Three years after the Paris Agreement was adopted, it faces a major test: the first stocktake of collective action.

Dubbed the Talanoa Dialogue and drawing on Pacific storytelling traditions, this could be – as the Fijian organisers hope – a springboard for raising ambition. Or it could be a talking shop.

In the next two weeks in Bonn, national negotiators will meet assorted academics, campaigners and lobbyists in parallel sessions to exchange ideas. They have been asked to answer three questions – the third being the hardest and most important: Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

More than 400 submissions have been made, which give a flavour of the discussions to come. Come the COP24 climate summit in Katowice this December, these will bubble up to the political level.

Here are 11 of the key themes.

1. 1.5C v 2C

It may be academic, given emissions trends put us on course for 3-4C of warming, to note that there is still some ambiguity around the Paris Agreement temperature target.

Small island states cleave to the tougher 1.5C limit – essential, they say, to their survival. China, meanwhile, mentions only the 2C goal, noting development priorities such as energy access, food security and poverty eradication “could not be overridden” by climate targets.

The EU walks a line between them, reciting verbatim the Paris compromise to hold temperature rise “well below 2C” and “pursue efforts” to 1.5C. In a nod to vulnerable allies, the bloc refers repeatedly to the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on 1.5C.

2. The blame game

While Fiji has stressed the process is to be “non-confrontational”, with an emphasis on solutions, there is no getting away from the politics of burden-sharing.

It is particularly blatant in Saudi Arabia’s input on behalf of the Arab Group, which adds its own question: why are we here? Their answer, of course, is the historic emissions of industrialised economies, with no mention of the oil exporting countries profiting from their energy use. Despite being ranked as high income by the World Bank, Saudi Arabia harks back to its 1990s classification as a developing country.

The Paris Agreement blurred the rich-poor divide, but did not erase it. China too emphasises the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” – citing research by UK-headquartered NGO Oxfam to argue developed countries need to deliver more climate finance.

3. Money, money, money

Financial support is a key theme for the Africa Group, in particular for adapting to the impacts of climate change and redressing damages.

That should include a “significant increase” in money from public sources and “not simply offload finance to [the] private sector,” they urged – plus access to clean technology and expertise.

“We need to go to a world where developed countries stop making promises but live up to their promises,” the submission said.

4. Early action

The Paris Agreement is a long-term plan, but deadlines are looming already for commitments developed countries made in earlier rounds of talks.

Emerging economies and the poorest nations are united in holding rich nations’ feet to the fire on pre-2020 action. That applies to a collective promise of $100 billion a year of climate finance as well as national emissions reduction targets.

As Maldives environment minister Thoriq Ibrahim writes for Climate Home News: “It would be a profound tragedy if we get to 2020 only to discover we waited too long to do what was needed.”

5. Passive aggression

The US government has not made a submission. Maybe they forgot? An alliance of Caribbean countries helpfully posted the latest US national climate assessment on their behalf.

It shows that whatever the White House position, American government scientists firmly support the international consensus that climate change is real and caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite president Donald Trump’s threat to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the US is technically still in the deal and accountable for its promises.

6. Focus on fossils

One of the most targeted country-led submissions comes from Switzerland, Costa Rica, Finland, New Zealand and Sweden, making the case for scrapping fossil fuel subsidies. An easy win in theory, but reform has been held up in practice by special interests.

More contentious, but gathering force, are policies to limit production of fossil fuels. The Stockholm Environment Institute outlines how blocking oil exploration, new coal mines and fuel pipelines can complement efforts to curb demand.

Once the preserve of keep-it-in-the-ground activists, this approach is gaining currency and should become a routine part of national climate plans, the SEI suggests.

7. Eat your greens

How can we feed a growing population on a warming planet, while cutting the food sector’s greenhouse gas emissions? There is no easy technology fix, which puts lifestyle choices in the frame.

The meat-rich diets of industrialised countries have a hefty carbon footprint. A kilo of beef generates 16-30 times the carbon dioxide of a kilo of tofu.

ProVeg International calls for policies to encourage a shift towards eating grains, pulses and vegetables instead. If the world went vegan, they claim it could slash food-based emissions 70% by 2050.

8. Have faith

The Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation reaches a similar conclusion on vegetarian eating, based on faith rather than statistics from UN reports.

“The insatiable greed of humanity is seriously damaging our precious Mother Earth,” it says. “The well-being of the world should be everyone’s responsibility… We can start by disciplining ourselves, by reining in our unnecessary desires, and by encouraging everyone to protect the earth as much as we can from further damage.”

Quakers add education of girls and family planning to the mix, an oblique reference to the strain population growth puts on efforts to secure the climate.

9. Price carbon

Others take a more pragmatic attitude: you can pollute as long as you pay for it.

The International Emissions Trading Association (Ieta) highlights the provision in the Paris Agreement for cross-border emissions trading, saying this can allow countries to meet their obligations more “cost-effectively” and raise ambition in the long run.

Today though, “polluting is too cheap”, says Carbon Market Watch, calling for a more inclusive discussion on how to price carbon.

10. Embrace clean technology

Several submissions look at how to speed up development and adoption of low carbon technology.

The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates $1.7 trillion of investment is needed between 2015 and 2030 to meet countries’ renewable energy targets.

The Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, makes the case for policies to support pumping emissions underground.

11. Beware false saviours

Models for holding temperature rise below 2C or 1.5C rely heavily on removing carbon dioxide out from the air, on top of cutting emissions.

Some of this can be done with old-fashioned tree-planting, but many scenarios assume large-scale use of unproven technologies.

The European Academies Science Advisory Council warns against excessive optimism, outlining some of the risks associated with negative emissions options.

Twenty eight years since the first IPCC report – this a sad indictment of our collective failure to give a damn for anything other than our own short-term self interest. Are these scenarios really the pinnacle of our climate change community’s ingenuity & analysis? https://t.co/uzvuCtVpEc

— Kevin Anderson (@KevinClimate) May 1, 2018

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Fiji’s presidency of the UN climate talks was an unprecedented opportunity for the Pacific island state to make its mark internationally.

But the sudden removal of chief negotiator Nazhat Shameem Khan last week, despite praise for her leadership, revealed a rift between the Geneva-based diplomat and capital Suva.

At the centre of the fight is a group of Australian and European consultants brought in to assist the Fijian government to deliver its biggest diplomatic challenge. Shameem Khan had increasingly objected to the prominent role these outsiders had within Fiji’s presidency.

In exclusive interviews with Climate Home News, insiders said this eventually led to her deposal, with prime minister Frank Bainimarama taking the consultants’ side. They raised concerns that Fiji ceding control to unaccountable professionals jeopardised a critical year of climate talks.

“In the world of [UN climate negotiations], to see a small island state in the presidency being closely managed and controlled by consultants from developed countries is not good for trust and goodwill,” a source from the Fijian delegation told Climate Home News. “But [the consultants] refused to take a back seat and we had difficulties in relation to this.”

Another member of the national staff, contacting CHN independently, said: “Most of their advice and interference was harmful rather than helpful… They undermined us and didn’t understand the local dimensions.”

Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity.

Fijian PM Statement 070318 by Megan Darby on Scribd

CHN asked Bainimarama’s office about the circumstances surrounding Shameem Khan’s removal, specifically about her objections regarding consultants. But no response was made to this point.

Writing to Climate Home News prior to publication, Bainimarama said any suggestion the country had been unduly influenced was “false and mischievous”. After this article was published, he issued a further statement, embedded above.

In a speech to the Fijian parliament on Monday, Bainimarama alluded to the deterioration in the relationship. After thanking Shameem Khan for her work, he said the country needed “a rejuvenated team unquestionably willing to work with all members of the COP23 [climate talks] presidency”.

Her replacement Luke Daunivalu, Fiji’s permanent representative to the UN in New York, was “a team player”, said Bainimarama, with the “personal qualities and experience to shape the consensus for more ambition the world needs to reach”.

Sources said Shameem Khan raised the concerns in this article with Bainimarama and his attorney general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum over the past six months, as well as directly asking the consultants to keep a low profile.

Lead diplomat: Bonn climate talks must ‘restate vision of Paris’

Fiji’s presidency of the climate talks centred on the UN conference of parties (Cop) in Bonn in November 2017 and will continue throughout 2018.

To help with the huge undertaking, the Fijian government hired consultants, including law firm Baker McKenzie, climate experts Systemiq and public relations specialists Qorvis. An Australian, John Connor, was appointed as executive director. It is not unusual for national delegations, particularly small or poor countries with limited capacity, to take external advice.

They were paid through funds donated by other countries, with the bulk coming from the developed world.

The consultants chalked up wins for Fiji, brokering a $50 million green bond for the island nation and coordinating “America’s Pledge” with California governor Jerry Brown and business leader Mike Bloomberg.

Initially, Shameem Khan and her team relied on consultants, UN officials and former presidents of the climate talks to bring them up to speed on the issues and processes. As they became more knowledgeable, though, they quickly came to question the consultants’ advice and level of influence over the strategy.

“The balance of power was wrong from day one,” said the first Fijian delegation source. “They were telling us how to run the Cop at a visionary level.”

Report: Fiji announces $50m ‘climate bond’ ahead of COP23 presidency

Ahead of the Bonn summit, China and other emerging economies raised concerns that consultants paid for by countries such as Australia were drafting statements for a Pacific island that were seen to favour developed world narratives. A non-Fijian source familiar with the matter told Climate Home News these tensions fuelled a spat over pre-2020 action that came to dominate the conference.

Closer to home, Pacific campaigners were outraged to discover Fiji was not planning to make “loss and damage”, UN jargon for support for the victims of climate disaster, a key theme of its presidency. They saw it as a top priority for the vulnerable region.

A briefing note circulated by Baker McKenzie’s Martijn Wilders in March 2017 explicitly ruled out loss and damage as a theme. “This will be considered in April but we need to take care for now as to what we promote,” he wrote in an accompanying email seen by Climate Home News.

“[The consultants] are so closely aligned to developed country policies,” said the first Fijian source. “They were trying to protect us from doing something very controversial, but unfortunately, they forgot the developing country views.”

A spokesperson for the presidency in Suva said the position on loss and damage was the result of “extensive consultation with a range of Fijian and international experts”. These included a past president of the climate talks, officials from the UN climate body and Shameem Khan. “It was a position that was conscious of the role of Cop president and mandate to operationalise the Paris Agreement” and “supported by all in the Fijian delegation”.

Report: No finance plan for climate change victims in draft UN decision

While these wider political fights played out, relations within the presidency became increasingly strained.

Shameem Khan’s allies say consultants frequently went over her head to Bainimarama’s number two, Sayed-Khaiyum, a government minister. A spokesperson for the presidency said Sayed-Khaiyum had never overruled Shameem Khan on negotiation issues.

At the Bonn summit itself, the rift hampered communications. Bainimarama’s speeches were co-written by Graham Davis of PR firm Qorvis and UK-based consultant James Cameron, a longtime adviser of island states in climate negotiations.

Cameron was attending the delegation’s morning meetings but had been largely relegated from the negotiating rooms. According to the first Fijian source, Shameem Khan was not consulted on the speeches and they did not reflect the state of play of negotiations. “It was a real embarrassment. When I look back, it is a miracle Cop23 had any successes at all,” said the source.

Davis said Shameem Khan had “ample opportunity” to raise concerns about the content of the speeches with him and had not done so. Cameron declined to comment.

“As the prime minister’s principal speechwriter for the past five years, I have consistently conveyed the Fijian government’s advocacy of the need for more ambitious climate action,” Davis told Climate Home News by email.

It is not the first time Qorvis’ influence on Fiji’s government has been questioned. In November, a former public servant told Australia’s ABC he had lost his job after refusing to become a “lackey” for the PR firm.

Report: Poland to put ‘common sense’ over climate ambition as host of critical UN talks

Fiji passes the baton this year to Poland, which is hosting the next climate summit in December. Bainimarama told parliament Fiji would continue to preside over a mass outreach programme, known as the “talanoa dialogue”, in partnership with Poland after its formal term ended.

“Because the Talanoa concept was Fiji’s idea, we will continue to lead and shape that dialogue,” he said, “in a way that no Pacific nation has ever had the opportunity to do before.”

Sources on both sides of the internal dispute raised fears that without Fiji’s partnership, Poland would take a less progressive approach, in light of its domestic attachment to coal.

Pacific campaigners expressed concerns at the impact of Shameem Khan’s removal. “Her voice will be missed,” said the Pacific Island Climate Action Network in a press release on Friday, urging Daunivalu to keep the design of the talanoa dialogue “fully with Fijians”.

Citing the most ambitious warming limit in the Paris Agreement, policy officer Genevieve Jiva said: “It is crucial that the talanoa dialogue is focused on ambition and aimed at keeping global temperature rise to 1.5C. For Pacific islanders, nothing less is acceptable because we are fighting for our survival.”

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This article was updated on 7/03/2017 to include a statement from prime minister Frank Bainimarama

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Fijian diplomat Nazhat Shameem Khan left her role as chief climate negotiator on Wednesday, midway through the country’s presidency of UN climate talks.

In a surprise move, the experienced diplomat is to be replaced by Luke Daunivalu, Fiji’s deputy permanent representative to the UN.

Shameem Khan presided over the latest round of UN climate talks in Bonn in November, drawing on Pacific storytelling traditions in a bid to make the process more inclusive.

She was instrumental in shaping the “talanoa dialogue”, a year-long stocktake of international efforts to avert dangerous climate change that is just getting started. On Tuesday, Shameem Khan was still tweeting about it.

We suspect there’s more to this story. What have we missed? Email: md@climatehomenews.org

Prime minister Frank Bainimarama’s office gave no reason for the personnel change. In a statement, the government thanked Shameem Khan for her contribution and said she would return to her duties as permanent representative to the UN in Geneva full time.

“Ambassador Daunivalu is a qualified replacement and I am confident that the leadership and teamwork he will bring to the role of chief negotiator will strengthen our campaign for maximum ambition and maximum climate action all the way to COP24 [UN climate summit in Poland] and beyond,” the statement said.

Daunivalu was responsible for finance-related negotiations as part of Fiji’s team in Bonn.

Neither Daunivalu or Shameem Khan could be reached for comment.

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The proposed measures are going through Poland’s legislative process as the southern city of Katowice – located in the country’s coal heartland – prepares to host the annual UN climate talks this December.

The draft bill, which sets out specific regulations for this year’s climate talks, known as COP24, was passed by the lower house of the Polish parliament on 10 January. On Friday, the senate passed the bill almost unanimously with only three MPs abstaining.

The text provides a raft of initiatives to “ensure safety and public order”. This includes a ban on all spontaneous gatherings in Katowice between 26 November and 16 December, spanning the entire period of the annual UN climate talks.

The clause suggests that only demonstrations previously registered with the local authority in Katowice will be allowed to go ahead – effectively preventing environmental activists reacting to events unfolding during talks to stage protests in the city. The ban is not expected to apply to demonstrations organised inside the conference centre, which have to be approved by the conferences’ organising committee.

UN climate conference 2018: Heads to heartland of Polish coal

The draft bill also allows police to “collect, obtain, process and use information, including personal data about people registered as participants of the COP24 conference or cooperating with its organisation, without the knowledge and consent of the people involved”. This would include volunteers and people employed to help with the running of the conference.

In order to register for the talks, participants including government officials, NGOs, business representatives, journalists and members of civil society have to provide the UN with their full name, date of birth, nationality, a copy of their passport or another identification document, the dates they will attend the conference and an email address.

But the UN’s online registration website states that participants’ identification number, date of birth and name “will not be made available to anyone outside of the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change]”. So it is unclear exactly how the police will access this information.

Last year, just over 19,000 people attended the climate talks in Bonn and close to 50,000 people attended the talks in Paris in 2015, according to UN data.

The UNFCCC has not replied to a request for comment at the time of publication.

The Polish president Andrzej Duda still has to sign the bill in order for it to become law. But one Polish activist, who preferred not to be named, told DeSmog UK it was “very unlikely” for the bill to be rejected since there had been so little opposition to it in Parliament.

This year’s climate talks in Poland are due to be pivotal for the successful implementation of the Paris Agreement. Countries are expected to finalise the accord’s rulebook and start the process of a global stocktake to ramp out ambition to reduce emissions.

The choice of the city of Katowice, which is home to the EU’s largest coal company Polska Grupa Górnicza (PGG), has angered some environmental campaigners who denounce Poland’s reluctance to fully engage in the UN process while still being influenced by a strong domestic coal industry.

Hoda Baraka, from 350.org, called the draft bill “a worrying development” but added it was “not unexpected or unplanned for”. She told DeSmog UK that the pending decision was “a step in the wrong direction” at a time when “civil society groups are increasingly squeezed out of the UNFCCC process and their rights are infringed”.

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She added: “In many of the countries that groups like 350.org operate, ongoing restrictions on civil society, above and beyond the UNFCCC, is a reality that we are challenged with on a daily basis – but these clampdowns will not stop a resilient and innovative climate movement.”

The proposed regulations for the climate talks come as the Polish government’s ruling right-wing populist Law and Justice party have been strongly criticised by the European Commission for breaching the EU’s democratic values.

Since the party came into power in 2015, it has embarked on a series of reforms of the judiciary, the civil service, state media and other areas of public life, which have been widely denounced by human rights campaigners.

The new laws include an expansion of police and secret services surveillance powers, making it easier to access electronic and digital data, and a crackdown on freedom of assembly.

Environmental campaigners have also recently found themselves in an open conflict with the Polish government over the logging of the ancient Unesco-listed forest Białowieża, located on Poland’s eastern border with Belarus.

The government said it gave permission for the logging to go ahead because of damage caused by a spruce bark beetle infestation and to fight the risk of forest fires. But the claims have been denounced as a cover for commercial activities by activists.

Greenpeace activists staged numerous protests and previously chained themselves to the woodcutting equipment to stop the logging. The government’s draft bill restricting rights during the next climate talks has been seen by some campaigners as another step to stifle environmental activists in Poland.

Katarzyna Guzek, from Greenpeace Poland, told DeSmog UK the draft bill was “yet another step towards a process of limiting possibilities of civil society to manifest their opinion”.

“It is a part of a bigger trend of making life of NGO‘s as well as citizens harder when it comes to demonstrating their disagreement with the government,” she said.

Spokesman for the UNFCCC Nick Nuttall said in a statement that since the 9/11 attack, “it has been practice of UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) to share some information on participants when requested by governments hosting climate conferences”.

He added the UN “trust” the information is used “for the purposes for which it is shared”, which Nuttall said was “the timely processing of visa applications”.

The UNFCCC admitted that the online registration portal for delegates is “out of date”, adding: “We will be updating it to reflect that some data is shared with host governments.”

While declining to comment on Poland’s legal move, Nuttall said the UNFCCC “supports the right of peaceful protests and demonstrations whithin and outside conferences”. He also said the UN recognised that host governments “may need to make security and public safety judgements outside the official UN zones”.

This article was produced by DeSmog UK and updated on 25/01 with the UNFCCC statement

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His appearance at negotiations to lay down rules for the Paris Agreement, which Trump wants to leave, attracted widespread opprobrium.

