Guest blogger: Mel Coath, Senior Climate Change Policy Officer
The question I most often get asked when I’m off to the climate negotiations is “What do you actually do out there?” so here’s an insight into what representatives of the RSPB climate team do at the negotiations over a typical day:
7 am: get up, shower, dress and, importantly, check the Blackberry. This is crucial to see what’s coming up in the day. Also with the UK being 6 hours ahead of here, to check-in on what’s happening back home.
8 am: breakfast and a chance to make plans with colleagues sharing the same hotel.
8.30 am: hail a taxi to the conference centre – this can take anything from 10 seconds to 15 minutes and involves complex negotiations over the fare (different every time) – am glad I speak a bit of Spanish!
9 am: attend Political Co-ordination Group. This is something that those of us co-ordinating the groups of NGOs following different strands of the negotiations attend so that we can keep each other updated and reflect on the big picture issues of the negotiations. We get through a big agenda covering all the strands of the talks, upcoming meetings, political strategy, media plans etc
10 am: The official start of the negotiating day. This is a chance to attend open meetings to hear the negotiations or catch negotiators going into meetings closed to observers like us. We have another change to catch them again (more usefully generally) when they come out at 11.30. This lobbying in the corridors involves sharing agreed NGO positions, intelligence gathering on what just happened behind closed doors, relationship building over a coffee, and most significantly persuading them to take decisions that are good for the climate.
12 noon: This is when I chair the group of NGOs working on emissions from land and forests in rich countries. Or to give it its official title “land use, land-use change and forestry” or LULUCF. We start off by sharing intelligence then agreeing which countries we need to talk to, preparing for meetings, discussing strategy and tactics for the week and writing articles for the NGO newsletter “ECO”, widely read among negotiators. Our group is very active and already we have 4 ECO articles written and a substantial number of meetings under our belt. Most excitingly, for the first time, one of our members has been invited to be part of a country delegation. This means he gets to enter the negotiations that take place behind closed doors and share his views with delegates directly.
1pm: This is when my colleague John chairs his group of NGOs working on reducing emissions from tropical forests. And a chance for me to grab some lunch!
2pm: The NGO daily meeting – open to all members of Climate Action Network, the coalition of more than 700 environment and development NGOs – to update each other on what’s going on in the negotiations. So it’s a little like Political Co-ordination Group in some ways but a much bigger meeting and we don’t focus on political strategy. A fun part of the meeting is when we decide which countries to award “fossils” to. The Fossil of the Day is awarded to any country that’s come up with something outrageous in the negotiations and an awards ceremony takes place at the heart of the conference centre later in the day.
3pm: More time for work, attending negotiations and lobbying. Today for example I attended a formal meeting with the EU Heads of Delegation and then had coffee with a LULUCF negotiator who leads on how to account for emissions from “harvested wood products” (that’s paper, chairs, tables, beams to you and me). I also nobbled a number of other negotiators and drafted the Civil Society intervention for the closing plenary session tomorrow which my colleague from Australia will deliver. Australia are not being great at committing to the Kyoto Protocol right now you see.
6pm: Fossil of the Day ceremony, with awards, singing and presentations.
7pm: Leave the Conference Centre and head back to the hotel. Same palava with taxis.
8pm: Find some dinner! This is either a working dinner with colleagues, or a more social one if there’s nothing too urgent. Three night’s ago John and I were taken out to dinner by Rosabel Miro, the Director of our BirdLife Partner in Panama. She and her husband kindly took us to a restaurant right by the famous canal and we watched VERY big ships passing through the locks. So I can now say I’ve seen the Panama canal as well as, of course, lots of Panama hats though these are surprisingly expensive – for a good one it’s $80 – I’m not sure I’d ever spend that on a hat.
10pm: Unless we’re on the ECO editorial board or in a late meeting, the time to start trying to wind down and make the effort to go to bed!