The Room Where It Happened

Posted by: Anna McGinn

To get in the right mindset for this post, I refer you to a song that has been stuck in my head for the past two weeks-- Hamilton's The Room Where it Happens.

Now that you have listened to that, imagine me waiting outside a negotiating room to see if they will let me, an observer, into the room. Lin-Manuel Miranda's line runs through my head, "I…. wanna be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens."

During the second week at COP, the urgency to bring agenda items to some form of conclusion is heightened, and as a result more and more meetings are closed to observers (people who are not part of country delegations). 

As Will described in his post, What stocktake are we talking about?, the countries decide that instead of the standard "informal consultations" on a subject matter, they will have informal informal consultations which means that they will meet with the facilitators in a session where they can hash out the disagreements between countries with less formalities. On Monday afternoon, one of the negotiation streams I was following announced an informal informal informal consultation (yes, you read that right, three "informals"). This is when the facilitators of the negotiating stream are not even in the room, and some country representatives alone gather to make decisions on the text of decision.

In addition to these announced session, as I walk through the halls of the conference center this week, I see deals happening all around me from the women's bathroom to the whispers around lunch tables, to the moments before and after official sessions when different countries huddle together for last minute confirmations of positions. It is fair to say that this is really "the art of the trade and where the sausage is made."

On Tuesday morning, it was clear that at least some negotiators had worked throughout the night in these closed meetings to come to some conclusions because draft conclusion were on the table that were not agreed upon in the meeting I had attended just the day before. 

During open negotiations countries usually just speak from their seats, but occasionally 
they express the need to get in a huddle to made a decision.

Observers are frequently reminded during the COP that this is a country driven process, so countries get to decide if observers can be in the room (where it happens). But, this represents a point of tension every year--country process versus transparency. Observers often suggest that when we are not allowed in the room, it becomes harder to understand if decisions were made in a fair and inclusive manner. And it is not only observers who might not be in the room. I have heard multiple calls over the course of the COP--countries from Switzerland to the Least Develop Countries group-- that it is challenging for smaller delegations to be in so many simultaneously occurring negotiations. They have to made decisions about their priorities and are left out of other talks as a result. 

Transparency is now embedded in the Paris Agreement. Countries have many angles of transparency to be considering during and between these negotiations. It is not only about transparency in tracking progress toward emissions and adaptation goals, but it should also be about transparency in the process. Holding countries to this spirit of transparency has evolved to be one important role of some observer groups here at the COP. 

While Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Aaron Burr expresses his frustration at not being in the room during formative decisions about the creation of the United States,

“No one really knows how the game is played, 

The art of the trade, 

How the sausage is made. 

We just assume that it happens,

No one else is in the room where it happens.”

We strive to comprehend how the game is played and to interrogate the process to understand how it is effective, when it is inclusive, and the ways in which decisions get made and move forward to implementation. We can only do this when we are, in the room where it happens. 

And just to extend this Hamilton reference even a bit further, a number of negotiating sessions at the COP are ticketed meaning that observers can attend, but only if they get a ticket from the focal point of their constituency group. For us, that means we need to get a ticket from the head of the Research and Independent NGO (RINGO) group.  There were often very few tickets for many interested people, so all kinds of lotteries and creative processes ensued. One morning a fellow RINGO leaned over to me and said, “gosh, these tickets might be harder to get than Hamilton ticket!” So, there you have it.

Just as the icing on the cake, Lin-Manuel Miranda is also a strong advocate for climate actions. Check out his song for Puerto Rico here and a call to climate action here.