But few White House officials understand international climate policy as well as Banks. The free market advocate served as a special advisor on international climate affairs under president George W Bush. After Bush decided not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the precursor to the Paris climate agreement, Banks designed the ‘major economies forum’, a meeting that became a key driver of climate ambition during the Obama presidency.

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In Bonn, he headed a panel with US energy industry executives that was met by a mass walkout. After that talk, he told Climate Home News that he didn’t know what the 2C target – a widely used benchmark for dangerous warming – meant. (He clarifies that here). 

He was keen to present the White House as reasonable and those who dismiss whole industries – such as coal – as ideological and irrational.

Appearing for an impromptu visit to the media centre the next day, he appeared harried – face reddened, surrounded by press packs and activists, trying not to spill his coffee, gamely sparring with interlocutors who saw him as an envoy of evil. In conversation a few minutes later, he was relaxed, responsive and bright.

Banks is no enthusiast for climate action and wouldn’t be drawn on the human contribution to climate change. But, privately, he does not question the science and was part of a group of advisors who tried to convince the president to stay in the Paris deal. That conversation, he told Climate Home News on the sidelines in Bonn, was now over inside the administration and could only be continued by foreign leaders.

AN: Can I just ask one more time about the 2C, I can see you don’t want to answer the question. Maybe the White House doesn’t have policy on this?

GDB: Yeah, so that’s funny you know because this is an issue we talked about in the Bush administration too, right? And I really feel that people, people were I guess interested in my response.

I don’t know what it means. But from a policy perspective and how you chart a pathway forward for technologies, I don’t know what it means. And I’ve never actually participated – maybe I’m not in the right discussions – but I’ve never actually participated in a discussion where someone is using the 2C target to figure out when they need to deploy this or that technology.

It’s always been kind of a lofty target out there. But from an administration perspective, we haven’t discussed it. It was not part of the Paris discussion we had.

The argument would be it’s the level above which the effects of climate change become catastrophic, 97% of the world’s scientists agree with this perspective and it is an imperative because theres no manufacturing or competitiveness on a dead planet.

Of course, of course. But I still don’t know what it means from a policy discussion perspective.

What it means is taking that into account for the energy sector. I mean you said that human activity contributes to climate change. Can you quantify that?

Quantify it?

Yeah how much of climate change do you think is caused by human activity?

I can’t quantify it. I mean, I can’t.

Why not?

First of all, the administration doesn’t have a position on it, right? But if you were to ask me personally, I’d say I can’t give you a percent, but I know the percentages people throw around but I don’t know.

A large part?

Oh quantify it that way?

Yes, a very large part? A majority?

The administration doesn’t have a position on that. [In November, the White House endorsed a report produced by 13 federal agencies, which concluded more than 90% of current climate change had been caused by humans – ed]

A lot of people in the EU – senior people – that I’ve spoken to believed that in the run up to the Rose Garden speech there was an attempt to land the president on various sides of the argument – stay in and try to renegotiate or leave. The very strong perception in Brussels is that you were trying to persuade the president to stay within Paris.

The president heard from a lot of different people. I was really surprised by how many discussions he had on this. He was lobbied by heads of state across the board – the chancellor, the prime minister, former vice president Gore. He had at least one or two conversations with him, at least. 

And he heard from the people who were really concerned about it and it was a campaign promise that he made. And I think that during the campaign it was my understanding and, looking at his speeches and seeing what he said, he spoke from a manufacturing piece [about] the impacts of the agreement, including the Obama NDC [nationally determined contribution]. He met the campaign promise. It was important to keep that promise. And again he was really concerned about the NDC.

There’s a Ukrainian proposal you probably won’t know about. It’s to create an intermediary layer at the Cop [conference of parties] between the nations and the NDCs, and within that, energy corporates would be invited and given direct participation in the talks.

The idea from Ukraine’s side would be to stimulate clean coal technology transfer deals. In so much as it meets the US agenda in terms of manufacturing industry – you know keeping coal jobs, expanding coal jobs, and the ‘clean coal’ industry – does that idea have merit to you?

So, I’ve heard about it. I haven’t seen it… I don’t know enough about it. It sounds interesting. I don’t know how it works, right? I kind of look at the Cop and I think that it’s already dysfunctional in a lot of ways. And I don’t know how adding other stuff to it works.

I do think that the lack of industry participation – and I’m talking about industry that is impacted by the climate agenda in a negative way, not a positive way – I think that the lack of their participation makes it a lot more difficult. But I would argue that the lack of participation by energy and economic ministers makes it more difficult. I don’t think this conversation should be led by the environment ministers.

Who should it be led by?

It should be the energy [ministers] because it’s an energy issue. You can’t separate energy from climate because it’s an energy issue. Mitigation, right? Adaptation yes, but not mitigation.

So in that sense, how could the Cop process be reformed so as to create more favourable conditions for the US to participate?

Well, we’re going to stay in the framework convention.

I was talking about the Paris Agreement.

Ah right, the Paris Agreement. I think that’s a decision made by the president.

Are there any ideas that you are working on while you are here?

No, no, no. We’re not looking at those options anymore. I think it’s, you know, I don’t think it’s a negotiation. I don’t think it’s a conversation. Its not a technical negotiation that I think you would have at the Cop. It’s a heads of state negotiation.

What would be a successful outcome of this Cop for you?

We want to make sure that we do what we can to avoid bifurcation, period, right? Differentiation. It’s a fundamental flaw of the framework convention. You know, because it divides up – it’s the world in actually, I think we ratified it in 1992. Did it come into force in 1992?

I think so, yes.

But you know the conversation started in the late 80s right? So it’s a world view, its like a cold war view of the world when we’re living in a global economy. If you don’t have a graduation mechanism where companies can move backwards and forward, my goodness! Parts of central and eastern Europe should have been developing countries, right? After the collapse of communism. And South Korea? Israel? I mean: come on, you know?

So what about the argument of historic responsibility? What about the argument that America, Britain, Russia industrialised and got the benefits of using coal and fossil fuels and they created the problem – or contributed to the problem – and now the developing world would be punished for that if they were given exactly the same targets before they’d even started to industrialise, some of them.

I think it’s a good question. I would say and by the way I’ve been asked this question around the Paris Agreement – people saying ‘if China does more, will that bring you back in?’ My response to that is that’s not the kind of conversation that we want to have. We’re not asking developing countries to accept reduction targets in exchange for us having a reduction target right?

But when it comes to reporting and transparency and accounting, a country like China should not be treated differently. Now for some poorer countries or the poorest countries, that might be a different situation where they actually need capacity building in order to be able to avoid emissions. But you could also make the argument that it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if Mozambique reports its emissions, from a global point of view. Because they don’t really matter. But it matters if China does. So yeah, I think it answers your question.

One last question, some people have raised questions about US climate negotiators here. It’s been suggested that morale is low among some of them. Is that true?

Look I think we’ve got a great team. I think we’ve got the best negotiators in the world. True professionals. A lot of them spent a lot of time on the Paris Agreement. A lot of them have spent years working on climate policy. They’re professionals. You have shifts in policy. That’s very natural with new administrations. But we’ve got the best team in the world, no doubt, no doubt.

They’re yuge

[Both laugh]

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After Farhana Yamin and Meera Ghani broke the silence on this issue, I wondered if more women would come forward. Would they be willing to open up about moments of vulnerability? Would they dare point the finger at powerful perpetrators?

The answer was: yes and no. More people told Climate Home News about bad experiences in the formal negotiations and civil society. Their stories illuminate the fear, anger and humiliation engendered by sexual harassment – and the barriers to speaking out.

The following examples were shared on condition of anonymity and have not been independently verified.

One 34-year-old related an incident from this month’s climate summit in Bonn. A much older man she met in a professional capacity talked at her, sat too close and insisted on accompanying her to her next meeting – which she had invented as a polite excuse to get rid of him.

By her own assessment “nothing really happened”, but she felt “trapped”. She asked Climate Home News not to publish the full account in case the perpetrator recognised himself in it. “I shouldn’t even have written this,” she wrote.

Me too: I was sexually harassed at UN climate negotiations

Then there was a twentysomething researcher furious at a prominent scientist who stared at her chest and addressed her as “pretty young lady”. She felt unable to call out his unprofessionalism because he was an essential contact for her thesis.

Another woman told of two separate cases of unwanted sexual contact from senior negotiators:

I was a member of a small delegation in intercessional negotiations a couple of years ago. I was relatively new to the negotiations, and eager to achieve a good outcome. The chair of a powerful negotiation bloc was very friendly with me, but I did not think much of it. One evening the negotiations went into the late evening, and this particular person walked up to me at the end of a session to propose that we discuss draft text proposals on a key issue on behalf of the group, saying he was keen to get my input. I agreed, and he proposed that we move to his hotel room so that we could have something to eat. I said I wasn’t hungry but nonetheless joined to his hotel room, already feeling slightly uncomfortable. He ordered food and proposed that we would sit on the bed. I said I’d rather sit on a chair. He didn’t seem interested in discussing text proposals and started asking personal questions. I said I had to leave and stood up. As I walked up to the door, he approached me and put his hand on my lower back. I managed to leave the room, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

Another incident happened about two years ago. A senior member of another delegation caught me by surprise by kissing me on my mouth at the metro station, after we had walked up to the metro station together. I was horrified but left without saying anything about it.

It is clear the personal accounts of Yamin and Ghani struck a chord. They were among Climate Home News’ ten most read articles during the Bonn summit. When I raised the subject at an informal side event, a young woman in the second row of the audience nodded along intently, her eyes watering.

Yamin’s intervention got an immediate reaction from the institution that runs the talks. Patricia Espinosa and Nazhat Shameem Khan, two of the top diplomats in the process, declared on day one that there must be zero tolerance of harassment. Both have smashed glass ceilings in their own careers and their comments seemed heartfelt.

One outcome of the conference was a gender action plan to boost the participation of women at all levels of climate action. That was already in the making before this round of negotiations began.

But measures to safeguard women from harassment at the heart of the UN process are in their infancy. That is where Yamin and Ghani hope to drive real and lasting change.

As UN climate chief Espinosa acknowledged, “it takes a lot of courage” for people to formally complain. “I hope by strengthening the capacity to deal with that… we can look in the future to a situation where everybody is comfortable coming forward,” she said.

Have you experienced sexual harassment or assault at UN climate negotiations? Tell Climate Home News your story. Any information you share may be published, but we will not identify you as the source without your consent. Email md@climatehomenews.org, message by WhatsApp or Signal to +44 7725 738315 or use this form, which allows you to remain anonymous.

The hastily drawn-up “zero tolerance” policy advised delegates to report incidents to security staff. Anecdotally, they are part of the problem. Youth delegates say they routinely face unwelcome flirtatious comments while going through the airport-style checks at the entrance to each venue.

Discouragingly, UN Climate Change would not disclose the number of sexual harassment and abuse cases it had handled internally, insisting this was “confidential” information. That is a shame. Transparency builds confidence. For people to feel comfortable reporting inappropriate behaviour, they need to see evidence such complaints are taken seriously.

Similarly, Climate Action Network introduced a safety package for its annual party. But after Climate Home News reported on it, the organiser admitted they had only been able to find two safety officers for the jam-packed event – advising partygoers to first contact the venue’s security with any complaints.

There were murmurs of cultural resistance, too. The tenor of the objections was that there were more important issues at stake. And sexual harassment is everywhere: why single out UN climate talks for scrutiny?

Me too: I left the climate movement because of its toxic culture

It is true decisions made at the talks affect millions of lives and livelihoods around the world, whereas only a few thousand people are exposed to abuses of power within the process. But if the negotiating environment is hostile to young women, particularly from the global south, how can they effectively represent the interests of those most vulnerable to climate change?

Many who experience harassment or assault prioritise the cause over their own safety and dignity. Some smart and passionate people, like Ghani, reach breaking point and quit the movement. That is the movement’s loss.

Climate talks may not be uniquely sexist, but there are risk factors for abuse: stark power imbalances and a culture of confidentiality. Publicly, participants champion gender equality and inclusion. In their private behaviour, a minority undermine those principles.

The true test of any “zero tolerance” policy comes when a powerful player is accused of wrongdoing. Our reporting to date indicates there are influential people with questions to answer about their conduct. But holding them to account depends on their accusers airing painful memories and facing potential repercussions for their own careers: no easy ask.

The post Sexual harassment at UN talks weakens the fight against climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

A low hum of fans was ever present, holding up the plastic domes, capable of fitting 200 people in the four big rooms. The whole thing was windowless. Smaller rooms at the back were low-slung and white, like being in an ice cave, or a bunker deep underground.

Visitors were plied with bling: tote bags, lapel pins, lanyards and stickers proclaiming “America’s Promise: We are still in.” Attendees at the UN negotiations could be seen proudly sporting them on their suit lapels.

In the ice cave halls and conference rooms were dozens of events with business and political leaders and titles like “Walmart and Mars, Inc.: The Business Case for Action on Climate” and “U.S. Subnational Climate Progress: Harnessing Market Power to Drive Meaningful Greenhouse Gas Reductions.” I was on one in the ice cave at the back, called “Engine of Ambition: University Research and Engagement to Support Climate Action.” The attendance and energy at the events was substantial, and the free expresso and snacks didn’t hurt.

Too emphatic?

To the Americans who showed up in the domes, there was definitely some catharsis in proclaiming our continued commitment to the Paris Agreement, which of course has now been signed by every other country on the planet. The center probably fulfilled its goal of helping to staunch potential hemorrhaging by making it a little harder for other actors like Russia or Saudi Arabia from following President Donald Trump in announcing their withdrawal from the pact. And of course, it was a great opportunity for corporations like Walmart, Mars and Microsoft to get kudos their efforts on climate, and hopefully to inspire and shame laggard firms on the benefits of such actions.

But to some outsiders, it all seemed a bit over the top, a bit too noisy, and a bit too emphatic. One European told me it seemed very egotistical, like the whole world needed to hear again and again about how “We are still in!” And to have to hear yet again about America’s internal, domestic, problems on full display.

Countries are supposed to come to global negotiations with one position, but the clamor of the #WeAreStillIn campaign leaves the rest of the world slightly heartened, but also deeply confused. What is this country – the world’s largest historical emitter – going to do? If the country is going to come back into the Paris Agreement, then, when will it? Under what conditions will it do so? Will it only after be after Trump is out of office? Or will Trump himself change his mind and stay in? Will Trump attempt to extract concessions from the world community?

There seems to be nearly no appetite for making such a compromise, since the US joined and made a pledge just two years ago saying that we actually cared about climate change. So in spite of the confusion and distraction from the US, the world is forced to move ahead without us.

Unreliable

The fact is, the US has always been an unreliable world citizen when it comes to climate change diplomacy. We have always been extremely demanding, with exceedingly small “win sets” available for presidents to get a vote in support by the supermajority of US senators required for international treaties.

Since the beginning, the US fought any rights being granted for poor countries to development, or for their compensation in the wake of damages caused by climate change. We forced carbon trading mechanisms into the Kyoto Protocol text way back in 1997 and then George W. Bush promptly “unsigned” it upon his inauguration in the spring of 2001. Under his administration the US was downright difficult in the negotiations, and whole new negotiating bodies of the agreement had to be built to provide a pathway back into the agreement expected in 2009 in Copenhagen.

Despite his being awarded a Nobel Prize for doing almost nothing but saying he’d act more multilaterally, in his first term Barack Obama’s negotiating team was still difficult for many countries to deal with. We fought a binding agreement in Copenhagen in 2009 and were part of the renegade group with China, India, Brazil and South Africa who entirely transformed the regime’s architecture.

Instead of dividing up the burden of reducing emissions by scientific needs and criteria of equity and responsibility for creating the problem, the Copenhagen approach led by Obama was entirely bottom-up. Each country was able to make its own pledge based on its own politics and economy, and then the rest of the countries gets to review the country’s progress on meeting that voluntary pledge.

Though eventually accepted by nearly every country in the world, the most vulnerable developing countries were deeply skeptical of the system, which scientists showed would lead us to inadequate, and potentially disastrous, climate (in)action. In his first term, Obama almost never talked about climate change, and hid his funding efforts for climate assistance to developing countries deep in his budget requests to a hostile Congress.

Trump’s climate official: ‘I actually don’t know what 2C means’

Then came Obama’s re-election, when he started actually talking about the urgency of climate change, and directed his new Secretary of State John Kerry to lead an all-out push for a new deal in Paris. The joint announcement of Obama 2.0 with China in November of 2014 broke a logjam, and a worldwide agreement was struck in Paris a year later. Still inadequate and uncertain in its durability, it was significantly better than what came before it.

Upon his election, Trump’s disparaging campaign remarks about “cancelling the Paris Agreement” threw immediate cold water on the talks. His appointment of Scott Pruitt who is taking a wrecking-ball to domestic climate policy undermines the ability of the US to credibly say we will meet our Paris pledge from just two years ago. The endless palace intrigue and unclear signals from the White House about exactly what our national policy entails has tied our global partnerships in knots.

The ability of the world to negotiate an outcome in Bonn this month in this situation is something to appreciate. The US negotiating team in the end was not uncooperative. And the reality is that the US cannot formally withdraw until four years after the treaty came into effect—which is exactly the day after our next presidential election.

But the fact is that even if the US does not in the end withdraw from Paris and even if it comes in enthusiastically under its next leader, our credibility is deeply damaged. Four years of hard work to build trust in our nation’s ability to be a leader on climate are gone: who could trust an unreliable leader?

This is the question that did not get asked, out loud at least, inside the plastic ice caves of the US climate action domes in Bonn. Will other nations ever be able to trust the world’s largest historical emitter and wealthiest nation?

As an American, this tells me that the loud proclamations of #WeAreStillIn and the touting of public-private partnerships in inflatable domes needs to take place inside and outside another inflated dome: the Capital. We need to get our house in order.

Timmons Roberts is a professor of environmental studies and sociology in the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society in the USA. He is co-author of over 70 articles and 13 books, including Power in a Warming World (2015, MIT Press).

The post We are [not] still in: can the world ever trust US again on climate? appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP23, the second “conference of the parties” since the Paris Agreement was struck in 2015, promised to be a somewhat technical affair as countries continued to negotiate the finer details of how the agreement will work from 2020 onwards.

However, it was also the first set of negotiations since the US, under the presidency of Donald Trump, announced its intention earlier this year to withdraw from the Paris deal. And it was the first COP to be hosted by a small-island developing state with Fiji taking up the presidency, even though it was being held in Bonn.

Carbon Brief covers all the summit’s key outcomes and talking points.

After Trump’s decision in June that he wanted to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, all eyes were on the US official delegation to see how they would navigate the negotiations.

During the first week of the talks, a civil society group known as the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance called for the US delegation to be barred from attending the negotiations, due to its decision to leave the Paris deal.

Meanwhile, a seemingly pointed message was sent on day two of the COP, when Syria announced it would sign the Paris Agreement. This now leaves the US as the only country in the world stating it doesn’t intend to honour the landmark deal.

However, the delegation itself kept a relatively low profile – bar a now infamous“cleaner fossil fuels” side event which anti-Trump protesters disrupted for seven minutes, singing: “We proudly stand up until you keep it in the ground…”).

