?? I would have gone if I had known, but it was not on the event lists for either Sierra Club or Citizens Climate Lobby.

Later I found out that the mock trial had been announced through the CAN email list, but since it literally takes two to three hours to go through all that email each day, I had not seen it. Fortunately there are a number of news accounts from Desmog Blog, Climate Home, National Observer, Santa Barbara Independent and World Report Now. 350.org also posted a video with highlights from the event.

The Sierra Club held its Saturday dinner at a restaurant near Generator Hostel in Paris.

Once back in Paris, I went to the Sierra Club dinner at a restaurant near Generator Hostel, where most people in the Sierra Student Coalition were staying. I had invited my Climate Reality colleague John Davis to attend, and he was able to make some connections with people in the Sierra Club. After dinner I talked with the producer and director of a new film about fracking called Groundswell Rising. It turned out they were staying at Place to B, so we all ended up catching a cab ride back there together.

Thursday, December 3 – Vandana Shiva, Climate Generations, Sierra Club

December 3 2015December 23, 2015

Today I woke up with another headache, but this one not as debilitating as yesterday’s. Still it was off to another slow start. Fortunately I did not have to be anywhere immediately, as my first event was at 1 p.m. at Place to B – a press conference about Monsanto with environmental and agricultural activist Vandana Shiva. I am falling into a routine of catching up on news and social media posts in the morning before actually going out to do things in the afternoon. That’s okay until I have to be somewhere early.

Vandana Shiva speaks to the media at Place to B.

Before the event Vandana Shiva held her own press conference, and at 1 p.m. she took part in a press conference with several others on an International Tribunal Against Monsanto for Crimes Against Humanity, an activist event planned at the Hague in October 2016. Both events were packed, and I could barely get a spot. While GMOs are a fact of life in the United States – almost all of our corn and soy are genetically modified — they are effectively banned in France. The audience at Place to B was very receptive to the message of this press conference, and many Europeans seem genuinely concerned about the safety of their food and biodiversity in their farming.

Monsanto tribunal press conference at Place to B.

Taking part in the press conference were:

Marie-Monique Robin, film director and writer, author of the movie and book Le monde selon Monsanto (The World According to Monsanto), sponsor of the tribunal (introduction)
André Leu (Australia), president of IFOAM – International Foundation for Organic Agriculture – (about the consequences of Monsanto on health and biodiversity)
Dr. Vandana Shiva (India), general director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (the consequences of Monsanto on farmers and food sovereignty)
Dr. Hans Rudolf Herren (United States), president of the Millenium Institute of Washington (the consequences of Monsanto on climate change)
Ronnie Cummins (United States), international director of Organic Consumers (about the impact on the political and regulatory institutions)
Dr. Olivier de Schutter (Belgium), former Rapporteur on UN Right to Food, professor of international law at Université catholique de Louvain (legal tools of the Tribunal)
Valérie Cabanes (France), spokeswoman of End Ecocide on Earth (towards the recognition of ecocide as a felony).

About half the speakers spoke in French, half in English. This was a gathering that you would not likely see in the United States. Although the event they are planning for the Hague will not be an official trial, the speakers said it is more than symbolic, as their goal is to establish ecocide as a crime and show that Monsanto is guilty. Among other things, they argued that Monsanto promotes an industrial model of agriculture responsible for 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of soil and water resources, and that its highly toxic pesticides have damaged the environment, harmed species, and sickened or killed millions of people. Shiva pointed to the rash of suicides among Indian farmers who went into debt buying seeds and pesticides for GMO cotton. Cummins discussed Monsanto’s influence on regulations in the United States and abroad.

You can watch the entire press conference posted by Place to B (French speakers not translated), read anti-Monsanto stories here, here and here; neutral stories here and here; and a pro-Monsanto story here.

After the Monsanto press conference let out, I headed to Le Bourget for more time in the Climate Generations space. Again it took almost an hour to get there from Place to B, so I didn’t arrive until after 3 p.m. I spent some time hanging out at the Sierra Club booth, then doing a more thorough walk-through of the booths in the C section. I had wanted to get to the A and B sections too, but didn’t make it there, as I had promised to record a presentation on “Plastification of the ocean” starting at 5 p.m.

