"We are all in the same canoe"

Posted by: Anna McGinn

Presentation at the evening welcome reception by (from left to right) 
the moderator, Fiji Prime Minister-President of the COP, German 
Minister of Environment, and head (secretariat) of UNFCCC. 
COP23 kicked off this morning in Bonn, Germany with the opening ceremony and plenaries. The ceremony featured an important cast of characters for international climate change negotiation including the last year's COP President from Morocco, this year's COP President from Fiji, the German Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (because they are physically hosting the COP here in Bonn on behalf of Fiji), the Chair of the IPCC, and the head of the UNFCCC.

Upon accepting the Presidency of the COP, the Prime Minister of Fiji, Minister Frank Bainimarama asserted that the delegates here, and the countries they represent, "are all in the same canoe," and therefore, we need to work together over the next two weeks to achieve the objectives of this COP.

So, what are the main areas of focus for this COP?

This is a bit of a challenging question because each delegation comes in with a slightly, or wholly, different agenda. But, some of the main objectives/focuses of the COP that were articulated today during this opening ceremony and ensuing events held by both country delegates and NGOs are listed below.

  • Carrying over from last year, there is still a major emphasis on the "Paris Rule book." Countries still need to figure out exactly how they are going to move the Paris Agreement from paper to action and that will be a major point of negotiation.
  • The Talanoa dialogue is also a new feature of this COP. It is a rebranding of the Facilitated Dialogues that came out of the Paris Agreement. Talanoa is a Fijian term for dialogue that is inclusive, participatory, and centered on consensus building. Today, we learned that Talanoa is a central element of Fijian culture that they have introduced to the COP process in an effort to establish dialogue that is rooted in empathy. It will be used to figure out how ambition can be increased, so that countries can actually have commitments that will keep warming below the level agreed upon in the Paris Agreement ("well below 2°C"). Establishing the design and process for the Talanoa dialogue is a central objective of this COP.
  • One of the major steps to deal with increasing ambition is the global stocktake. This is when countries will reconsider their contributions made under the Paris Agreement and try to increase their mitigation commitments. Figuring out how this stocktake will play out is on the agenda for COP23.
  • Climate financing will also be a major area of conversation during the next two weeks. We know that mitigation and adaptation are essential, but these activities are tremendously expensive. Who pays? How much? Over what time period? On what conditions? These are all questions that have been asked for years, but they have renewed vigor because we are now trying to figure out how financing will work under the new Paris Agreement. 
In addition, Fiji is interested in bringing a few additional areas of work to the forefront during their presidency as Will mentioned in his post:
  • Fiji is committed to bring the historically marginalized voices to the forefront of the negotiations. This largely means voices of country delegations, but they have also initiated a formal dialogue that will take place this Wednesday between party (country) negotiators and non-party negotiators, to increase communication between the policy makers and those carrying out the actions of mitigation and adaptation. 
  • Fiji also announced that they will launch the Ocean Pathway "to ensure that the ocean is an integral part of our process by 2020." Prior to 2015, the ocean received almost no attention by the COP, and until this year it was never a priority. 
There is certainly a lot of work to be done, but the collective spirit of Paris and the action-oriented spirit of Marrakech live on here in Bonn. We will see how the above priorities unfold over the next two weeks in this context.

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