This was the moment when the protest started around me at the Trump administration event at #COP23 pic.twitter.com/3yx3deO9Q4

— Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman) November 13, 2017

The US delegation co-chaired a working group with China on Nationally Determined Contributions (country pledges, often known by the acronym NDCs) with reportedly high success. It’s worth noting, though, that many of the US negotiators are the same officials who have been representing the US at COPs for years. They seemingly continued their negotiations with little change in attitude, albeit possibly taking harder stances on issues such as “loss and damage” and finance.

There was a further chaotic appearance in the media centre by Trump adviser George David Banks, who vowed that his priority at COP23 was to fight “differentiation” (sometimes called “bifurcation”), namely, the division of countries into industrialised “annex one” countries and the rest in the UN climate arena. However, beyond this, the behaviour of the US delegation did not differ significantly from previous years.

Cracking @KarlMathiesen pic of a #COP23 huddle… starring @deantscott @LeoHickman + @MattMcGrathBBC https://t.co/w8aZFxJNV6 pic.twitter.com/cgwg2rdqe4

— Ed King (@edking_I) November 15, 2017

Importantly, though, the official US delegation were not the only group from the US drawing attention at the COP.

An alternative “We Are Still In” delegation set up a large pavilion at their US Climate Action Centre just outside the main venue for the talks.

This group included major sub-national actors, such as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California governor Jerry Brown, keen to prove there are many US voices against Trump’s anti-climate policies.

Their “America’s Pledge” report outlined how their coalition of cities, states and businesses represented over half the US economy. At the report’s packed launch event, Bloomberg even argued the group should should be given a seat at the climate negotiating table.

COP23 video: Does Donald Trump make limiting global warming to 1.5C impossible? Dr James Hansen, Dr Bill Hare, Rachel Cleetus, Catherine McKenna, Bill Peduto and Rachel Kyte respond.

Another talking point throughout the talks was the extent to which the US’s withdrawal from its climate leadership role seen under Barack Obama has emboldened China to take the role on itself.

One concrete way China has begun to play such a role is in the Ministerial on Climate Action (MOCA) coalition, a joint group consisting of the EU, China and Canada, conceived during last year’s COP after the US election result came in.

Li Shuo, senior global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, tells Carbon Brief:

It is worth noting that this is one of the only high-level climate processes that is a collaboration between developed and developing countries. It is also a very concrete case in point that China is lending support to the international climate process as part of collective/shared leadership.

Xie Zhenhua, China’s head of delegation at COP23 in Bonn, with staff (Credit: Carbon Brief)

Others argue leadership is no longer about one country or set of countries. Speaking at the COP, Mohamed Adow, international climate lead at Christian Aid London, said:

The days when you looked to one country to be able to actually lead the transition are gone. We’re now in a new era, where we are actually seeing more shared distributed leadership emerging, where 200 countries have collectively contributed to the global effort.

A second major event at the COP was the launch of the “Powering Past Coal Alliance”, led by the UK and Canada.

More than 20 countries and other sub-national actors joined the alliance, including Denmark, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Ethiopia, Mexico and the Marshall Islands; as well as the US states of Washington and Oregon. It aims to top 50 members by this time next year.

While the alliance notes in its declaration that “analysis shows that coal phase-out is needed no later than by 2030 in the OECD and EU28, and no later than by 2050 in the rest of the world” to meet the Paris Agreement, it does not commit signatories to any particular phase-out date. It also does not commit the signatories to ending the financing of unabated coal power stations, rather just “restricting” it.

Claire Perry, the UK’s climate minister, travelled to Bonn to launch the initiative alongside Canada’s environment minister Catherine McKenna. The UK has previously pledged to phase out unabated coal by 2025, while Canada has a 2030 deadline.

Claire Perry, @cathmckenna @MLiebreich et al preparing for the launch of the “Powering Past Coal Alliance” at #COP23 pic.twitter.com/9W4TmTlgNm

— Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman) November 16, 2017

The US did not sign onto the pledge and several other big coal countries were notable by their absence, including Germany, Poland, Australia, China and India.

Meanwhile, German chancellor Angela Merkel manoeuvred a delicate balancing act at the talks between trying to maintain her climate leadership on the world stage and wrangling with ongoing coalition talks between her own Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and the Green party and Free Democrats (FDP).

Coal-phase out has become a significant focal point for campaigners at UNFCCC summits and hopes that Merkel would commit Germany to a firm date in her speech to the conference were dashed.

Separately, Michael Bloomberg used a side-event to pledge $50m to expand his anti-coal US campaign into Europe.

The official talks themselves finished during the early hours of Saturday morning, following some last-minute wrangling over the ever-fraught issue of climate finance. (See Carbon Brief’s “map” of finance from multilateral climate funds published on the day the COP started.)

One key conflict to emerge in the early days of the conference, however, was pre-2020 climate action.

This centred on a developing country concern that rich countries had not done enough to meet their commitments made for the period up to 2020. These commitments are separate to the Paris Agreement, which applies only post-2020.

There were two main concerns: first, developed countries had not yet delivered the promised $100bn per year in climate finance by 2020 agreed in 2009 at Copenhagen; second, the Doha Amendment, a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol for the years leading up to 2020, had still not been ratified by enough countries to bring it into force.

Developing countries, including China and India, were particularly irked that pre-2020 action did not have a formal space on the COP23 negotiation agenda. They insisted space must be made to discuss it, arguing that the meeting of pre-2020 commitments was a key part of building trust in the rest of negotiations.

Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace international, says the pre-2020 ambition issue is really about whether developed countries who committed to take the lead in the original United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) back in 1992 have been doing so, and whether they’ve also taken specific measures to reduce their own emissions before 2020. She tells Carbon Brief:

I think many developed countries wanted to just kind of ignore that and focus on post-2020, but developing countries said “no”, we actually need to peak global emissions by 2020, so we want that to be a big topic here.

At first, many developed countries dismissed these demands. However, in the end they conceded, and pre-2020 ambition and implementation formed a major part of the COP23 decision text agreed and published early on Saturday morning.

Developing countries lost the battle for an agenda item on pre-2020 actions, but won the war because pre-2020 ambition is now embedded throughout the negotiations #COP23 pic.twitter.com/OS8jJKwNiA

— Mohamed Adow (@mohadow) November 15, 2017

This included an agreement to form additional stocktaking sessions in 2018 and 2019 to review progress on reducing emissions, as well as two assessments of climate finance to be published in 2018 and 2020. These submissions will then be pulled together in a synthesis report on pre-2020 ambition ahead of COP24, which takes place in December next year in Katowice, Poland.

Letters will also be sent to countries signed up to the Kyoto Protocol who have not yet ratified the Doha Amendment urging them to deposit their instruments of acceptance as soon as possible. Several European countries even ratified the Doha Amendment during the COP, including Germany and the UK.

Poland, the country which has so far held the EU back from ratifying as a whole, also announced its plans to ratify the amendment this year. The EU, which is treated as a party under the UNFCCC, has also suggested it may ratify the deal without Poland.

With Fiji being the first small-island state to host the climate talks, hopes were high that it would give added impetus to the negotiations.

High-level speakers on Wednesday were preceded by a speech from a 12-year old Fijian schoolboy called Timoci Naulusala, who reminded delegates that “it’s not about how, or who, but it’s about what you can do as an individual”.

The UN Climate Conference #COP23 finished on Saturday, but this 12-year-old from Fiji’s message will stick with attendees for a long time. pic.twitter.com/wv4yXn7sYg

— United Nations (@UN) November 18, 2017

Opinions were mixed on Fiji’s effectiveness as the talk’s president, but two outcomes it pushed for were touted as significant achievements.

These were the Gender Action Plan, which highlights the role of women in climate action and promotes gender equality in the process, and the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, which aims to support the exchange of experience and sharing of best practices on mitigation and adaptation.

Fiji also launched the Ocean Pathway Partnership, which aims to strengthen the inclusion of oceans within the UNFCCC process.

Countries agreed two years ago in Paris that there should be a one-off moment in 2018 to “take stock” of how climate action was progressing. This information will be used to inform the next round of NDCs, due in 2020.

This way of recognising “enhanced ambition” – a term heard a lot at COPs – was seen as an important precursor of the Paris Agreement’s longer-term “ratchet mechanism”, which aims to increase ambition on a five-year incremental cycle.

Originally called the “facilitative dialogue”, the name of this one-off process in 2018 was changed to “Talanoa dialogue” this year under the Fijian COP presidency. This was to reflect a traditional approach to discussions used in Fiji for an “inclusive, participatory and transparent” process.

COP23 video: What needs to happen by COP24 to keep the Paris Agreement on track? Rachel Cleetus, Li Shuo, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal and Carlos Rittl are among those who respond.

The final “approach” of the Talanoa dialogue was included as a four-page Annex to the main COP23 outcome decision.

It will be structured around three questions – “Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?” – but also includes new details, such as a decision to accept inputs from non-party stakeholders as well as parties, a decision to set up an online platform to receive inputs, and a new emphasis on efforts being made in the pre-2020 period.

It also pointedly says the dialogue “should not lead to discussions of a confrontational nature” with individual parties being singled out. Naoyuki Yamagishi, head of climate and energy at WWF Japan, tells Carbon Brief:

Talanoa dialogue was supposed to be a kind of opportunity-oriented, constructive and solution-oriented conversation. These kind of conversations, raising ambition conversations, tend to be very hard conversations in the UNFCCC context. Talanoa dialogue is one attempt to overcome that and create a space to try to be positive about it.

The Talanoa dialogue was also referred to in the main COP23 outcome:

Screenshot of COP23 decision text. Source: UNFCCC

This bit of text was subject to change until fairly late on at COP23, as parties negotiated the extent to which they wanted to be committed to the Talanoa process. The ultimate choice of “welcomes with appreciation” is significant – a previous draft had the more strongly worded “endorses”, but also did not officially launch the Talanoa dialogue as the final text did. Proposals for even weaker language were also on the table.

According to Yamagishi, “a careful balance” seems to have been struck between parties. He notes, however, that the final text makes it difficult for signatories to challenge the way the dialogue is organised, since they “welcome” it “with appreciation” and have also officially “launched” it. It’s worth noting that last-minute changes also saw that it “started” in January 2018 rather than at COP23 itself, as per earlier drafts.

The preparatory phase of the Talanoa dialogue will now begin over the coming year, ahead of the political phase conducted by ministers at COP24 in Poland. A key moment for the Talanoa dialogue will also be the publication of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 1.5C special report in September 2018.

COP24 will see the conclusion of the Talanoa dialogue with a “political phase”, as illustrated with this UNFCCC diagram.

Figure of “political phase” of the Talanoa dialogue to be held at COP24. Source: UNFCCC.

As was the case at COP22 in Marrakesh last year, negotiations in this session centred around attempts to make significant progress on developing the Paris “rulebook”. This will establish the more technical rules and processes needed to fulfill the Paris Agreement’s ambition.

These discussions are overseen by the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement, or APA. Its work covers several areas, including setting the framework of country pledges (known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs), reporting of adaptation efforts, the transparent reporting of action taken at a “global stocktake” in 2023, and how to monitor compliance with the Paris Agreement.

The deadline for this work is next year’s COP in Poland, set to be held in December 2018. But the goal in Bonn was to create a draft of these implementation guidelines, with options and disagreements outlined as clearly as possible to show what still needs resolving.

The final COP23 text recognises that an additional negotiating session may be needed in 2018 between the May intersessional and COP24 in December to ensure the Paris rulebook is finished on time. This will be decided during May’s scheduled intersessional meeting, although early drafts of the text suggested “August/September 2018” as being the preferred time for such an additional session.

NDCs; Agenda item 3

A 179-page document pulling together parties’ positions on information needed to communicate national climate action plans (NDCs) was released earlier in the week.

Deep breath, everyone… #COP23 co-chairs have just released “preliminary material in preparation for the first iteration of the informal note” for Agenda item 3. It summarises parties’ views on contents/accounting of NDCs. And it runs to 179 pages…. https://t.co/SLtpshfWBY

— Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman) November 13, 2017

The size of the text indicated significant differences still remained on how NDCs should be organised, delivered and updated. This led to some disappointment.

Yamide Dagnet, project director on international climate action at the World Resources Institute, says NDC communication was the area of the Paris rulebook with least progress so far. She tells Carbon Brief:

Countries got stuck because there was no agreement on how to tackle the issue of scope and differentiation, as well as flexibility. So this is how we landed with a 180-page document that includes all countries’ views. There needs to be a streamlining. We need to translate those views into some sort of options for each issue.

Global stocktake (Agenda item 6)

More progress was made on the global stocktaking exercise – a more formal version of the 2018 Talanoa dialogue – which is embedded in the Paris Agreement and set to take place in 2023 and every five years thereafter. Discussions centred on equity, as well as the scope of the stocktake – for example, whether it will include loss and damage.

Transparency (Agenda item 5)

Transparency negotiations under the Paris rulebook cover how compliance will be monitored, in line with the “enhanced transparency framework” set out by the Paris Agreement.

Dagnet says these talks made significant progress, resulting in one set of text, albeit 46-page long. She tells Carbon Brief:

Obviously, the format and the final format will probably be a political conversation. We need to maintain that balance next year, but at least we can really witness some really good progress on transparency.

(Note that Carbon Brief’s article about the Bonn intersessional in May 2017 explained what all the different “agenda items” refer to.)

Resolution of several issues during the final day of COP23 left many hoping the meeting would (uniquely) end on time. However, disputes over two finance issues prevented this from happening, with the conference finally wrapping up at 5.30am on Saturday morning.

Last-minute tensions unfolded over the Paris Agreement’s Article 9.5, which asks developed countries to report on their flows of climate finance to developing countries.

Article 9.5 in the Paris Agreement. Source: UNFCCC.

The key point of Article 9.5 is to improve the predictability of financial flows to developing countries, thereby providing information to help them develop their climate plans.

However, as with the tensions over “pre-2020” discussed above, there was no formal space on COP23’s agenda to discuss how to develop the guidelines for it, with developed countries arguing that demands were beyond what was originally agreed.

In the end, negotiators settled on allowing extra time to discuss this issue at the intersessional meetings between now and COP24 in December.

A second sticking point on finance was the Adaptation Fund, a relatively small but politically significant multilateral fund for small-scale projects. Parties had previously agreed that it “should” serve under the Paris Agreement, but the specifics of this had not been decided.

Late into the night on the final day of COP23, member countries of the Kyoto Protocol, which the fund currently serves, at last formally agreed that the fund “shall” serve the Paris Agreement.

The Adaptation Fund also received more than $90m (including $50m from Germany) in new pledges during the COP. The same amount was also pledged to the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF).

Separately, French president Emmanuel Macron told COP23 delegates during his speech that Europe will cover any shortfall in funding for the IPCC. This follows the US decision to pull its funding of the science body. “It will not miss a single euro,” said Macron. The UK also announced it was pledging to double its contribution.

The Paris Agreement includes a section recognising the importance of averting – and addressing – the loss and damage caused by climate change. It also says parties should enhance “understanding, action and support” on this key topic, which has become somewhat of a bugbear at negotiations in recent years.

To some, it has now become the “third pillar” of the climate action, alongside mitigation and adaptation. But unlike mitigation and adaptation – with their promised $100bn-a-year in climate finance – there are currently no sources of finance for loss and damage.

The workstream to create the Paris rulebook currently doesn’t include loss and damage as an agenda point, meaning loss and damage is not given a major space in the political UNFCCC process. This is despite demands from developing countries that new additional finance will be needed for it.

Protestors in polar bear suits wind down after a Saturday march near the COP23 venue in Bonn, Germany

COP23 did include discussions on loss and damage as part of a separate, more low-level technical process called the Warsaw International Mechanism (or “WIM”). Originally agreed in 2013 at COP19 in Poland, this is a separate UNFCCC workstream to the Paris Agreement, with its own executive committee.

The WIM agreed on a new “five-year rolling workplan” for the mechanism, finalising a proposal from October. However, the WIM has yet to bring forward any concrete plan on finance – the key difficulty in loss-and-damage discussions. A one-off “expert dialogue” was also agreed for the May intersessional in 2018, which will inform the next review of the WIM in 2019.

Sven Harmeling, climate change advocacy coordinator at CARE international, tells Carbon Brief that shifting the finance discussion to 2019 is “wholly inadequate” in light of the increasing impacts facing so many people.

A stronger emphasis on enhancing action and support, as well as identifying new sources for additional finance, is urgently needed on loss and damage, he says, alongside initiatives such as the new InsuResilience Global Partnership launched at the talks this year.

One notable, yet low-profile outcome from the conference this year was the end of a deadlock on agriculture which had lasted for years.

Parties agreed to work over the next few years on a series of issues linking climate change and agriculture. They agreed to streamline two separate technical discussions on this topic into one process.

Countries have now been asked to submit their views on what should be included in the work by 31 March 2018, with options including how to improve soil carbon and fertility, how to assess adaptation and resilience and the creation of better livestock management systems.

Jason Funk, associate director for land use at the Center for Carbon Removal, says the decision itself, rather than what it says, is the most significant part of the agreement. He tells Carbon Brief:

I’ve watched the parties deliberate and negotiate over agriculture issues since 2011 and they have been close many times. But this is the first time they have reached consensus about how to work on agriculture. The stakes are very high and I have witnessed the deep divides among the parties on issues that connect agriculture and climate change. As I see it, this decision signals that they have reached a level of trust and common understanding about each others’ views, and that trust and understanding will pave the way for them to work successfully together from here forward.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) welcomed the outcome on agriculture, calling it a “major step” to address the need to adapt agriculture to climate change and meet a growing global demand for food.

Meanwhile, earlier on in the week during the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) discussions at COP23, a skirmish broke out over the best way to account for the warming impact of sources and sinks of greenhouse ages.

Diplomats and politicians gather in the main plenary for an informal stocktaking exercise midway through COP23

The argument centres on how the commonly used Global Warming Potential (GWP) metric accounts for the warming effect of methane. Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay formed a new alliance to say the GWP metric currently over-accounts for methane, disadvantaging them unfairly due to their large cattle industries. Brazil also made this point in its Paris pledge in 2015, where it calculated its emissions in both GWP and Global Temperature Potential (GTP).

However, no clear resolution was reached and the discussion has now been pushed to June 2019. Observers say this is something to watch at future meetings.

A proposal submitted by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and six others asked for a new agenda item to consider a new “gateway”. This would create a UN-sanctioned emissions trading platform designed to “to encourage, measure, report, verify and account for greater ambition from corporate entities, investors, regions, states/provinces, cities and civil society organizations”. But this led to concern among some that this could increase corporate influence over the UN talks.

Similar concerns emerged during the first week at COP23 with a proposal from Ukraine to bring energy corporates closer into the UN climate process by slotting energy multinationals into an “intermediate layer” between the UNFCCC and national governments.

With the conclusion of COP23, the clock really begins to tick for the major deadlines and events in 2018. With the process for the Talanoa dialogue now essentially agreed, with it taking place throughout next year, there still remains much work to do before the Paris rulebook is agreed upon at COP24 in Poland.