Unfortunately it turned out that every speaker on the plastics panel spoke in French. Those in the room could wear headphones to get the translation, but there would be no translation for my video, so I did not keep it. However, I did learn some interesting things. Most of the speakers were people who had led or taken part in various ocean voyages to study and document the amount and types of plastics in the ocean. There is now so much that they have a word for it: the plastosphere. Most people now know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a whirlpool of plastic pollution twice the size of Texas in the Pacific. However, there are five such whirlpools across the planet, and there is plastic everywhere. One mission was simply to study it in the Mediterranean. Most of it is not large pieces but microplastics broken down into tiny bits.

Anne-Cécile Turner (second from right), director of Race for Water Foundation, speaks on a panel about plastics in the ocean at COP 21.

One thing the speakers emphasized was preventing plastic from getting to the ocean in the first place through laws like plastic bag bans. But they did not seem all that enthusiastic about projects to clean what is there up, such as this invention by a teenager from Holland. That surprised and disappointed me. Perhaps they don’t think the amount of plastic now in the ocean can be cleaned up. Or maybe they think if people believe it can be cleaned up easily, they will keep on discarding it. Either way, I don’t see how we can not try to clean up the amount of plastics we currently have in the ocean. It is causing untold suffering to billions of sea creatures, and it’s not ethical to allow this. Of course we need to pass laws to prevent it from happening in the first place, but in my opinion we also need to figure out how to clean up what we have put there.

The presentation was in the last time slot of the day, and when it let out everyone in Climate Generations made a beeline for the shuttles to head back to Gare du Nord. My next stop was a meeting of the Sierra Club delegation. There besides going through events of the day and getting an update on negotiations from Fred Heutte, we heard from Sena Alouka, director of Youth Volunteers for the Environment, in Togo, and his colleague, Mavis Mensah. Their organization provides education about climate and environment to schoolchildren.

A group from the Sierra Club catches dinner at a pizzeria in Paris. Clockwise from the lower left are Mavis Mensah, Youth Volunteers for the Environment, Togo; Fred Heutte, Federal and International Climate Campaign; Glen Besa, Virginia Chapter; Sena Alouka, Youth Volunteers for the Environment, Togo; Tyla Matteson, Virginia Chapter; Nicole Ghio, International Campaign; Cathy Cowan Becker, Ohio Chapter; and Steven Sondheim,Tennessee chapter. Photo by Katherine Muller.

Afterward several of us walked to a pizzeria that Fred knew, where I got a great dinner and enjoyed even better company. Besides the two guests from Togo, we had Glen Besa and Tyla Matteson of the Virginia chapter, Fred Heutte of the Federal & International Climate Campaign, Nicole Ghio of the International Campaign, Steven Sondheim of the Tennessee chapter, and a new person, Katherine Muller from South Carolina. Steven told me she knew how to work a room, and he was right. She talked to every single person there, got their stories, and told us hers. I ended up there late looking at all the photos on her phone and finding out what she did that day. Turns out she had visited the sites of the terrorist attacks, and the photos were so amazing that I decided I to go myself the next day. By the end of the night I felt as if I had encountered a long lost friend.

COP 21 State of Play – Days 3 and 4

December 3 2015December 26, 2015

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

Tuesday, December 1 – Green Zone opens

December 1 2015December 23, 2015

Now that the Opening Ceremonies and Leaders Event for COP 21 are over, the facility has opened for the rest of us. There are two main parts to the conference headquarters. First is the Blue Zone, where the actual negotiations take place. You have to have a badge to get into the Blue Zone, which I do not have. In the past, I am told, the United Nations has been pretty generous in issuing badges to observer organizations such as Sierra Club, but this year they were not. Sierra Club had about 70 members coming to Paris, but they got only 10 badges. This meant that only certain staff members and the highest-level volunteers could get in. Citizens Climate Lobby had badges only for Joe Robertson and the global strategies advisor Sarabeth Brockley, who works for the United Nations. Climate Reality had no badges for anyone but Al Gore and president Ken Berlin.

Wind trees create power from wind near COP 21.

