Having just returned home from my 25th consecutive UN climate talks in Madrid, I am now ready to declare the decision making process in these annual jamborees is no longer fit for purpose.
Let me explain why.
Cop25 was a long Cop ever, having gone on for 2 extra days (and nights) beyond the originally planned twelve days.
This tendency, now standard practice at Cops, to take the negotiations into overtime for any day or even more is not only extremely inefficient but can also be deeply unfair to the most vulnerable developing countries whose delegates cannot stay on. Thus the decisions made in the final hours of extra time are invariably detrimental for their interests by time they get home and find out the final text they see their words have disappeared.
It is also logical that any decision finally arrived at on the extra day could have been agreed yesterday. The reason behind pushing it into extra time is really a quite deliberate tactic to eliminate the poor and vulnerable country delegates.
If the Cops are to retain any semblance of fairness then the incoming UK Cop26 presidency should declare that next year’s talks in Glasgow will finish on time on Friday and anything left undecided will be handled at Cop27. If all night negotiations are needed to get a decision allow them to happen on Wednesday and Thursday night and not on Friday and Saturday nights.
In fact it might be time for you to rethink the whole process of the annual Cops and maybe take up the concept of ‘inside out’ Cops which I advocated for after we achieved the Paris Agreement at Cop21 when I argued that actions to implement the agreement should be given greater prominence than further negotiations on agreeing how you can implement it.
In this model, the many actors including civil society, companies, cities, universities, indigenous communities, youth yet others ought to be given the main plenary halls to showcase their actions as the official negotiators could remain in the smaller rooms into the late hours arguing over comas and words.
Perhaps the federal government of Scotland could consider holding such an ‘Action Cop’ in 2023 in parallel towards the UK’s official Cop?
However, my main reason for declaring the Cop process no longer fit for purpose is always that 2023 is the year that the reality of global warming all over the world overtook climate talks. So far it had been reasonable to meet every year in anticipation of being able to agree to take actions to avoid the worst impacts by both mitigation in addition to adaptation actions.
Our failure to rise for this challenge, by let's assume that we had plenty of time left, was clearly wrong and we're now entering the world of real loss and damage because of human-induced climate change that's clearly due to the emissions of greenhouse gases.
The failure of Cop25 to even recognise this reality and allow the Warsaw International Mechanism (Wim) on loss and harm to come with an implementation and financing arm as demanded by the vulnerable developing countries, was an indication of how out of touch with reality the negotiations have now become.
The individuals who really understand, because they can see it happening, namely the scientists, children and the indegent in most countries, were marching with Greta Thunberg within their thousands in Madrid last Friday. And even though the Cop presidency invited Greta within the Cop to talk, the negotiators listened politely and then completely ignored what she'd to say and returned to their normal processes of negotiating over trivialities while ignoring the reality outside.
A final comment on the lack of fitness of the Cops is the fact that whereas there was once some signal (a minimum of in rhetoric) from the rich and powerful countries (the majority of whom are major emitters of greenhouse gases) that producing a just agreement was important, this facade has been completely removed. US president Donald Trump is the most egregious example, but there are many more who are now quite blatantly playing the game with respect to the fossil fuel companies that support them.
All this time around the main reason for the most vulnerable developing countries to possess any faith within the UN climate process was that it was the only real place where they'd a seat at the table and could raise their voices.
The process continues to be totally and cynically destroyed on their behalf now so it is questionable whether they should even make the effort to attend anymore.
I myself have resolved to simply attend an ‘Action Cop’ whether it happens in Glasgow the coming year.