Below are some key dates in the diary for the year ahead…

Finally, Brazil has put in an official bid to host COP25 in 2019, which is scheduled to be hosted in Latin America and the Caribbean (Argentina and Jamaica were also said to be in the running). Brazil’s offer was initially “accepted with appreciation”, suggesting it is a frontrunner. However, a last-minute intervention meant it has now been put out to consultation.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Italy have both signalled their interest to host COP26 in 2020 – another key year with the next round of NDCs due to be submitted.

This article was produced by Carbon Brief and shared under a Creative Commons licence

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Brazil, China, India and South Africa – which makes up the Basic negotiating group – and the G77 coalition of 133 developing countries have accused rich countries of trying to “unilaterally apply new eligibility criteria” to the Global Environmental Facility (Gef) and Green Climate Fund (GCF).

The Gef and GCF both act as conduits for billions of dollars in climate finance given by industrialised countries to fund projects that can help improve the lot of those most affected and least prepared for climate change. This assistance comes in the form of grants and loans.

During the last board meeting of the Gef in Addis Ababa in October, developed countries proposed middle income countries should have access to grants blocked. Instead, they would only be able to apply for loans granted at a concessional interest rate. 

According to Brazil’s chief climate negotiator José Antônio Marcondes, if the rules changed as proposed, in Latin American, only Haiti would be eligible for grants.

Final wrap: China flexes its muscle as climate talks end with slow progress

In the same month, the UK vetoed Argentinian and Paraguayan projects in the GCF (where decisions are reached by consensus). The bids, worth $67m between them, would have been directed to sustainable forestry and farming activities.

At the time, British representative Josceline Wheatley suggested that the grants were too generous for middle income countries.

In a statement, the Basic group told delegates to climate talks in Bonn: “These attempts have no legal basis and, in our view, are tantamount to renegotiating [the Paris Agreement]. This may potentially undermine the level of ambition of developing countries in the global effort against climate change”. The Basic group said they had the backing of the G77.

Marcondes said the moves were “an attempt to rewrite the Paris Agreement”, adding that differentiating the developing world would make the funds work like the World Bank.

Report: Indigenous peoples given a voice at UN climate talks

Bolivia’s chief negotiator Ivan Zambrana told Climate Home News the GCF should make the countries’ pledges to the Paris deal “more effective”.

“But unfortunately there is an attempt to make them work like development banks. That would demonstrate that developed countries are not honouring their commitments,” he said.

“This has not been done in an open manner, but rather in the way they operationalise. For instance, there has been a bigger institutional effort towards loans than concessional transfers”, said Zambrana.

Miguel Arias Cañete, EU commissioner for climate action and energy, said: “There are probably many improvements that can be done but the important thing is that we are fulfilling our commitments.”

At an event on the sidelines of the Bonn talks last week, Howard Bamsey, executive director of GCF, said there was nothing in the funds constitution to support a division of developing countries. 

“It’s always a complicated calculus when we try to define for the board the appropriate level of concessionality – that is the level required to make the project viable. But there is no policy that says we should take a different approach for middle income countries,” he said.

In a press conference for Spanish-speaking reporters, UNFCCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa said the funds were “highly appreciated by developing countries as they reflect the principle under which the developed world bears a bigger responsibility” against climate change.

Espinosa said that, while it is understandable why the developing countries have raised the issue, the UN talks talks were not the appropriate place to discuss the funds.

“GEF and GCF have their own boards, where decisions are taken. It’s important that the countries act through their representatives in these boards,” she said.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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China’s top climate negotiator, once courted by the Obama administration, sits at the centre of a coalition of developing countries that won the day in Bonn.

At the first major climate conference since Donald Trump made clear his intention to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, an often divided group of 130 developing nations were “united as never before”, said Xie, and had successfully extracted concessions from developed countries on early climate action.

“The results have largely met developing countries’ demands,” he said after a draft decision on the pre-2020 arrangements was agreed by parties earlier this week.

That fight was pushed primarily by a group of countries from the developing world that is currently fronted by Iran, but dominated by China. Other developing countries fell in behind them.

According to some observers, the group of four major emerging economies known as Basic – Brazil, South Africa, India and China – also worked in abnormal concert throughout the talks, piling draft negotiating texts full of language that split the world into rich and poor.

This issue, which eases responsibility for middle income countries, was anathema to the US before Trump and remained a “top priority” for the Trump delegation in Bonn. White House advisor George David Banks told Politico the US team in Bonn had been “indispensable” in “thwarting” efforts to write this differentiation into the Paris rules. But the real fight will be next year when the drafts must be agreed. The reemergence of this issue signals poor countries plan to make things difficult for the US and their rich world allies.

China’s lead climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua at the 2017 Bonn talks (Photo: Carbon Brief)

Gebru Jember Endalew, the chair of the least developed countries group, which is not traditionally sympathetic to China, agreed that the conference of parties (Cop) had been a coup for the world’s poorer nations.

“This has been the best Cop – not a traditional Cop. It is a very important Cop. I believe that all the required issues have been [going] in the right direction,” he said.

This cohesion between poor and middle income countries may be a sign China’s enormous belt and road overseas investment initiative, which will send trillions into developing countries in the coming decades, is broadening China’s influence.

“This is an inevitable result of international climate diplomacy in the post-US era,” said Li Shuo, senior campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia. “The international climate regime will have multiple poles in the years to come, and the Basic group will become one important force.”

“Trump has left a political vacuum,” said David Waskow, the director of climate change at the World Resources Institute. “But other countries made very clear they are willing to fill it.”

Xie denied that a low-profile performance of the US delegations would give developing countries an easier ride. Negotiators inside the rooms pointed to a “less visible” US delegation. But the Obama-era diplomats remained “engaged” and made “judicious” interventions along the same lines they have taken for years.

A senior developing country negotiator said: “They are less visible than they used to be, but their priorities are clear. There’s a strong sense of continuity.”

Report: Developing countries win concessions on early climate action at UN talks

This continuity of personnel and priorities is part of what insulates the climate regime from outside shocks. Countries work in blocs, meaning that national politics is diluted. The diplomats who conduct this work are mostly familiar faces, even friends. This community effect shouldn’t be underestimated. They have a lot of skin in this game and care deeply for each other and the process.

But the same insulation also detaches these talks from what happens outside.

This conference took place across two campuses at opposite ends of Bonn’s huge Rheinaue park. In the UN climate change headquarters negotiators laboured over procedural decisions – many describing a “low energy” atmosphere. Even on Friday night, as talks dragged into the late hours and skirmishes broke out over climate finance and an emissions stocktake, the stakes were low.

Of the two major world leaders to turn up – Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel – only the French leader was able to inject a sense of intensity. Merkel was hamstrung by the ongoing negotiations for the German coalition government, in which the Greens are pushing her hard on the country’s missed carbon targets and heavy coal use.

At the other end of the Rheinaue, in the ‘Bonn Zone’, a cavalcade of ‘climate solutions’ were on show for two weeks. All the cities, regions, companies and indigenous peoples who say they have the answers were given a space. The US president was able to demonstrate his backing for US energy companies and their workers. The event, which included a Peabody coal executive, was interrupted by a ten minute singing protest that had been signed off by the White House. It was a moment of staged drama that gave Trump a political win.

Walking the halls of the Bonn Zone you could meet Pacific islanders, mayors from Cameroon, advocates for hydrogen fuels, even Arnold Schwarzenegger – “if someone tells you to wait [to act on climate], tell them eff yooooo”. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t low energy.

The difference between the two zones was symbolic, but it also represents the reaction Paris unleashed in the real economy. The world is going to spend $7.3 trillion on clean energy in the next few decades; the fight over who gets it is heating up.

The three stories that defined the conference happened outside the negotiating rooms; the UK and Canada launched a global call to end coal, signing up 18 countries; the Trump administration’s successful attempt to bring its energy industry into the climate conversation; and the intervention of the US cities and states who camped themselves outside the main entrance of the meeting.

COP23: Coal deals ‘very possible’ as US holds industry event at UN climate talks

Meanwhile, negotiators are still stuck on working out exactly how the Paris Agreement will work, a task far more technically complex than the deal itself.

“In here, we are becoming detached from the real world,” said one negotiator in the plenary hall.

This feeling was exacerbated by the place this conference occupied in the multi-year process of brokering a global climate deal. The Bonn talks were always billed as a “technical meeting”; one at which the rules of the Paris deal were drafted, but not decided.

“There have to be boring meetings,” said another negotiator. “We cannot save the world every year.”

Sapped of political impetus, the diplomats “paced themselves”, said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, the lead negotiator for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, adding he was “soul searching” as the talks came to an end.

“Nobody was able to go further [than predicted],” he said. “It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Had we been more hopeful, maybe things would have gone differently.”

What was achieved?

• An important step towards motivating countries to do more to cut carbon, earlier. The ‘Talanoa Dialogue’, a process rebranded by the Fijian presidency of the talks, will see all countries report their progress to one another over the coming 12 months.
• The rules of the Paris agreement began to take shape. Although most negotiators believe an extra session will be needed before the next major talks in Poland in December 2018.
• Countries agreed to create special platforms for gender issues and indigenous peoples to be more influential on decisions taken by the UN climate process.

Ultimately, after a year of Trump hysteria, the show ground on. But the focus was elsewhere. When these talks return in Poland next December, an emboldened developing world will drive home its newfound strength.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Developing countries are pushing for more opportunities to quiz rich countries on their plans for releasing money to help them cope with climate change.

Rich countries, on the other hand, argue that this is beyond what it was originally agreed upon in the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Sources said the European Union was being constructive, but the ‘umbrella group’, which includes the US, Australia and Japan was pushing back on developing country demands.

“What was promised by leaders of developed countries has not trickled down to negotiators,” Seyni Nafo, head of the African group of negotiators told Climate Home. “As a result, we’re stuck on how developed countries are going to report on their financial contributions. The US’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement has had a big impact on how developed countries are behaving on finance. Despite France’s leader and others promising to step in after Trump’s withdrawal, it does not reflect in the negotiations,”

Camilla Born, a climate policy advisor with E3G, said: “Finance flows are growing and many developed countries have a good story to tell. They shouldn’t tarnish themselves with the same brush as President Trump, who is pushing for deep cuts in US climate finance. They should instead engage with developing countries in good faith, seeking to build trust between parties.”

Heads of delegation met and a proposal for resolving the issue was put forward just after noon, Bonn time, by the lead negotiator for the Fijian presidency ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan.

The issue could hold hostage the key Fijian initiative at these talks – the Talanoa dialogue, which will take stock of the efforts made by countries on climate change during 2018. With little time remaining, the Fijians now face a stern diplomatic test.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Bangladesh’s foreign minister Hasan Mahmud told a press conference there had been no progress on fleshing out loss and damage text in the Paris Agreement at COP23.

Bangladesh wants clarification on compensation arrangements for countries that have lost property and lives to climate-related disasters.

Negotiators are focused on producing a rulebook that will bring the Paris Agreement to life. But they still have a lot of ground to cover if the framework is to be finalised at COP24 in Katowice next year.

Mahmud said the loss and damage issue had gathered momentum since it was first raised in 2010 – and snowballed with its incorporation into the Paris Agreement. However, “it has been lost here,” he added.

The Bangladeshi environment minister, Anwar Hossain Manju, said talks were progressing but “they are not exciting as in Paris”.

Bangladesh has particular cause to fear loss and damage taking a backseat in Bonn, after 8m people were impacted by floods – and 145 killed – in the low-lying country this year.

Rising sea levels are a particular concern for small island developing states, but the summit outcome might not even mention the world’s seas.

“Oceans should at least be included in the preamble of this COP outcome,” said WWF Fiji’s Alfred Ralifo.

Report: Indigenous peoples given a voice at UN climate talks

Emmanuel Dlamini, Swaziland’s lead negotiator from Swaziland, said that countries had also been struggling to reach consensus on adaptation funding.

“However, we’re beginning to converge on the idea of having the adaptation fund supporting the Paris Agreement,” he said.

Another tough nut to crack for negotiators has been the monitoring, reporting and verification of nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) – nations’ emissions-cutting pledges.

Dlamini said the voluntary nature of countries’ pledges made it tough for negotiators to agree a framework for assessing their progress towards the Paris target of pegging global warming at 2C or lower.

“The NDCs are a new system with no international benchmark on implementation,” he noted.

Despite these challenges, progress was made on a mechanism to assess and quantify the resources needed by poor countries to recover from climate disasters, according to the G77+China president, Maria Fernanda Espinosa.

Moreover, “the outcome on loss and damage is going to be a good one”, she said, and the same would be true for education, access to public information and agriculture.

However, Espinosa saw little progress on finance, particularly with regards clarity on implementing the adaptation fund. “Tensions” on such issues did not though shade her optimism that the COP23 summit would produce a good outcome, she added.

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Polluters should pay for homes and livelihoods wrecked by rising seas and increasingly extreme weather, campaigners argued in a statement issued alongside UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany.

Expressing frustration with slow progress made on “loss and damage” in formal negotiations, more than 50 groups and individuals backed the “climate damages tax” idea.

“We need a solution to climate change damage for my island on the front line of sea level rise and for coastal cities and communities around the world,” said signatory and Seychelles ambassador Ronny Jumeau.

“A key part of the solution is loss and damage finance – we need new sources of finance to cope with the impacts.  A climate damages tax could provide a new source of finance, at scale, and in a fair way.  This concept deserves to be taken forward.”

Report: No finance plan for climate change victims in draft UN decision

Negotiators agreed in Bonn on Tuesday to hold an “expert dialogue” in 2018 on raising funds for climate change victims, deferring the contentious discussion for another year. Developed countries do not accept liability for damages caused by global warming.

The campaigners’ declaration says the fossil fuel industry is responsible for around 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but bears “none of the costs” of their effect on the climate.

Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Programme said “At Cop23 rich countries have done everything they can to stump discussion on ways to fund the poorest people on the frontline of climate impacts.

“A climate damages tax on the fossil fuel industry is one way to reverse the injustice of climate change, and ensure the fossil fuel industry pays for its damage – not poor people.”

Other signatories to the declaration included Canadian author Naomi Klein, British journalists George Monbiot and Maya Goodfellow, and NGOs Oxfam, Greenpeace, WWF and Care International.

Bangladeshi negotiator Ziaul Haque said vulnerable countries welcomed any source of funding, but expressed scepticism about the campaign.

He commented: “While the developed countries are not paying heed to the climatic damage, how can we expect that their polluting industries will raise funds to address the damage?”

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Funded by the German government, the Global South Scholarship exposes youth to the complex world of international negotiations and the discussions that swirl around it.

Climate Home News asked three participants about their impressions of the Cop23 summit.

Harlino Nandha Prayudha (21, Indonesia) works with the International Association of Students in Agriculture and Related Science

How did you participate at Cop23? I joined two working groups. I was exposed to a lot of new information about adaptation and mitigation in agriculture, which is knowledge that I have never come across in my country.

I will share this knowledge when I return to Indonesia. I’m already drafting a proposal for a project where I will target teenagers and train them about climate change to create more awareness in my country.

Have you been disappointed so far? I didn’t get a badge to the Bula Zone, where the negotiations take place, because I came with an NGO delegation. So I can’t go and see how the negotiations go, but there is a computer lab where I can go and watch the live webcast of some of the sessions. The distance between the Bula and Bonn zones is too far – it’s like we’re dealing with exclusive issues.

What is your hope for the future? The youth in Indonesia spends a lot of their time on their mobile phones and they don’t care about important issues like tackling climate change. I hope future generations improve their awareness and also contribute something in dealing with the problem.

What is your experience with other delegates? They are patient and willing to listen when I make contributions. This is a good environment. This is my first Cop, there is a lot of information, so sometimes I get intimidated but it’s a learning process.

Jamilla Sealy (29, Barbados) is a member of Caribbean Youth Environmental Network

What struck you the most when you got here? Other than the Indian Pavilion, which is beautiful, I was struck by the messages of sustainability everywhere, the giving of renewable water bottles to delegates and the using of electric cars. It wouldn’t make any sense to me to try and fix the problem through talking while we’re doing the wrong thing. I’m glad we’re doing the right thing while we’re here.

Another thing is that this Cop is hosted by Fiji, a small island developing state, just like my country. We have huge problems resulting from climate change impacts.

In what way have you been participating at Cop23? I am part of my country’s government delegation so I’ve been between the Bonn Zone and the Bula Zone. I have been to the Aosis [association of small island states] meeting and I have been to the opening ceremony. I have also been to some side events. This has given me a broader sense of what a Cop is about.

What has disappointed you at Cop23? Having the two venues separate is a big mistake because the amount of time it takes one to get between the two places, including walking and going through security, is a lot. What also disappointed me is that I went to one session where most of the countries were trying to put pre-2020 ambition on the agenda but the US refused. An hour was spend discussing this. Eventually the matter was pushed to the next day.

What are your hopes for the future? I hope that global south governments will include young people in their delegations and pay for them. Not only that, I hope that governments would train their delegates about the negotiations before coming here, because the Cop can be very overwhelming.

Mathias Edetor (27, Ghana) works with NGOs including the Greener Impact International and Climate Change Resource Centre on education and capacity building

How do you feel about being at Cop23? I’m very happy to be part of this process because as people from the Global South we are more impacted by climate change, less capacitated to respond and under-represented in these forums.

I’m hopeful that the outcome of COP23 will advance the implementation of the Paris Agreement. By that I mean having the Paris Agreement rulebook done. I learnt that it will be finished in 2018 but I want a lot of progress on it now.

I’m happy to note that the gender action plan has been adopted and that the Green Climate Fund has now launched a simplified approval process, because it was difficult for people from developing countries to go through the stringent processes required to follow when applying for funding.

What do you hope to do when you get back to Ghana? I have been trained as a climate reality leader so when I get back home I will create awareness about climate solutions based on the knowledge a I got at this Cop. I’ll be visiting schools and I will organise an event at my former university where I will help students appreciate the linkage between climate change and development. My focus will also be to ensure the implementation of my country’s national climate plan on the ground.

What are you looking forward to after this Cop? The coming together here through the Global South Scholarship is an opportunity for us to network and share experiences. One of my hopes is that we can have a network that focuses on implementation of national climate plans in the Global South countries.

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With the world’s second largest flag registry, the Pacific island state is leading a climate push inside the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

As Climate Home News has reported, the Marshall Islands seat at IMO has been controlled by its commercial shipping registry, which operates out of Virginia, US. Such arrangements have slowed down the industry’s action, according to observers.

In discussions about shipping’s climate impact, Hilda Heine said her government had now asserted its authority. “We are actually working very closely with our shipping registry and they are behind us in the position that we are taking in the IMO,” she said. “We are not arguing back and forth on this, we see eye to eye.”

A plan, due to be agreed at an IMO meeting in April, must include measures that kick in straight away as well as a target to reach zero emissions by 2050, Heine said.

“If we are to succeed in limiting global temperature increases to no more than 1.5C, which is our goal, then ambitious climate action must be taken in all sectors,” she said. “The IMO must play its part in that.”

Most climate policy decisions at the UN shipping body are being deferred to 2023, pending an exercise to gather ship-level emissions data. But campaigners say speed restrictions, for example, could deliver carbon savings much sooner.