I knew going into the conference that getting into the Blue Zone was unlikely barring a last-minute miracle. For example, a couple of times someone posted on the CAN listserv that their group had an extra badge, but invariably it was snatched up within minutes. Even knowing this, I decided to go anyway. I was on the fence until the Sustainability conference in October at Ohio State. Among the speakers was Andrew Light, staff climate adviser in the Office of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State. Light had acted as a negotiator at several COPs, so he knew first-hand what it was like. He told me that watching the actual negotiations was incredibly boring, and that most of the action was in the civil society section of the conference. He described the hope he felt walking through the enormous civil society section which housed organization after organization working on some aspect of addressing climate change. That made me decide that even without a badge to the Blue Zone, I could get a lot out of attending.

Entrance to Climate Generations.

The civil society section of COP 21 was called Climate Generations, also known as the Green Zone. That is where the Sierra Club had a booth set up, so today I set out to see the Green Zone and meet the people at the Sierra Club booth. Getting to COP 21 from my hostel was pretty involved, but there were people in green jackets at the Gare du Nord train station to provide directions. First I had to buy tickets for Line B of the regional train, known as RER, which were more expensive than regular metro tickets. I had to take that train to the Le Bourget stop, then catch a free shuttle to the COP 21 headquarters. Once I got off the shuttle, I had to walk over to the Green Zone.

Once arriving at the Climate Generations space, I had to go through airport-like security screening. They had about a dozen lines, and I didn’t get there until the afternoon, so lines were short. Finally I was in the Green Zone. It was a huge building, the size of an airline hangar, with all the facilities set up just for this conference. Coming in there was a coat check, a station to recharge electronics, and an area of tables to meet at. Down most of one side was a large auditorium and a series of seven meeting rooms. These would be filled every day with panels, discussions, and other events. Then there were various performance spaces and three different areas for civil society booths.

Sierra Club booth in the Climate Generations space. From left to right are President Obama (in cardboard anyway); Glen Besa, Virginia chapter; Jim Dougherty, national board; and Tyla Matteson, Virginia Chapter.

I was wondering how to find the Sierra Club booth when I happened across area C, which housed about 50 booths, and saw that its map included the Sierra Club. So I went in to say hi, and met several of the people who I would become friends with during the course of the trip. These included Glen Besa and his wife Tyla Matteson from the Virginia chapter, Jim Dougherty who is on the national board, and Steven Sondheim from Tennessee who was in charge of staffing the booth. These four were the mainstays of the Sierra Club booth and ended up doing the lion’s share of work staffing it. Beside the booth was a life-size cutout figure of Obama, which people kept wanting to get their pictures with.

I had not had lunch, but lines at the restaurants were so long that I decided to skip it. My Sierra Club colleagues told me that this is how it always works the first day — the vendors just don’t seem to be able to handle the crowds. Lines for food were at least an hour and sometimes two hours long. Tyla shared some of her croissant with me, and we all decided in the future to pick up food at the train station and bring it with us to the Green Zone. I did walk around and get some photos around the building, and I located the all important bathrooms and water filling stations. As a souvenir each booth got COP 21 water bottles to hand out, and I accepted mine gratefully.

James Hansen surrounded by media after his talk at Place to B.

Tonight was an important event at Place to B. Each night from 6 to 8 p.m. the hostel has programmed special guest panels for a feature called Place to Brief, and tonight’s panel included Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything, and former NASA scientist James Hansen, known for testifying about climate change before Congress in 1988. I knew the CCL people would be there to see Hansen as he is on the CCL board. I wanted to see both, as did others from the Sierra Club. Steven and I left the Green Zone a little after 5 p.m., but transportation took so long that we didn’t get to Place to B until right at 6 — and the downstairs area where Place to Brief happens was completely full.

James Hansen and Sustaina Claus at Place to B.

Fortunately the hostel was live streaming the proceedings on TVs in the workspace upstairs. Unfortunately a lot of people in the workspace would not stop talking, even though others were trying to watch the event. I set up my GoPro video camera and taped the panel from upstairs, which meant that I was basically taping a TV show, but it was better than not taping anything at all. The sound quality was poor at times, but we were able to catch most of it. Later I discovered that a Facebook friend, Paul Beckwith, had also gotten into this event, taped Hansen’s entire presentation, and posted the video on his blog.