Following a climate working group meeting at the IMO last month, countries are “still far from consensus,” Heine said.

Last week, the International Chamber of Shipping accused the Marshall Islands of pushing an “inflexible and unrealistic stance”.

Marshallese foreign minister John Silk shot back that “we will not compromise on our survival.” The low-lying island nation is acutely vulnerable to the rising sea levels that come with global warming.

No. The inflexible & unrealistic stance of Marshall Islands – both at IMO and in Bonn – risks impeding consensus to address shipping’s CO2 https://t.co/rjjlTDM1tt

— ICS shipping (@shippingics) November 8, 2017

It is not just the influential ICS lobby pushing back against high ambition proposals.

Nicolas Udrea, a French negotiator at the IMO, told Climate Home News that Brazil, for example, has concerns about the cost of climate policies. Its economy relies heavily on commodity exports.

Emerging economies are also arguing that rich and poor countries have different levels of responsibility. It is a familiar concept at climate talks, but sits uneasily with the IMO principle that no country should get more favourable treatment than another.

Negotiators are trying to convene an extra meeting in Singapore mid-January to find common ground, Udrea said.

Shipping executive: ‘We have deliberately misled public on climate’

John Kornerup Bang, climate lead at Danish shipping giant Maersk, said policy intervention was needed to drive investment in innovation. “We need to fundamentally change the way ships are driven forward and it is a huge task,” he said.

Maersk is aiming to cut the carbon dioxide emitted for each container moved 60% from 2007 levels by 2020 and had achieved a 42% cut by the end of 2016.

“We are confident that we can get to 60%, but that will be a stretch,” he said. “After that we cannot do any more by efficiency. It is about introducing new propulsion technologies. It is more than we can do on our own.”

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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For the so-called “first nations”, the platform will both strengthen the voice of populations that are often persecuted in their countries and recognise their leading role as the guardians of the forest. 

There an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, and over 20% of tropical forest carbon is stored in indigenous people’s territories.

“The overall purpose of the platform will be to strengthen the knowledge, technologies, practices and efforts of local communities and indigenous peoples related to addressing and responding to climate change”, said the agreement, which was approved on Wednesday.

Report: Developing countries win concessions on early climate action at UN talks

Indigenous land rights have been shown to be a strong buffer against deforestation, which is a driver of climate change.

Former Brazilian environment minister Izabella Teixiera told the Guardian: “Indigenous rights are really important to move towards a fair, low-carbon planet. I hope this can also help us avoid backsliding on this agenda in Brazil.”

Indigenous leaders met with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the COP23 climate talks in Bonn on Wednesday. In the brief conversation, the European leader said he expects the conditions for the indigenous peoples to improve with their acceptance into the process.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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In Kenya, a three year long drought has affected 5.6 million people, with 2.6 million facing severe food insecurity. In the Caribbean, hurricanes – including Irma, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record – overwhelmed the island states, rolling back decades of development. In the face of such an onslaught, it’s easy to feel that the opportunity to tackle climate change is slipping from our grasp.

Yet in the aftermath of this terrible destruction we see what I believe to be our greatest hope in the fight against climate change – human solidarity.

For example, the people of Antigua offered refuge to all of their sisters and brothers from Barbuda whose island home felt the full force of the hurricane. The resurgence of community in a time of strife in places such as Antigua and Barbuda, as they came to terms with the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma is what is needed in the climate negotiations to achieve climate justice.

These acts of humanity are not a new phenomenon. Around the world, our histories, our cultures and even our languages bear evidence of the role that solidarity has played in shaping our societies.

Report: Rich countries not talking climate finance seriously, say African officials

There is an old tradition of cooperation in Ireland where farmers turn to each other at times of harvest to lighten each other’s load. This system is known as a Meitheal. In Kenya, the national motto Harambee, translated as “all pull together” from Swahili, has similar origins in community collaboration.

Nelson Mandela described the southern African philosophy of Ubuntu as “the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others” and this sentiment is echoed in the Sanskrit phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam which translates to English as “the world is one family”. Faced with the existential threat of climate change, we must draw on this essential core of human unity and come to understand that it will only be through working together that we will overcome.

Practically, this means transforming our institutions of governance so as to enable all people to participate in the decisions that impact upon their lives.

Only a global community of equals can act in unison to bring about a transformation to a safer and fairer world. We must bridge the divide between communities on the front lines of climate impacts and the decision makers who are shaping national and international responses on climate change. By ensuring that the voices of those for whom climate change is a part of their lived experience are heard in the corridors of power, we can foster the empathy to act in solidarity.

But first we must change the language we use. The right to participate in decision making will be realised by reaching out to those most marginalised and building their capabilities to directly engage decision makers. But this cannot happen if the concepts being put forward seem impenetrable.

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The technical jargon of climate change decision making – a world of mitigation, adaptation, market mechanisms and nationally determined contributions – is meaningless to most people and only serves to further alienate.

The onus is not on communities around the world to learn this obscure tongue. Instead we must develop new, inclusive ways of discussing climate change, rooted in our cultures and our shared identities. It must speak to the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in and inspire the determination to change course.

Then we must listen. As the COP Fijian Presidency has emphasised with their talanoa approach, we must learn from the experiences of those who understand the day-to-day reality of climate disruption and incorporate their traditional and indigenous knowledge into the global response on climate change.

Their collectively held knowledge is critical to successful, community-based climate action. Local and indigenous women’s voices especially are absent from decision making on climate change. In many parts of the world, women are responsible for the majority of the labour involved in growing crops and processing food after the harvest. This expertise ensures communities have the food they need to survive and must inform how we act in the face of climate change.

Finally, we must ensure transparency and accountability – not just between countries, but between decision makers and the people they represent. To fight the climate crisis we need leaders who are not afraid to turn to the people and ask them what needs to be done. A good leader cares for the future of their people and act in their best interests. They will act transparently because they have no reason not to, and they will be answerable for their actions. Such leadership can help to inspire inclusivity and solidarity. It can to help us find the best of ourselves and the courage necessary to sustain our world for future generations.

“Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine,” is an Irish saying that loses its magic when translated directly into English – “people live in each other’s shadows”. Its true meaning is that we rely on each other – we need each other to move forward.

For ministers gathered in Bonn, Germany, farmers struggling against recurrent drought in the Sahel or island communities struggling to hold back the sea in the South Pacific, may seem very far away. They shouldn’t. The decisions they will take this week are not technical nor political – they are simply about the dignity of people’s lives. And those people have a right to participate.

Mary Robinson is president Mary Robinson Foundation and was the first woman to be president of the Republic of Ireland.

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“If the opportunity presents itself I will sit with him and relay our concern and I feel that it’s an important issue,” said Umi Sengebau, whose small Pacific island is vulnerable to rising sea levels and a major aid partner for Australia.

“I believe that the future of our planet cannot tolerate us continually burning coal. That needs to be stopped,” he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK40euvBcww&feature=youtu.be

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Climate talks in Bonn have been held hostage for more than a week over the issue, as poor countries called for a space to hold the rich to account on their promises.

Moroccan diplomats, who were charged with brokering a resolution, found unanimity on Wednesday morning. The final document will put pressure on rich countries to take action on carbon cuts and climate finance.

A request from the ‘like-minded developing country’ group of negotiators to formally discuss the promises made by the developed world at these talks has threatened to derail other important work fleshing out the rulebook of the Paris Agreement.

Their proposal was not granted. Instead, parties agreed to seven measures that would scrutinise rich country’s action.

These include:

• Calling on the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres to intervene in the refusal of the majority of parties to ratify the Doha Amendment of the Kyoto Protocol
• A process to track and report on progress to meeting pre-2020 commitments, including stocktakes in 2018 and 2019
• An assessment of the finance rich countries are providing to help poor ones cope with climate change

https://twitter.com/KarlMathiesen/status/930758598564687872

“People were really constructive and willing to reach a compromise,” said Moroccan ambassador to the climate talks Aziz Mekouar, who brokered the deal. No-one disagreed on the importance of the pre-2020 issue, he said, but the disagreement had been over how to give that space in negotiations, which are currently dominated by efforts to establish the rules that will govern the 2015 Paris accord.

“There’s now clarity on the shape of that space,” said Mekouar.

“This is a result of compromise from all sides. Many developing countries are generally satisfied with the result,” said Gou Haibo, a senior representative from China’s ministry of foreign affairs, told Climate Home News. China is part of the like-minded group that pushed the initial proposal.

“The decisions will increase visibility of the pre-2020 issues in the UN processes,” said Gou, noting this is not a “formal agenda item,” which developing countries initially demanded.

Camilla Born, a climate expert at E3G, said: “This shows that countries are understanding the legitimate concerns that followed a year of climate and impacts and are taking climate action seriously.”

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Vulnerable nations had been calling for support to address the mounting toll of hurricanes, drought and other global warming-driven phenomena on their people and economies.

Negotiators from rich countries rejected any claim on their public funds, however, agreeing only to an “expert dialogue” on the issue in 2018.

“Our demand was to have the public finance for addressing the loss and damage incurred from climate change, but finally the developed parties did not agree with us,” said Adao Soares Barbosa, a negotiator from least developed countries (LDCs) group.

Another LDC negotiator, seeking anonymity, expressed a sense of failure. “Everything went the way developed countries wished,” they said. “We only can raise our demands but it did not work, ultimately.”

Interview: Caribbean diplomat calls for support to address hurricane losses

The Fijian presidency of the talks championed insurance as a solution to the “loss and damage” agenda.

It launched the “InsuResilience Global Partnership” on Tuesday, a private sector initiative aiming to extend insurance to 400 million poor people by 2020.

“The Global Partnership is a practical response to the needs of those who suffer loss because of climate change,” said Fiji prime minister Frank Bainimarama. “And I am very proud that it has happened under Fiji’s presidency of COP [climate talks].”

In tandem, UN Climate Change unveiled an online platform to connect insurers with potential clients in developing countries.

Campaigners gave the initiatives a lukewarm reception, saying much more was needed.

Harjeet Singh, global lead on climate change for Action Aid International, said: “Insurance might turn out to be a piece of the puzzle, but we can’t pretend that it’s a safety net for everyone. Insurance does sometimes help people who are impacted by floods or cyclones. But it won’t be an option for those facing certain losses.”

It remains unclear who will pay the premiums, he added, saying it was not fair for those who did little to cause climate change to shoulder the cost.

Care International’s Sven Harmeling agreed that “such welcome initiatives cannot substitute a much-needed decision at COP23 [Bonn climate talks] to start exploring innovative finance solutions which can generate truly additional finance to address loss and damage”.

Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Program called on ministers to intervene and strengthen the draft text in the final days of talks.

#COP23 draft #lossanddamage decision must go to Ministers! Stand with vulnerable on frontline of #climate impacts!https://t.co/wrxuz6WQ9D

— Julie-Anne Richards (@jar_climate) November 14, 2017

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That is what the US president’s lead climate adviser George David Banks told reporters in an impromptu corridor huddle on Tuesday. It was the most high level engagement with the process seen from the White House since Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement – unless the US could secure more favourable terms.

Asked what the US hoped to achieve at the talks, Banks said: “We want to make sure that we do what we can to avoid bifurcation. Bifurcation is a major flaw in the framework convention and we certainly don’t want to see it in the Paris Agreement. So I would say that’s probably the number one priority.”

This fortnight’s talks have seen the reemergence of the idea that rich and poor countries can be divided into two camps – a firewall his predecessor Barack Obama fought to overcome with the Paris Agreement.

The original UN climate convention divided the world into industrialised “annex one” countries and the rest. The Paris deal blurred that line, getting governments to contribute what they could, “in light of different national circumstances”. China, for example, has set a tougher target than Chad. Significantly, China committed to emissions curbs for the first time.

Despite this, a major argument deployed against the Paris deal by Trump and his environment chief Scott Pruitt was the advantages they said it gave to China and other developing countries.

In Bonn, negotiators are thrashing out rules for monitoring countries’ progress towards their climate goals. And a bloc known as the ‘like-minded developing countries’, which includes China, India and Iran, has been inserting draft text that would create a two-tier system of reporting.

Last week, Chen Zhihua, a senior Chinese negotiator, told reporters: “Although we heard some different views from the developed world that we’re entering into a new world without differentiation among developing and developed countries. I think that is not the truth.”

Trump’s climate official: ‘I actually don’t know what 2C means’

On Tuesday, EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete said the position of the Europeans was that “we should follow what we agreed in Paris”.

“It’s very clear that there are some countries that still think that the binary approach should continue,” he said. “But we cannot go to the old story of the annexes. For sure this is going to be a difficult topic.”

The flare-up has raised fears negotiators may not meet the November 2018 deadline for finalising the Paris rulebook.

On Monday, the two diplomats leading this strand of talks said they would need one or two extra meetings before the 2018 summit in Katowice, Poland.

The Saudi Arabian and New Zealander diplomats wrote in a non-paper that there was “a considerable amount of work required” to finalise the rules.

Non-paper from APA co-chairs by Karl Mathiesen on Scribd

New Zealand co-chair Jo Tyndall told Climate Home News: “It doesn’t indicate slower progress. Rather, it reflects recognition that the APA [negotiating forum] has a big and complex agenda, with much to be completed within the next year. There are different views on whether an additional session will definitely be necessary.”

The call did not surprise some observers, who noted the complexity of making rules to monitor emissions, while accounting for the different situations each national government faces as it tries to cut down on pollution.

Similar extraordinary sessions were required before the Paris climate conference in 2015 that secured the deal.

“We have a massive amount of drafting to do. This is bigger than the Paris Agreement, and we have one year to do it,” said one negotiator from a vulnerable country.

Report: Dispute over pre-2020 climate action ‘risks repeat of Copenhagen’

The reemergence of the issue of bifurcation was “concerning”, they said: “We seem to be re-litigating things that were resolved in Paris.” In some areas of the talks there had been “no substantive discussion at all,” the negotiator added.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a long time observer of the UN climate talks, told Climate Home News that if this issue were not resolved it would be a “huge issue” in Katowice.

“I think you will see massive objections from developed countries and some of the developing countries,” he said. “The whole point of Paris is that everyone has responsibilities.”

It is not the only area of discussions to run into difficulty. As of Tuesday afternoon, debate over an Iranian proposal to put rich countries’ pre-2020 pledges on the agenda defied resolution.

The Fijian presidency of the Bonn talks did not respond to a request for comment.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Representatives of the fossil fuel industry said they wanted to be part of the conversation and sat through intense questioning and heckling from media and protesters in the room.

The bitterness that has divided the US since the election of Donald Trump arrived in Bonn, when around a hundred mostly American climate protestors disrupted the event, with song, heckling and protest banners.

“So you claim to be an American, but we see right through your greed,” the protesters sang at a panel including George David Banks, president Trump’s special energy assistant and moderated by vice president Mike Pence’s assistant Francis Brooke. Natural gas, coal and nuclear companies were also represented.

Report: Coal deals ‘very possible’ as US holds industry event at UN climate talks

As they marched out of the room, they were joined by hundreds of other demonstrators that had not been able to get in.

The panel sat quietly through the protest before launching into a defence of the role of various forms of fossil energy in climate mitigation, in front of a half-empty room.

Fossil fuels, including high efficiency coal power generation and carbon capture and storage, “were vital” to achieving the goals of the Paris deal, said Holly Krutka, vice president of coal generation and emissions technologies from Peabody Energy.

Banks said: “This panel is only controversial if we choose to bury our heads in the sand and ignore the realities of a global energy system.” He repeatedly said he was in Bonn to talk openly.

Report: Bloomberg demands seat at UN climate negotiating table for cities and states

When asked later by Climate Home News if the administration held the policy that the 2C warming target from the Paris deal needed to be avoided, he said: “I actually don’t know what that means, the 2C target”.

Banks has been involved with climate policy, of which the 2C target is a fundamental tenet, since the Bush administration.

Trump announced that the US would quit the Paris pact in a Rose Garden Speech last June, although no exit will be possible before November 2020.

When pushed on their position on Trump’s Paris withdrawal, two of the six panelists – the gas and nuclear representatives – said they disagreed, Krutka demurred, Barry Worthington, executive director of the US Energy Association said he agreed. The administration officials both refused to answer, although Banks is widely understood to have pushed for Trump to stay inside the Paris deal.

On the Paris deal, Banks said: “We’re part of the UNFCCC and climate mitigation is an important goal of the US but… I don’t think its any surprise that economic prosperity is a higher priority. When the president looks at the Paris Agreement and climate policy in general, he looks through the lens of what effect does this have on US manufacturing and competitiveness.”

Here we go. #COP23 pic.twitter.com/sIhF5T2rWj

— Lisa Friedman (@LFFriedman) November 13, 2017

Amos Hochstein, senior vice president of marketing at LNG company Tellurian said he had served in the Obama administration: “I’m very proud of that. I disagree with a lot of people on this panel but I’m here anyway and if we really care about clean air and climate change we have to stop siloing ourselves into communities where we only talk to ourselves.”

The reaction from within the conference in Bonn has been muted, with many trying to ignore the event.

“This is a sideshow, the world world is not paying any attention,” said Jay Inslee, governor of Washington, who made a statement to the press before the event began.

Report: For Africans, America’s pledge is about more than pollution

When asked whether coal could be part of the solution to climate change, Frank Bainimarama, the Fijian prime minister and COP23 president, told reporters: “I really don’t want to get into an argument with the United States of America, but we all know what coal does and we all know the effects of coal mining and of coal…

“There is really no need to talk about coal because we all know what coal does with regard to climate change,” he added.

Patrick Gomes, the head of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of 79 nations said that the US meeting was “a diversion, unfortunately” from the urgent task of climate mitigation and adaptation.

“It has more of a commercial side to it than an ecological or environmental concern,” he told Climate Home News. “It is regrettable [that the US] still wants to bring to the fore commercial incentives and issues that take precedence over humanity.”

US negotiators have kept a low profile at the Bonn summit, raising their heads above the parapet only to support likeminded countries in trying to limit the practical scope and range of the Paris agreement.

“They haven’t caused any trouble,” one climate negotiator said. “The role that they played under the Obama administration is definitely missed and in that sense its troubling not to have them alongside us on many issues.”

Another former government official said that Trigg Talley, the leader of the US delegation would be feeling “terrible, of course” about what he was being asked to do.

“Representing the Trump administration on climate must be the worst thing in the world,” the ex-official said.

The EU, which was holding talks with China and Canada while the event went on, refused to comment on the meeting.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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At UN climate talks in Bonn, such weather disasters, turbocharged by global warming, are discussed under the label “loss and damage”.

Tumasie Blair, a diplomat for Antigua and Barbuda, talked to Climate Home News about why – and how – the negotiations must deliver support to vulnerable communities.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

CHN: As a disaster prone region, the Caribbean is suffering huge losses from hurricanes and other impacts worsened by climate change. How you are coping with this situation?

TB: The Caribbean region has consistently had hurricanes due to its geographical presence. But the intensity of such types of natural disasters has increased in recent decades. After hurricane Irma, the entire island of Barbuda has been evacuated. For the first time in over 300 years, not a single person is living in Barbuda islands, now.

So how we are coping?

The government of Antigua and Barbuda has taken creative ways to accommodate the Barbuda people by creating shelters. Those people will go home when everything returns to normal.

Apart from hurricane Irma, hurricane Maria had destroyed Dominica. As Dominica and Antigua have a close relationship, we are hosting over 2,000 students migrated from there. It has created a burden on us. This is the first time we have a climate refugee problem.

CHN: What is the status of Loss and damage discussion in COP?

TB: The loss and damage discussion is centered on finance. The developing countries are pushing it strongly. But the developed countries are pushing back.

Some sort of financial mechanism should be place here.

CHN: But the five-year rolling work plan on loss and damage does not provide any clear direction on finance except for insurance.

TB: Yes, insurance is one arm to address loss and damage. But it does not fully address the issue. For instance, in Caribbean we have had, first time in the world a regional insurance climate mechanism to address loss and damage.  It did not fully address our need.

After hurricane Irma, the World Bank, the EU and Caribbean Development Bank have done an assessment of loss and damage caused by the disaster. It says that we need $250 million to recover from the disaster. But we are able to allocate only $6 million from our regional insurance mechanism – that is wholly insufficient.

CHN: Why this is insufficient?

TB: The premiums were paid by the company that is introducing the insurance as a pilot. Actually, the people don’t have the ability to pay that. We proposed that the insurance premium should be paid by the developed countries, as it is a complete burden for the poor people.

That’s why we are saying that finance on loss and damage should come from an established channels through the UN climate body. The Green Climate Fund might be one of them.

CHN: At the moment, climate finance is clearly divided into two directions – mitigation and adaptation. Meanwhile loss and damage does not have any clear definition. So where will the new money come from?

TB: Yes, the developed countries tried to talk about finance in terms of mitigation, while our priority is adaptation finance. That’s why we need to consider a combination of both, in terms of loss and damage finance. But we the vulnerable and developing countries want grants and insurance payouts from developed countries.

And as the loss and damage is yet to have any clear definition. That’s why, the finance should be considered in both mitigation and adaptation windows.

For instance, hurricane Irma destroyed Barbuda. It requires huge amount of money to rebuild the island, which we don’t have. In that case, we need grants. And for the risk minimization, we can go for insurance. That’s why we say that developing countries need a mixed type of finance.

But I think it’s too early to say the future of finance, as the decision will come politically.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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In a bouncy castle-like dome on Saturday night, mayors, governors and activists repeated their mantra – “we are still in”. Branded America’s Pledge, the sideshow is an attempt to convince the world that the US will stand by its commitments to the Paris climate deal.

House music, champagne and confidence – paid for by Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and others – flowed in equally neurotic proportion.

Sunday morning, 9am, back to reality. Climate Home News is drinking black coffee with Solly Msimanga, the mayor of Tshwane – the municipal region that contains the South Africa’s administrative capital Pretoria.

Msimanga is standing on the lip of one of the great demographic shifts happening on earth, the urbanisation of Africa.

From 3 million today, Tshwane will double in size by the middle of the century, he predicts, although no-one really knows. Every year, 10,000 new families move into the city, many migrating from Zimbabwe or Mozambique.

From Bonn: Bloomberg demands seat at UN climate negotiating table for cities and states

This population shift is happening across the continent. Africa’s cities are expected to triple in size by 2050, sending energy demand and pollution soaring.

“There is a danger and an opportunity in how we plan going forward,” says Msimanga. “The more developed countries are dealing with monsters built years ago.” But he says Africa’s mayors could leapfrog those problems, if they heed the warnings.

That means reinventing the wheel. Many old modes of urbanisation are defunct and much of the knowledge of how to green a city is tied up in the giant retrofitting process only just beginning in the cobbled alleyways of Europe and suburbs of the US.

“It’s not going to be an easy task, it’s not going to be a cheap task,” says Msimanga.

Climate finance, which the rich world has acknowledged it owes to the poor for causing climate change, isn’t simply a justice issue. It’s also preventative.

By the end of this century, if all Africans have the carbon footprint of South Africans (who currently have the highest emissions on the continent) it would add 1C to the global temperature. How Africa’s cities grow will make a huge difference to all of us.

Report: Poor countries spending climate cash on rich world consultants

Yet under Donald Trump, the US has said it will renege on $2bn it has promised to the Green Climate Fund – the UN’s major conduit for climate funding. That money is the glue that holds the Paris deal together, yet it features little in the fine words offered by the US dissenters in Bonn. The mayors and governors are preoccupied with how much they can do to cut their own emissions without federal help.

In Jakarta, already a megacity, there is little public appetite for attempts to cut down on carbon emissions, says its deputy governor for spatial planning and environment Oswar Mudzin Mungkasa, especially if they pose a threat to the economy.

Every day, 3 million commuters grind in and out of the city. The resulting air pollution is tangible and has spurred the government to spend money on mass public transport.

Industrial pollution sources, like coal power, have been moved out of the city into surrounding countryside. But not shut down. It would be impossible for the city to talk seriously about spending public funds on cleaner alternatives, says Mungkasa.

“It’s difficult for us to reduce carbon pollution because it is something new. Because we are talking about people who are looking for a job,” he says.

Célestine Ketcha Courtès, the mayor of the small city of Bangangté in Cameroon and president of the Network for Locally Elected Women of Africa, says access to climate finance is essential as cities like her own prepare for the boom.

“But we can’t get it. Mayors, cities, they can’t get it,” she says.

Report: Seattle pledges support for climate fund barred by Trump

There are problems with the structure of the Green Climate Fund in getting money to the cities and institutions that need it and know best how to use it.

But there is also just $10bn pledged to the fund, which falls to $8bn with the US reneging.

The Centre for American Progress reports that each $1bn given to the GCF could prevent almost half a billion tonnes of carbon pollution each year and also help 55 million people be better prepared to face the impacts of climate change.

The need to address this side of America’s pledge to Paris is being discussed. In Massachusetts the legislature is working through legislation that will add a voluntary donation to the GCF’s sister fund, the Adaptation Fund, to resident’s income tax forms. The city of Seattle has passed a resolution to uphold its portion of the bargain.

And there was a conversation in the alternative US pavilion on Saturday, says Dan Zarilli, the mastermind of New York’s plan to go carbon neutral by 2050.

“It’s really hard for local or state officials to make those direct contributions, but there may be some kind of crowdsourcing there may be some other philanthropy that can fill some of that gap. Probably nowhere near to a $2bn federal void that’s just been left. But there is at least some conversation happening,” he said.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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That was the key finding of analysis by the Global Carbon Project, published across three journal papers on Monday. The increase follows three years of flat emissions.

“The slowdown in emissions growth from 2014 to 2016 was always a delicate balance, and the likely 2% increase in 2017 clearly demonstrates that we can’t take the recent slowdown for granted,” said Robbie Andrew, a senior researcher at Cicero in Oslo and co-author of the studies.

The research comes as negotiators at UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, work on a rulebook for implementing the Paris climate agreement.

Researchers warned that the goals of the Paris pact could fall out of reach without concerted efforts to speed up the transition to a low carbon economy.

“Global commitments made in Paris in 2015 to reduce emissions are still not being matched by actions,” said Glen Peters, a research director at Cicero who led one of the studies. “It is far too early to proclaim that we have turned a corner and started the journey towards zero emissions.”

Report: Coal deals ‘very possible’ as US holds industry event at UN climate talks

The report authors noted large uncertainties in the data persist and the true growth figure may be anywhere between 1 and 3%.

As the world’s biggest emitter China’s projected 3.5% increase is a big contributor to the global trend.

“China generates nearly 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and the ups and downs of the Chinese economy leave a signature on global emissions growth,” said Jan Ivar Korsbakken, senior researcher at Cicero and co-author.

He added that it was too early to be confident about the precise figure for China, which may range between 0.7 and 5.4% emissions growth.

“Chinese energy statistics have been plagued by many inconsistencies, particularly when projecting emissions for the current year”, said Korsbakken. “We do not know if the increase in emissions in 2017 is a one-off, or represents changes leading to more sustained upward pressure on emissions in the years ahead.”

Energy experts attributed the rise in China’s emissions to a revival of carbon intensive industries as the country’s economy grew faster than expected, but added they expected the growth to be “transient”.

“This year many local governments reverted to the old playbook of using infrastructure and construction projects to create demand and prop up local economies,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner. “In many regions that has meant rolling back on the restructuring of the economy and an uptick in smokestack industry output.”

Yang Fuqiang, senior adviser for the NRDC China Program, said the eventual carbon emissions of 2017 could be lower than forecast, as authorities have put on a large-scale production curb on industries such as steel and cement to combat air pollution during winter months.

Also, Yang noted coal use for heating in rural villages in northern China is being replaced by natural gas, which may help offset coal growth in other sectors.

Both Yang and Myllyvirta expect coal consumption for 2018 to go back into decline, and carbon emissions to correspondingly slow or level off next year.

The US is expected to see slower decline in its carbon emissions, from an annual 1.2% drop over the past 10 years to a decrease of 0.4% this year, with a return to growth in coal use, as president Donald Trump promised to rescue the coal industry.

India, meanwhile, posted its smallest annual emissions increase since 2000. They’re projected to rise 2% in 2017, compared to 6% a year averaged over the previous decade, due to significant government interventions in the economy, according to the report.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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The comments came amid a critical political discussion over a coal phase-out in Germany, a UN climate conference in Bonn and news that German carbon emissions are likely to rise again in 2017.

Armin Laschet, the minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia and a member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party (CDU), has been locked in negotiations with Greens and Free Democrats over the future of coal in Germany.

The Greens have called for an end to the burning of coal in Germany by 2030.

In an interview, Laschet told CHN that coal mining in Germany could end inside the next two decades.

“We don’t have an end date,” he said. “The expectation is it could be the thirties.” In his state, it was possible mines could close by the beginning of the 2030s, he said.

Laschet was speaking at the Climate Summit of Local and Regional Leaders, held on the sidelines of the UN Cop23 climate talks in Bonn.

In remarks to the summit, Laschet said his own state had built its prosperity on coal. If North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) were a country it would be the 19th largest economy on earth, he said.

Leaked government paper: Germany to miss climate targets ‘disastrously’

“We know coal must be reduced in Germany,” he said. Black coal mining would end in NRW in 2018. But he said mining for brown coal (also known as lignite) – a cheaper but more carbon intensive form of coal – would “continue for some years yet”.

Laschet told CHN the speed of that coal phase-out was dependent on developments in energy storage, which can smooth out the peaks and troughs of weather-dependent renewable energies.

He said the faster phase-out Greens were calling for would compromise grid stability. Broadly he said, the Greens had adopted a position where they wanted to see a cut of 8-10GW of coal power. He said the CDU felt they could cut by 5GW. He did not say what the timeframes for those cuts would be.

Responding to his comments to the summit, former UN climate chief Christiana Figures told Laschet the only negative from her time leading the climate secretariat based in Bonn was watching coal boats shipping the fuel down the Rhine. It was “painful”, she said.

“Coal is the first fossil fuel that needs to leave ASAP,” said Figures.

Germany hosts the climate talks amid criticisms of their efforts to reduce emissions. On Friday, energy market analysts AG Energiebilanzen forecast that energy-related CO2 emissions were set to rise slightly in 2017. Carbon emissions in Germany also rose in 2016.

The 2020 target Germany has set for its CO2 emissions is a 40% cut from its 1990 levels. But the government now predicts emissions will only fall 31.7% to 32.5%.

A leaked paper from the environment ministry noted that this failure would be a “disaster” for Germany’s reputation on the world stage.

Indeed at talks this week, the failures of developed countries such as Germany to meet their 2020 targets has become the major sticking point. With European nations joining other wealthy countries in trying to avoid a proposed discussion of the issue.

Germany is trying to phase out nuclear and coal at the same time. That presents major challenges, said Laschet.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Bloomberg, the UN climate body’s special envoy for cities, said non-state actors had already taken the US “half way” to meeting the national carbon-cutting pledge made under former president Barack Obama: a 26-28% cut in emissions from 2005 levels by 2025.

Addressing a packed-to-overflowing pavilion, Bloomberg launched “America’s Pledge”, a process to quantify efforts to tackle climate change by non-state actors.

“This coalition represents more than half of the US economy,” he said. “If this group were a country, we would have the world’s third largest economy. In other words, a group of citizens, states and businesses who remain committed to the Paris agreement represent a bigger economy than any country in the world, outside the US and China.

“We should have a seat at the table and the ability to work with our peers in other nations. That is the aim of our pavilion.”

Report: African campaigners call for US to be kicked out of climate talks

A spokesman for Bloomberg Philanthropies confirmed that “the table” meant international negotiations and the reporting of climate action. Doing so would allow a US interlocutor to be held accountable for US progress in meeting its existing national contribution to the Paris climate deal, despite president Donald Trump’s intention to quit the pact.

Bloomberg’s Dan Firger told Climate Home: “There is a discussion between nation states ongoing about process of ratcheting up commitments under the Paris agreement. America’s Pledge is designed to drive this process, with the inclusion of all stakeholders in alignment with Fiji’s goals for grand coalition.”

The first report from America’s Pledge details the scope and range of actions taken by US cities, local authorities and business groups to cut greenhouse gases over the last decade. It also captures an “outpouring of public support” for continued efforts, in the absence of federal legislation and diplomacy.

The pledge offered a rallying point for Americans in Bonn who are deeply frustrated with President Trump’s repudiation of the Paris agreement and attempts to roll back flagship Obama-era climate legislation such as the clean power plan and fuel efficiency standards.

Following Bloomberg’s speech, Patricia Espinosa, the UN Climate Change executive secretary, welcomed the coalition launch  as a “special moment”, and said she would take it into the formal negotiations.

“While this remains a country-driven process, we do require the participation of all people to meet our climate challenge,” she said. “The climate change agenda and our sustainable development goals agenda cannot be delivered by governments alone.”

Analysis: US governor elections inspire hope during UN climate talks

California governor Jerry Brown also threw his weight behind the initiative. His speech was repeatedly interrupted by clumps of demonstrators.

The protest was called over Californian heavy crude oil production, methane leaks at Aliso County and the state’s cap and trade system.

Over chants of “Still in for what?” and “No sacrifice zones”, Brown attempted to talk to protestors in a near-pastiche of the Dead Kennedys song ‘California Uber Alles’. “I am Governor Jerry Brown,” he shouted. “What’s your name?”

As a large section of the audience started counter-chants of “We want Brown!”, the Californian governor argued that oil and gas presented an “existential threat” but that shutting down their production would disrupt transportation and destroy jobs.

“Unfortunately in politics, we don’t have a magic wand,” he implored. “I can’t say ‘Stop, there’s no more coal, no more oil’. Otherwise all you will get is noise – and this is good noise! But it doesn’t get the job done.”

On grassy parkland behind a conference centre fence, Californian protestors said that they were angered by five refineries that were being allowed to expand under Brown’s cap and trade scheme.

One Brazilian indigenous leader, Chief Ninawa, who represents 13,000 people in Acre, claimed that California’s carbon market was giving credence to companies that were harming his community’s traditional forest use, and dividing indigenous leaders, with payoffs.

“We indigenous people are not polluters,” he said. “We preserve the land. The ones who pollute are these global and national corporations. And these are the multinationals that are paying to offset their emissions.”

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Organised by Climate Action Network (Can), it is a space for campaigners and negotiators alike to let their hair down, open to anyone with a conference pass. It has also been identified as an event where some delegates have previously been groped or otherwise sexually harassed.

Ahead of Saturday night’s party, staff at Can’s Canadian branch have drawn up a safety package. As well as offering advice on consent and looking out for friends, the group has appointed safety officers at the party for people to report incidents to.

Reports may be escalated to the German authorities or the UN climate body where appropriate, the briefing advised. Consequences could include stripping the perpetrator of their accreditation to the talks.

Have you experienced sexual harassment or assault at UN climate negotiations? Tell Climate Home News your story. Any information you share may be published, but we will not identify you as the source without your consent. Email md@climatehomenews.org, message by WhatsApp or Signal to +44 7725 738315 or use this form, which allows you to remain anonymous.

In response to Climate Home News publishing #MeToo stories of sexual harassment at UN climate talks, a number of people have come forward to share their experiences.

Several people said they had experienced or witnessed inappropriate behaviour at the NGO party. Climate Home News is not aware of any incidents that were formally reported. That may reflect a lack of awareness of the protocol for raising complaints, or reluctance to prolong an uncomfortable experience, sources suggested.

One youth delegate shared the following story with Climate Home News, on condition of anonymity:

At the Can party in Warsaw, 2013, a male mentor dragged me to dance with him on the dance floor, and held my hands as I resisted, refusing to let me leave. After I managed to break free, I made an excuse to grab a drink at the bar, where a different male NGO delegate assaulted me.

At the time, I went and approached three separate men on my delegation and asked them to walk me home; they all declined. I ended up walking home alone at 4am in the streets of Warsaw.

Another woman who has attended multiple climate summits said such stories were not uncommon. “We have all been groped at the Can party,” she told Climate Home News privately.

Cindy Baxter, a regular at the talks, said she had witnessed sleazy behaviour. “One high-ranking delegate used to be regularly seen on the dancefloor preying on young women. He was revolting,” she said.

The % of people who have been sexually harassed at the CAN party for example is utterly ridiculous. Seriously it is unsafe. https://t.co/eEIbinwr0D

— nathan something (@n_thanki) November 5, 2017

A notice advertising the party on TV screens around the Bonn conference venue on Saturday morning included a reminder of Can’s “zero-tolerance policy regarding all forms of harassment”.

Wael Hmaidan, executive director of Can International, said the organisation was taking independent advice on how to safeguard partygoers. “We are ensuring that an independent, robust process is in place that makes it as comfortable as possible for people to step forward,” he told Climate Home News.

Hmaidan said that only one incident of groping at a Can party had been reported to him personally. Security was informed and the perpetrator left the venue, but was not positively identified and the victim did not wish to take further action, he said.

Me too: I was sexually harassed at UN climate negotiations

Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for UN Climate Change, said: “Incidents outside the UN climate conference, for example in the city of Bonn, would have to be reported to the relevant authorities, which would be the local police.

“In the event that the German police contact the UN Climate Change secretariat because these incidents involves delegates, UN staff or contracted staff working at the conference, the UN Climate Change secretariat will work with the local authorities to establish the facts.

“If necessary we will take appropriate action in line with UN policies which may include the cancelling of the person’s badge and subsequent attendance at the 2017 conference.”

Me too: I left the climate movement because of its toxic culture

One respondent to Climate Home News’ confidential online form said they worked at the UN climate secretariat from 2010 to 2011. “There were several cases of sexual harassment reported during the time I was there,” the person said, adding that most of the ones they heard about related to UN climate staff.

UN Climate Change refused to disclose the number of sexual harassment cases it has handled in the past decade, or what the outcomes had been. “This is an internal and a confidential matter,” said Nuttall, “but as has been stated, we take this matter very seriously on the principle of zero tolerance.”

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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As talks in Bonn, Germany, near the halfway mark, rich and poor countries are at loggerheads over pre-2020 action to tackle climate change. That dispute risks holding up progress on the Paris rulebook, which is due to be finalised in 2018.