COP 21 State of Play – Day 2

December 1 2015December 26, 2015

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

COP 21 State of Play – Day 1

November 30 2015December 26, 2015

Fred Heutte

SUNDAY, NOV. 29 — The annual UN climate conference got off to an unusual start with a Sunday evening plenary of the ADP (Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform), the body preparing the negotiating texts for the Paris Agreement.

The reason for this first-ever session ahead of the official opening of the COP on Monday was so that spinoff groups on key topics could start meeting and not lose a full day of negotiations time because of the special Leaders Event on Monday.

At the ADP plenary, outgoing COP 20 president Manuel Vidal Pulgar (environment minister, Peru) and incoming COP 21 president Laurent Fabius (foreign minister, France) both emphasized the urgency of completing preparation of the ADP’s work by the end of the week so that ministers have a workable text with a limited number of options in week 2.

Shoes of Pope Francis at Place de Republique

Shoes of Pope Francis at Place de la Republique

MONDAY, NOV. 30 — Today was the formal opening of COP 21, with a short COP plenary followed by statements from many of about 150 heads of state and government invited by the French government to give momentum to the difficult two weeks of talks ahead of us.

President Obama emphasized the progress being made in the United States over the last several years, as well as around the world, as setting the stage for a much greater effort to address climate. He noted that many nations have contributed little to climate change but will be the first to feel its effects, and said he would meet with island nations on Tuesday. The latter part of his speech focused on the legacy that this generation must leave for future generations.

Obama touched on two more specific things — the United States is joining with 10 other countries to replenish the Least Developed Countries Fund — the U.S. share will be $51 million out of a total of $248 million. The LDCF mainly supports adaptation planning and program development. This is a continuation of a long-running program (the U.S. funding goes back to the George W. Bush administration).

He also stated the United States has “a new commitment to risk insurance initiatives,” which is a still-developing idea to provide financial support for efforts to recover from extreme events like storms and floods.

With a few evening ADP spinoff groups running but closed to observers, the talk around the halls today was about what issues need to be moved forward this week so that ministers can start to move away from longstanding deadlocks — on climate finance, on five-year cycles of review, on loss and damage (efforts to respond when mitigation and adaptation both fall short and climate impacts cause severe damage to vulnerable countries and areas), on differentiation (fair shares for the climate efforts each country makes and for the financial and technology support that developed countries like the United States should provide to assist developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable).

There were two areas where major initiatives were announced today.

The first is in clean energy, with three side-by-side announcements:

Mission Innovation, including 20 participating countries pledging to double public clean energy research and development investment over five years (www.mission-innovation.net).
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a coordination effort on a multibillion-dollar clean energy finance push by a global group of major investors including Bill Gates, Mukesh Ambani, Tom Steyer, Masayoshi Son and George Soros. This will also be coordinated with with Mission Innovation (www.breakthroughenergy.com)
The International Solar Alliance, announced by Prime Minister Modi, will be headquartered in India and already has 120 participating countries and numerous major companies involved in the solar industry.

A second important announcement came from a group of developing countries who have decided to take much quicker action on creating their own clean energy economies. The new Climate Vulnerable Forum (V20), including among others Philippines, Sudan, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Honduras, Bhutan and Vietnam, which are not only calling for a global goal of 1.5 degree C temperature rise (roughly equivalent to 350 ppm), but are pledging to greatly accelerate transition of their own economies from fossil fuel dependence to clean energy, in part with mutual support as well as pushing for more assistance from developed countries.

State of Play Dateline

[x] Sunday 29 ADP pre-plenary
[x] Monday 30 COP opening plenary – Leader Event
[ ] Tuesday 1 COP/CMP joint plenary, SBI and SBSTA opening plenaries, start of ADP contact group and spinoffs
[ ] Wednesday 2
[ ] Thursday 3
[ ] Friday 4
[ ] 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

Note: This list of UNFCCC acronyms could be helpful: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/glossary/items/3666.php