Emphasising the urgency of reaching agreement, J Antonio Marcondes raised the spectre of Copenhagen, a 2009 summit that ended in failure.

“We cannot run the risk of repeating Copenhagen, when the world failed to agree on action… it took us six years to redo what we could not do in Copenhagen. The world cannot afford such failure,” Marcondes told a press conference.

“If we are to reach the goals set out in Paris, we cannot delay action until 2020. Ambition and actions should not be postponed,” he said. “Not all countries here in Bonn, as it has been clear, appreciate the need to tackle actions before 2020.”

A bloc of 134 developing countries, including China and India, warned of a crisis of trust if developed countries refused to put pre-2020 action on the formal negotiating agenda.

“We’re not asking for unrealistic commitment from developed countries, we simply [want them] to fulfill pledges have already been made,” said Gu Zihua, a senior Chinese negotiator.

“Pre-2020 is really a trust-building issue for developing countries,” he said on sidelines of negotiations, “If [developed countries] just turn down all proposals, then how could developing countries have trust for future discussions?”

Report: African campaigners call for US to be kicked out of climate talks

EU climate negotiators said they accept the importance of early action and are on course to meet their 2020 pledges, but disagree that the subject needs to be formally negotiated.

“There are other ways… and other spaces provide opportunities to discuss this… but EU is not convinced new agenda item is the best way,” said Elina Bardram, head of the EU’s delegation.

Specifically, developing countries are calling for a timeline to ratify the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol. This was adopted five years ago to extend the pact – which places the onus on the developed world to reduce emissions – to 2020. To date, 84 countries have ratified; 144 are required to bring the amendment into force.

Bardram said that while the EU is on course to meet its 2020 carbon-cutting targets and ratification of the amendment is “imminent” they cannot agree to a timeline due to domestic legislature procedures.

She also emphasise the need to move from the Kyoto Protocol, which binds only industrialised nations, to the Paris Agreement, a universal deal for all countries to take action.

Li Shuo, a senior adviser for Greenpeace East Asia, said pre-2020 action is becoming “such an urgent issue that we can hardly afford any political games”. He said it was important to contain the “spillover effects” and not let the debate on the issue hold back other agenda items, such as the Paris rulebook and Talanoa dialogue.

“To do that, developed countries need to start engaging and put their options on the table. So far, all that developed countries have been saying is dinner is important, but there are no plates they present on the table,” he said.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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African diplomats told Climate Home News that talks on technology trades were “very possible” on the fringes of the US event on Monday.

The following day, Ukraine is planning to table an initiative to bring energy corporates closer to the UN climate process, which it claims has US backing.

The proposal would slot energy multinationals into an “intermediate layer” between the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and national governments. It has been encouraged by US officials and coal firms, its authors say, and will be raised by Ukraine’s environment minister Ostap Semerak on Tuesday.

Industry executives and Obama-era climate negotiators say that pushing US coal into the heart of the UN negotiations could offer president Donald Trump political cover to reverse his plans to exit the global climate treaty, should he choose to do so.

The White House and US state department co-organised the side meeting, which is titled: “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation”.

‘Don’t wake the bear’: fragile climate talks begin in Bonn

Trump’s climate advisor George David Banks, who lobbied Trump to keep the US in the Paris deal, will address the event. Vice president Mike Pence’s advisor Francis Brooke will chair it. Holly Krutka, vice president of coal generation and emissions technologies for Peabody Energy, the largest private coal company on earth, will also attend.

Barry K Worthington, the director of the US Energy Association and a high profile speaker at the event, was unequivocal when asked if striking fossil fuel trade deals was an objective of the meeting.

“For sure,” he told Climate Home News. “We in the US are very dedicated to increasing our fossil fuel production and exporting to other countries. The flavour du jour is LNG but we’re also exporting crude oil and derivative products and continue to export a sizeable volume of coal.”

Benjamin Sporton, director of the World Coal Association, said there were “a lot of conversations going on” about US lower-emission coal technology transfer deals, which could get a boost from the event. Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria and Ukraine were likely candidates for such deals, he said.

Ghana has been living with an energy crisis since a drought associated with climate change hit hydro power generation in the country, bringing routine power outages.

Wisdom Ahiataku-Togobo, the Ghanaian energy ministry’s renewable energy director, said talks about coal technology transfer deals with the US at the climate summit were “very possible, because the Volta River Authority [Ghana’s largest energy company] is prospecting for these options”.

“We are looking at clean coal options and if it comes out as more cost-competitive, why not?” he said.

Report: One in seven coal power plant owners are heading for the exit

According to Seyni Nafo, the chair of the Africa group of climate negotiators, some African nations are turning to coal after struggling to access finance for renewable energy.

“If you are presented with a certain technology with a finance package, that’s what you are going to implement,” he said. “That’s the situation in which we find ourselves. If the fossil option is the cheapest one and you have access to do it and its a simple process, that’s what you are going to do.”

Any African country with coal deposits would be tempted by the prospect of electrifying rural areas of their country with relatively less-emitting coal technology, he added.

A former state department official, who is in Bonn, was doubtful that the talks would be used as a vehicle for trade deals. If that had been Trump’s objective, US engagement would have started earlier and US negotiators would have been more visible on the ground, they said.

However, an obscure Ukrainian proposal raised this week during a backroom meeting of negotiators could formalise access to the heart of the UN climate process for companies that want to sell coal technology.

The ‘Committee for Future‘ will “enhance public and private sector participation” in national climate policies, according to a low-on-detail powerpoint presentation made by Taras Bebeshko, an advisor to the Ukrainian energy minister. He told Climate Home News it was envisaged as a way of bringing US energy majors and other non-state actors to the UN table.

Presentation From Ukraine Art 6.8 by Karl Mathiesen on Scribd

Diplomats confirmed the initiative had been raised with the US and received a “positive” response. 

“We are in permanent contact with the US delegation in the negotiating process through the umbrella group,” a Ukrainian source said, referring to a bloc of non-EU developed countries.

Ukraine began importing coal from the US earlier this year after losing control of key mines in a separatist conflict.

American corporates have expressed an interest in the proposal’s “integrated climate partnerships” which would form an “intermediate layer between the global UNFCCC and national [climate plans and] allow direct participation of the corporates,” a Ukrainian source said.

“Within this structure I can clearly see in-depth cooperation with corporations,” the source continued. “If they could bring proper [coal] technology that would allow us to do that, it would be brilliant.”

Climate Home understands US coal giant Peabody, which the US is bringing into the heart of the talks in Bonn, has expressed an interest in the initiative. The company did not answer questions regarding contact with the Ukrainians, saying only that: “We are all about technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. That includes high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fuelled generation today and carbon capture over time.”

Most scientific models depend on carbon capture and storage to contain global warming below catastrophic levels, but the technology has struggled to succeed commercially.

While more efficient coal could provide immediate reductions in CO2 emissions in countries that rely on the fuel, the notion that coal can be considered “clean” has been disputed by studies showing that use of the lowest emitting coal plants would rule out meeting the Paris 2C warming limit.

But the US coal industry remains a cornerstone of Trump’s base. In his Rose Garden speech announcing an exit from the global climate pact, the billionaire tycoon enthused: “I happen to love the coal miners.”

Trump also claimed that the Paris Agreement “blocks the development of clean coal in America”, but said he would re-enter the treaty if “terms that are fair to America” could be agreed.

Comment: It is time for the UN climate process to tackle fossil fuel supply

World leaders have made clear the Paris deal is not up for renegotiation. But 24 countries mentioned efficient coal technology in their national contributions to the pact, leaving scope for trade deals.

“There is obviously a need to address the concerns that president Trump expressed,” Sporton said. “An inclusion of lower emission fossil fuel technologies and greater recognition of what they can achieve in terms of the Paris Agreement would no doubt help to keep the US in [Paris].”

The Obama-era climate negotiator said trade deals could provide “political cover” for staying in. “All they [Trump officials] can do is revise down their [national climate targets],”he said. “If they want to put in more about [pledges] and a bunch of announcements about what they’re doing with fossil fuels to make it seem like less of a capitulation, fine.

“But staying in the four walls of the Paris Agreement doesn’t require them to come up with a series of announcements. They would just do it for optical reasons.”

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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Known as the “clearing house for risk transfer”, it aims to help developing countries bounce back faster from drought, flooding and cyclones.

Fiji, which is presiding over the two-week meeting, is promoting insurance as a way to address loss and damage caused by climate change.

Prime minister Frank Bainimarama told the UN general assembly in September: “We are pleased to be part of a serious engagement with governments and the private sector to secure innovative and more affordable access to insurance to enable those affected by disaster to recover more quickly. It is a question of fairness and economic development.”

Two developing country negotiators expressed scepticism about the initiative, however, speaking to Climate Home News on condition of anonymity.

“It pushes the poor people of the poor countries to pay the insurance premiums from their limited resources,” said an African diplomat.

“The insurance mechanism will not work in developing countries like Bangladesh,” said a Bangladeshi official.

Comment: Looking for a happy ending to the 2017 climate disaster movie

Campaigners said that while insurance may help in some instances, rich countries need to stump up “new and additional” finance to address the damage wreaked by global warming on the world’s poor.

Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Program dismissed the clearing house website as a “chatroom”. She added: “The insurance mechanism is a clever initiative of developed countries to pushing the developing countries to pay for climate risk for which they are not responsible.”

Another limitation of insurance is that it only covers uncertain threats, not slow-onset impacts of climate change like sea level rise and ocean acidification.

Since 2013, there has been a strand of talks dedicated to loss and damage – the Warsaw International Mechanism (Wim) – but it has minimal resources behind it.

Alongside the website launch, negotiators are due to agree on a Wim work plan for the next few years.

“We have to say that the plan is missing the major portion, which is money,” said Harjeet Singh of Action Aid. “Rather, the Wim continues to focus on meetings, reports, submissions, and surveys – anything other than a concrete plan to provide financial support to the world’s most vulnerable.”

Report: Bangladesh faces food supply crunch after flash floods

Developed countries, which are already committed under the Paris climate agreement to supply funds for low carbon development and adaptation to the impacts of climate change, are reluctant to open up a new front for donations. That has left proponents of the loss and damage agenda looking around for innovative sources of finance.

Ingrid-Gabriela Hoven, a top official in Germany’s economic cooperation and development ministry, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation insurance was able to get money moving fast.

“Insurance doesn’t cover all the damage made, but it gives the country a cushion until the whole reconstruction effort can start,” she said. “The payout is relatively quick, and not dependent on donors.”

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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In 2009, developed countries have promised to deliver $100bn a year by 2020 in public and private fund to help struggling countries cope with climate change. Estimates of current flows range between $17bn and $61bn.

Under the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, rich nations also agreed to create a higher target by 2025.

But at UN climate talks in Bonn, Seyni Nafo, who leads the group of African states, said the rich were refusing to advance even on procedural discussions around finance.

“Uncertainty on climate finance. That is at the the highest level right now,” he told Climate Home News.

The heads of the Africa group and least developed countries (LDCs) group have made climate finance their top priority for the meeting. But progress in the talks and outside is flagging.

“Where are we seriously on the $100bn? What’s happening on the ground? Are we seeing any significant change on the ground? The promise of this post-2025 goal. When are we starting that discussion?” said Nafo.

“We haven’t reached yet a confidence crisis, but [African heads of state] are becoming a bit anxious now.”

He said at least five African heads of state would be present at the meeting, whereas only two – France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel – would come from Europe.

Got a story at Cop23? Let us know

“We feel that as a region we have done everything we could, we have put everything on the table. We are demonstrating leadership, seriousness on this issue. Actually we don’t have a choice,” said Nafo.

“We simply feel that that same level of commitment is not there [among the developed countries].”

A recent investigation of climate finance flows by Carbon Brief found India received the highest level of single country funding of $725 million approved by multilateral climate funds between 2013 and 2016. It was followed by Ukraine at $278m and Chile at $262m.

At a press conference, the chair of LDCs, Gebru Jember Endalew, said the uneven distribution of finance was troubling.

“We saw that trend and it’s challenging,” he said in response to a question from Climate Home News.

“We need to be assisted more with adaptation funds to cope with the impacts of climate change,” he told reporters. He added that 13 million people from his country, Ethiopia, and its neighbours, Kenya and Somalia are at the risk of facing hunger because of drought.

He praised the German government for its €50m contribution to the Adaptation Fund, which will benefit the most vulnerable countries.

A Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) report published ahead of the conference found that a 12% decline in funds meant for climate change in 2017 initiatives was a result of a 10% plunge in technology costs, particularly solar.

Endalew said it was encouraging and would make it easier for poor countries and move away from fossil fuels.

“However, we need access to finance to be able to access the technology,” he said.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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The central American country’s chief climate negotiator, Paul Oquist, is set to be the next co-chair at the multi-billion-dollar Green Climate Fund (GCF).

According to three diplomatic sources, Nicaragua lobbied for the position, but the fact that it had not signed up to the UN pact that underpinned the fund made the appointment awkward.

At the same time, left-leaning Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega did not want to be seen as taking Donald Trump’s side. With Syria promising this week it too will join the Paris pact, the US is now the only country in the world to reject the 2015 landmark initiative.

Oquist’s appointment at the GCF is due to be confirmed in February. The 24-member board appoints two co-chairs, representing developed and developing countries, for 12-month terms. Oquist is currently an alternate board member.

He has ministerial status in Nicaragua and is close to the first lady and vice-president Rosario Murillo. Both are in charge of the country’s climate change policies.

In 2015, Nicaragua refused to join the Paris Agreement on the ground it was too timid. “We’re not going to submit, because voluntary responsibility is a path to failure,” Oquist told Climate Home News at the time.

Under a rotation scheme, the next co-chair from the developing world will be nominated by the Latin American and Caribbean nations. The current co-chair is Saudi Ayman Shasly. The co-chair is mainly responsible for steering the meetings, with decisions reached by consensus.

GCF is based in South Korea and meets three times a year. It started with $10 billion of funding pledged by developed countries to support poorer countries with low carbon growth and resilience to climate change impacts. At the last meeting in October, it approved 11 funding proposals valued at $393 million.

Oquist did not respond to a request for comment.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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The stakes are high since Democrats are hoping to regain control of Congress and perhaps bring climate action back into the agenda. Yesterday’s elections provide some hope for the rest of the world, gathered in Bonn, Germany for UN negotiations on climate change.

Brandon Wu, director of policies and campaigns at ActionAid USA, said: “Yesterday’s elections were only the beginning of a rejection of the Trump administration’s destructive, hateful, racist, corrupt policies and positions. That’s hugely encouraging for many reasons, including the Trump approach to the climate crisis.”

The elections included a handful of intriguing results in state and local races and some statewide referenda. The spotlight was on Virginia, a closely fought race that pitted Trump surrogate Ed Gillespie against Democrat Ralph Northam. Throughout the campaign, Northam accused Trump – and Gillespie by extension – of promoting environmental deregulation and pollution in the state.

The campaign was brought to the national stage by the president’s tweets in support of Gillespie and the candidate’s support for some of Trump’s more extreme positions. Northam won in what former Virginia GOP congressman Tom Davis called “an old-fashioned thumping”. The message in Virginia was that suburban, immigrant and wealthier areas may be unwinnable for Republicans in the near term.

In New Jersey, governor candidates Phil Murphy (D) and Kim Guadagno (R), were relatively pro-climate action. Both declared their support for New Jersey rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the mandatory market-based emissions reduction program for power plants that was the first of its kind in the country. (New Jersey withdrew from the program in 2011 under Republican Chris Christie.)

‘Don’t wake the bear’: fragile climate talks begin in Bonn

While Guadagno broke from her party on climate, Murphy’s position went further, as he promised to work to make the state’s electricity 100% carbon-free and opposed the US’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement. Murphy took the election, giving hope that Chris Christie’s inaction will be replaced by pro-environment policies and that environmental action at the state level may continue on an upward trend.

In Washington state, local elections revealed that being Trumpist, or even just having the label of Republican, could prove fatal. One Democratic win flipped the state’s Senate blue (Democratic), turning the West Coast into a “‘blue wall’ with Democrats controlling the legislatures and governors’ offices in Washington, Oregon and California,” the Seattle Times reported.

“Annihilated in the suburbs, this is what Trumpism has wrought,” said former Republican Party chairman and King County council member Chris Vance. “The Republican Party is dying in urban and suburban America.”

​Josh Busby, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, called the elections “the most significant defeat of Trumpism to date, and its anti-science, anti-environmental agenda.” And “It’s opening the door to New Jersey returning to RGGI and even Virginia may join for the first time.”

These races could be the first wave of opposition to Trump’s unpopular presidency, although the long-term trend remains unclear. It is clear that Trump’s aggressive environmental deregulation, and most visibly his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change, has raised environmental issues on the agenda of campaigns across the country. Having more environmentally friendly leaders at the state and local levels could also encourage climate action at higher levels, including in Congress.

Before the election, the national League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski wrote: “Voters in Virginia, New Jersey and Washington have prime opportunities next week to weigh in and influence the clean energy future of the states they call home while also signalling to the polluter-aligned Congress and administration that favouring the fossil fuel industry’s profits over our families has consequences.”

Timmons Roberts is a US sociologist and Ittleson Professor of Environmental Studies at Brown University. Mara Dolan, Angelica Arellano, Logan Dreher are students and researchers in Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab.

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After my second cup of the bitter psychedelic brew, the rainforest that surrounded Nova Esperança (New Hope) village slowly started to acquire new colours, formats, and sounds.

Banisteriopsis caapi vine, the main ingredient in ayahuasca, has long been used for Amazon ethnic groups in religious and medicine ceremonies. In the past few years, the 1,000-strong Yawanawá have found a new purpose for it: to fight deforestation.

“All our medicine comes from the forest. Uni [ayahuasca, in the Yawanawá language] reconnects us with our essence. It is an instrument that controls our way of thinking, of seeing nature”, says Biraci Brasil, chief and spiritual leader of Nova Esperança, reachable only through the small and winding Gregório river, a 6-hour boat trip from the only paved road in this remote part of Acre state.

It was the first time I had drunk ayahuasca. The drug, made famous in the west by writers such as William Burroughs, draws seekers deep into the forest. Those I meet come from the cities of Brazil, as well as the UK, Turkey, the US and Australia. They look for authentic experiences and are willing to pay. In recognition of the link between forest protection and a strong culture and economy, international climate money is now helping the villagers attract more tourists upriver.

Brazil: “Beef caucus” takes over indigenous policies

Regulars users say ayahuasca feels more special in the forest than within the walls of a temple. While I can’t compare it myself, it was incredible how the cicadas’ buzz grew louder and closer and the trees looked taller and mysterious against the night sky. I even saw a face in a banana leaf bathed by the moonlight. With my eyes closed while laying on the floor, there was a flow of indigenous faces and drawings moving slowly amid bright colours.

I was cautious enough to stop drinking before ayahuasca starts to cause purging, a common reaction. I was done by midnight, but most Yawanawá and Brazilian and foreign visitors kept drinking and dancing to local song until the day rose again.

The traditional use of ayahuasca was interrupted when north American Christian missionaries arrived in the Yawanawá territory during the 1960s. All of a sudden, almost everything they knew was transformed into sin: the language, the naked body, the rituals and the sacred drink.

Festival goers and villagers bathe in the Gregório river, near Nova Esperança (Photo: Fabiano Maisonnave)

The Yawanawá have suffered from contact with non-indigenous people since the early 20th century, when rubber barons exploited their communities. “We never earned anything, we only worked. My aunts, my mother and my family were abused because of alcohol,” recalls Ubiraci.

Things began to change in the 1980s. After studying in the city and better understanding how Brazilian society worked, Bira and other Yawanawás leaders obtained demarcation of their lands, expelled the missionaries and the other invaders and began the resumption of ancestral traditions. Sixteen years ago, the village of Nova Esperança created a festival, attended last week by this reporter. Over five days, the Yawanawá perform ancient rituals and plays, including the ritual use of ayahuasca.

Special investigation: Forest diamonds

Outside influence is now strictly controlled: there is (unstable) internet and generator-produced energy, but churches and non-indigenous music are banned. Alcohol is strictly forbidden, and the single TV set can only be used for football matches.

The festival has become a source of income. Every year, visitors from Brazil and abroad come to the festival at a charge of $920 per person. In other parts of the year, they also accept tourists for weeklong stays.

While at Nova Esperança travellers find surprisingly good infrastructure for such a remote place, with sheltered huts and collective refuges. During the festival, two canteens offer breakfast, lunch and dinner for the visitors. 

Much of this, as well as the festival’s expenses for transporting tourists up the river, comes from the German-funded Rem (Redd Early Movers) programme, which is administered by the left-leaning State of Acre government. Although it follows the framework of the results-based Redd+ system, Rem is an international cooperation project, and not a carbon offset scheme.

Acre is one of the most heavily forested states in the Amazon – 87% is still covered by original forest, whereas the Brazilian Amazon as whole has 80% preserved. Home of forest preservation champions such as rubber-tapper leader Chico Mendes and former minister of environment Marina Silva, the state has had notable success backing novel forest protection schemes. 

The festival, originally only for villagers, now allows a limited number of outsiders to join, for a fee (Photo: Fabiano Maisonnave)

“Historically, Acre had already pioneered many socio-environmental policies, including in relation to indigenous peoples. In this sense, Acre was the natural candidate, since it had both very good results in reducing deforestation as well as programmes and partnerships that made it possible to make the resources reach different beneficiary groups”, says Christiane Ehringhaus, coordinator of the REDD for Early Movers Program of the KfW Development Bank. 

In the first phase, Rem has disbursed €25 million to various project, including the villagers at Nova Esperança. Now the programme will be replenished with another €10m from the German government and about €20m from the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to be announced on 14 November, during the “Amazon-Bonn Day” at the COP23 UN climate talks in Bonn. KfW will support a similar project with larger, more problematic Mato Grosso state, Brazil’s leading soy producer. Since 2015, Germany also funds a similar programme in Colombia.

In Acre, Rem allocated about €1.3m to projects in 24 indigenous lands, benefiting about 7,000 people, according to the state government.

In the Nova Esperança village, about €24,000 was spent on tourism infrastructure two years ago. In addition, the Yawanawá received €6,600 to buy gas for the boats, Festival Yawá’s highest cost.

Bira hopes that what he calls “spiritual tourism” will help the village to maintain Yawanawá culture and prevent invasion by cattle farmers. 

Resisting cattle in Acre is a growing challenge, according to American anthropologist Jeffrey Hoelle, author of of the book “Rainforest Cowboys – The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia.” Pastoralists have already moved into some nearby protected areas, such as the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve.

Brazil: Worst land-related killings in decades expose Amazon’s lawless frontier

“You could say there is a culture war occurring in Amazonia. It’s not like a material land war with vast areas of forests being burned or the massacre of groups or communities. It’s more of a cultural battle related to the value of nature and how the land will be used. But it is also between rural-urban, local-outsider, small-large producer and production for subsistence vs production for accumulation,” says Hoelle, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Across Acre, he says, you cross back and forth on the “fish-barbecue frontier”. As the surrounding land becomes overrun by cattle, traditional fish dishes are replaced by meaty churrasco. Where indigenous culture falls, so does the forest.

“Acre and much of Amazonia have been involved in this culture war since the opening of the region to settlement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. People came to Amazonia for a piece of land and by land they meant that which could be cultivated. The forest was and in many cases still is not seen as economic resource, but as an obstacle to unlocking the economic benefits derived from cattle or agriculture,” he says.

There is strong evidence to back up the efforts to bolster indigenous culture. Whereas the official deforestation rate for the Amazon as whole was 16% less this year, Acre reduced by 34%, ranking third among the nine Amazon states.

The Rio Gregório indigenous land, shared by the Yawanawá and Katukina peoples, lost only 1.11% of its 2,023 km2 of original forest in the same timeframe. All the figures are calculated by the government-sponsored National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

“Here, instead of Catholic or evangelical churches, there is ayahuasca spiritual leadership. Bira is to be congratulated”, indigenous leader Alvaro Tukano, who attended the festival this year. “The best way to preserve the Amazon is through spiritualism, which they draw from the strength of the waters, the ayahuasca and the forest.”

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Oil, gas and coal production have long been ignored in global climate talks, largely to avoid conflict between fossil fuel producing nations and the rest of the world. In fact, the text of the Paris Agreement on climate change doesn’t include the phrase “fossil fuels.”

This silence can’t continue forever. Evidence shows that we need to slow the development of fossil fuel resources to meet the Agreement’s goals. It’s time for world leaders – through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – to admit the problem and work on the solution.

Now is an opportune moment. UNFCCC negotiators are developing the “rulebook” for delivering the Paris Agreement. If these hard-fought rules for implementing Paris do not consider fossil fuel production now, it is unlikely that countries will revise them any time soon. By that time, it could be too late – an orderly, managed decline in fossil fuels may no longer be possible while still keeping warming below 2C.

But we have options. While the Paris Agreement doesn’t mention fossil fuels by name, it does provide many opportunities to phase-down fossil fuel production – if climate negotiators use the options at their disposal.

Peter Erickson is discussing this issue with Pacific island leaders and civil society representatives at a panel event in the Talanoa Space, Bonn zone at 17:30 on Wednesday 8 November.

In a new SEI paper, we detail these opportunities. Some are remarkably simple: countries, for example, could add targets for phasing down fossil fuel production to the commitments they have already made under the Paris Agreement. Currently, those commitments – called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – only outline countries’ goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This would provide an important signal to other nations that a transition away from fossil fuels is underway. Through this and other unilateral actions – such as limiting new fossil fuel infrastructure and removing subsidies – countries can act now without waiting for international agreement.

Collectively, nations could track fossil fuel production in the planned “global stocktake” – a check-in every five years on progress towards the Paris Agreement goals. There is no reason why the stocktake couldn’t include monitoring the alignment of fossil fuel production with temperature reduction goals.

Countries also could ensure some of the financial resources promised under the Agreement are used to support nations moving away from fossil fuels. For instance, countries could earmark some of these resources for a “just transitions” fund, which could be used to help ensure workers and communities hit hardest by an energy transition are not left behind.

There is momentum building for a global phase-down of fossil fuel extraction. France has proposed a ban on oil and gas exploration, India has placed a tax on coal, and Pacific Island nations have raised the idea of an international fossil fuel treaty. More than forty countries signed up to a Communiqué by the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform, which calls for ending the use of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

Let’s build on this progress and carry this momentum into the negotiating room. It’s time for nations that are willing to lead to stand up.

Georgia Piggot and Peter Erickson are staff scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute

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But not in negotiation rooms at Bonn climate conference, yet. In the opening sessions, China and India, as part of a developing countries group, requested that a discussion of the promises laid down by rich countries to meet before 2020 should be included in the negotiation agenda. 

Fiji presidency called for more consultation before deciding early next week. Indian negotiator Ravi S Prasad immediately said that if promises made to the UN were not taken seriously it could undermine trust in the process. Reports in the Indian media suggested China and India were joined in angry protest at the decision.

Yet on Tuesday, Chinese officials were sanguine about the developments.

“I wouldn’t say China is particularly upset about the decision [for further consultation],” a Chinese official told Climate Home News. “No matter [if the issue of raising pre-2020 ambition] is put on the agenda or not, it’s all part of the negotiation process.”

China: Is it the leader UN climate talks need?

Lu Xinming, a senior negotiator with China delegation told a group of Chinese reporters on Monday that China would “take heed on” development of the proposed agenda item, because “this is of concern to many developing countries”.

Lu, from the National Development and Reform Commission, explained that countries have consensus on an increased level of ambition to meet goals set in 2015 Paris Agreement, and a review of how pre-2020 commitments made by developed countries are being implemented will help better design the post-2020 arrangement.

Such commitments by industrialised countries include providing US$100 billion per year by 2020 in climate financing for developing nations, as well as technology support. 

“We know that pre-2020 ambition is extremely important. We have to act now if we’re to reach goals of the Paris Agreement and we do need to have conversations about how to do more in coming years,” said Li Shuo, a senior campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia, “Waiting until 2020 to do more is incompatible with the Paris Agreement.”

In contrast with India, Chinese officials avoided direct criticisms of the Fijian presidency, instead saying they are here in a spirit of support for the first small island country to steer climate talks.

Dr Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of Center for Energy Environment and Water, who also works closely with India’s government, noted China hasn’t made the same kind of the statements as India, “but [China’s] lack of the statement does not necessarily mean the lack of interest in the pre-2020 commitment.”

Yet he also noted that China and India, though both as leading developing countries, are adopting fundamentally different strategies in tackling climate change challenges. Dr Arunabha Ghosh also highlighted China’s joint statement with the US in November 2014 as a game changer. “It did become clear that China also recognising, even though as a developing country, the burden of responsibility is greater on China than on any other developing countries,” he said.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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At international negotiations, I suffered belittling comments, harassment, objectification and in some instances groping. It was not the most extreme abuse I have experienced – I am also a survivor of assault, in a different context – but it was persistent and it wore me down.

I had been a part of the climate movement for close to 15 years, often wearing different hats but always putting in the long hours.

As a petite woman of colour, I was frequently infantilised and told I was “cute”, to be followed by an unsolicited touch, hug or even being lifted up by men I barely knew. Sometimes I was asked to meet with someone, not because of my expertise, but because they thought the person would find me attractive and reveal information.

When men made unwelcome advances on me, my colleagues advised me to brush it aside. This was how things worked at the UN talks, they said: it was “no big deal”. I never reported these incidents to my bosses, because I was not confident they would be taken seriously.

Once, during an informal negotiation at the Copenhagen summit in 2009, where I was negotiating on behalf of Pakistan, some of the delegates huddled together to consult. I felt a hand on my backside but dismissed it, as people were standing quite close together in a small space.

As there was little time to come to an agreement an email list was created for those interested to continue the discussions. As soon as we all were seated I got an email from the minister sitting across the table from me, who represented a different national delegation to mine.

I opened it, expecting a work-related message. To my horror, it was an invitation to go away with him for a weekend trip. I showed it to my colleagues, who were also shocked but advised me not to report it. He sent two or three further emails and all I could do was ignore them, just smiling politely when I ran into him.

Me too: I was sexually harassed at UN climate negotiations

The most difficult situation for me concerned a senior negotiator who I had to at times work closely with. It all started with exchange of phone numbers – for professional purposes, or so I thought – and only ended three years later in 2013, when I went on maternity leave.

At first the texts appeared benign: mostly work-related with a “hug” at the end. Then he started telling me how my smile was beautiful, how my eyes made his heart flutter, and how he wished he could give me a hug. I would get these texts during meetings, where we would be sitting across from each other, or when my face appeared on the big TV screens in the meeting rooms. They would continue when we were back in our respective countries with our respective families.

I told only a few friends, who had similar stories to share about his behaviour, but there was an unspoken consensus around not taking further action.

Unfortunately, I could not avoid him. I often had to meet him outside of the negotiations at other meetings and even had to invite him to events that I was organising, as he was an influential negotiator and had sway over one of the bigger negotiating blocks.

Now that I am writing about it, I can’t help but feel a tinge of shame for having let it escalate, for not having said something earlier or telling the person more emphatically that his behaviour was unacceptable. But the harassment progressed so gradually, it is only with hindsight I can see it for what it was. To this day, I find it hard to talk about and am afraid to name him.

The atmosphere of the UN talks makes it particularly difficult to speak out. Firstly, there are many jurisdictions and any accusation could quickly become a diplomatic incident. Secondly, information is the only currency at these talks. Information is gold. So many women end up in compromising situations in order to get access to this information. And those who have the information hold all the power.

As we have seen exposed in other industries, those who are in positions of power can not only get away with predatory behaviour, but also rise up the ranks. Being an influential actor within these negotiations gives you celebrity status. Men and women hang on your every word, trying to get meetings with you and get you to support their demands. This are also questions of male entitlement in a patriarchal system where masculine traits like competitiveness, aggression and bullying with a touch of narcissism define and drive success.

There many predators that you are warned about and stories that you hear on the grapevine but never see the light of day. I have often held space for friends and colleagues experiencing harassment, which happens as much in the NGO world as any other sector.

As well as offering emotional support, I have raised some friends’ complaints to senior management or board members, but nothing has come of it. It is often the women who get ostracised or marginalised, not the perpetrators. Some end up leaving the movement, as I did. I feel the movement is the worse for it.

Report: Zero tolerance for sexual harassment at climate talks, say UN and NGOs

As my friend and collaborator Farhana Yamin wrote in her article, we need to educate, train and empower women to take leadership roles but also to support them better when things go wrong. Discriminatory practices and chauvinistic attitudes negatively impacting women are still with us and require systemic shifts.

The announcement of a dedicated channel to report incidents by the executive secretary of the UN climate body, Patricia Espinosa, is welcome. So too is the affirmation from the Fijian presidency of the talks going on in Bonn right now that there is no place for harassment at climate negotiations.

But we need to think longer term and more holistically. As Espinosa said, we need more resources. It can take a lot of courage and legal capacity to formally report a case.

For us, it is important to identify the gaps not only in the grievance procedures but also to make sure people have the resources to actually use them. And we need to change the toxic culture in the movement, which is rife with discrimination, bullying and harassment.

We are asking women to contact us on climatemetoo@gmail.com, not because we have all the answers, but so we can kick-start a conversation that might help us, men and women, design systems of solidarity, self-care and safety. We want to create a culture of care within the climate movement consistent with its principles of equality for all.

Have you experienced sexual harassment or assault at UN climate negotiations? Tell Climate Home News your story. Any information you share may be published, but we will not identify you as the source without your consent. Email md@climatehomenews.org, message by WhatsApp or Signal to +44 7725 738315 or use this form, which allows you to remain anonymous.

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Members of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) said they were planning to circulate a petition to show support for kicking the US delegation out.

In light of president Donald Trump’s avowed intention to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the activists argued the country had no right to be involved in negotiations on how to implement the deal.

“Trump’s agenda is to dismantle the Paris Agreement,” Mithika Mwenda, secretary general of PACJA, told reporters. He wanted to send the message: “You’re either with the people or with Trump.”

Report: Despite Trump, US climate team to forge on with Paris deal

The two-week UN climate summit is the first since Trump announced in June his plan to quit the Paris deal.

Under the Paris agreement, 195 countries agreed to limit global warming to 2C and mobilise funds from developed to developing countries for tackling climate change.

Trump has reversed the climate policies of his predecessor Barack Obama and cancelled climate finance programmes, including an outstanding $2 billion pledged to the Green Climate Fund.

The US cannot officially pull out of the Paris deal until 2020 and Trump has left the door open for “re-engaging” on terms he considers more favourable to the US. In the meantime, the US may continue to take part in discussions. It has 48 delegates at the Bonn meeting.

Experts have told Climate Home News they expect the US delegation to play a constructive role, despite Trump’s stance.

Mwenda accused negotiators of treating their US counterparts with “kid gloves”. He urged them “not to give Trump the platform to rock the boat from within”.

Tolbert Hallah from the Faith Justice Alliance said it was “outrageous” that the Trump’s administration wants to be part of the negotiations despite quitting the Paris deal. “Trump is going to create a lot of climate change deniers,” said Hallah.

The activists said it was unacceptable that poor people are made to pay for the consequences of the rich, adding that African countries are greatly impacted by climate change through droughts, floods and storms that have claimed a lot of lives.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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In response to reporting from Climate Home News, for the first time, the daily programme issued by the UN secretariat included notice of its zero harassment policy and details of how to report incidents.

Its lead diplomat Patricia Espinosa spoke about the personal significance of the issue to her, when asked by Climate Home News at an afternoon press briefing.

“I am really very sensitive to this – I have people in my own family, women in my own family, who have suffered in different circumstances,” Espinosa said.

Since taking the UN job, Espinosa said she had sought to strengthen its activities on gender issues – although not everybody saw it as central to the climate agenda. “It is not easy to really get the resources to have a dedicated team for that,” she said.

“We have assigned the gender focal point in the secretariat to listen to any [harassment] situation that could arise,” Espinosa added. “As you know, there are many situations where people do not come forward formally… it takes a lot of courage. I hope by strengthening the capacity to deal with that… we can look in the future to a situation where everybody is comfortable coming forward.”

Espinosa said she did not know how many complaints about harassment the UN climate body had received. The secretariat has not responded to emailed questions on this subject.

Have you experienced sexual harassment or assault at UN climate negotiations? Tell Climate Home News your story. Any information you share may be published, but we will not identify you as the source without your consent. Email md@climatehomenews.org, message by WhatsApp or Signal to +44 7725 738315 or use this form, which allows you to remain anonymous.

Nazhat Shameem Khan, chief negotiator for Fiji, which is presiding over the two-week Bonn meeting, welcomed that stance.

“Sexual harassment is a barrier to the advancement of women,” she said, adding that there was also a problem with women being bullied in the workplace because of their gender.

On Sunday, Farhana Yamin, a lawyer who has been involved in UN climate talks since the early 1990s, spoke out about harassment she experienced earlier in her career. Expressing fears that the problem was under-reported, she urged others to tell their stories and called for action to safeguard younger women, in particular.

Climate Action Network (Can), which coordinates several campaign groups at the negotiations, also used its morning meeting on Monday to advise members about how they could raise complaints.

Wael Hmaidan, executive director of Can International, said that it had brought in the policy as a matter of principle and not in response to any specific incident. This was an extension of the policy already in place for the organisation’s staff. “We should have done it of course a long time ago,” he said. “It is important for all of us to care about.”

Me too: I was sexually harassed at UN climate negotiations

CAN organises a party at each annual UN summit, where negotiators, campaigners and other delegates mingle. A number of attendees have privately told Climate Home News they experienced or witnessed groping at one of these parties.

“The CAN party aims to break the formal wall between different stakeholders,” said Hmaidan. “But the fact that you are trying to bring them closer and more informal brings the possibility that it gets too close and makes people feel uncomfortable.”

The majority of incidents that had previously come to his attention did not take place at the annual party, Hmaidan stressed. He cited problems some younger participants had had with being eyed up by security, getting asked “do you have a boyfriend?”.

Climate Home News’ reporting at Cop23 is supported in part by the European Climate Foundation.

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