Submitted by MBrockley on
Workload got you feeling crazy?
Saturday, 19 May
21:00 – Late
at the Maritim’s
PIANO BAR
All With Conference Badges are Welcome!
Don’t want to miss the football match? It will be playing at the party!
Submitted by MBrockley on
Dear delegates,
Let us share with you our confusion. We are very happy to hear your heart-warming reports of the added value that we as civil society bring to this process. However, we are slightly discouraged by the fact that we are often not allowed in the rooms where the real negotiations are taking place.
The rules on observer participation promote that all negotiating sessions are open to observers in both contact groups and informals. The spirit of the SBI discussions over the past years led us to believe that we might expect to enter the rooms. When the doors are closed to us, we call on all parties in the room to systematically ask their colleagues whether there is a compelling reason preventing the holding of a transparent session.
The graph below demonstrates the stark reality NGOs faced last just June. Despite the SBI encouraging enhanced participation, civil society spent a significant amount of time wandering aimlessly through the Maritim corridors, engaging in more conversations with the ghosts of classical musicians its room are named for than with negotiators. (Though ECO is quick to note that Listz's views on technology transfer are particularly nuanced.)
You can trust us, we are currently MRVing the compliance of parties' commitment to “openness, transparency and inclusiveness”. Because, really, there is only so much one can observe from the corridors.
Submitted by Anonymous on
Last week, ECO wondered if Parties would “walk the walk” on supporting civil society participation. The full-day workshop included many nice words and sentiments, but ECO has heard a lot of those and is rather interested in whether those words would be followed up with action.
Now the rubber is hitting the road in the SBI Contact Group discussions. Unfortunately, to ECO’s dismay, the answer remains unclear.
In yesterday’s SBI Contact Group, Saudi Arabia came out strongly against enhancing civil society participation. While appalling, this is perhaps not unexpected, given how much Saudi Arabia has to hide when it comes to their own climate policies. But Saudi Arabia was not alone in rejecting improvements on transparency and participation.
They were supported by India as well as Antigua and Barbuda on at least some of the issues. These three countries opposed language to encourage more informal consultations to be open to observers – and ECO noted that they were the only ones to oppose.
ECO is forced to wonder, what are Saudi Arabia, India, Antigua and Barbuda hiding? Well, we know what Saudi Arabia is up to, but why would India, Antigua and Barbuda want to shut civil society out?
The SBI Chair’s draft text provided a solid foundation for enhanced civil society participation and transparency and ECO was pleased to hear Australia, the European Union, Colombia, Mexico, and Bolivia all emphasize the need for transparency and the productive role of civil society organizations, and brought some common sense to the matter.
Civil society wants to support countries in their collective efforts to save “Mother Earth” from climate change, if only parties would create the space for their support.
Submitted by Anonymous on
There is more than a touch of irony that on the same day the Secretariat released a compilation of Party submissions on ways to enhance the engagement of observer
organizations, those same groups were kept out of all AWG-LCA drafting groups.
ECO hears the reasoning for closed sessions is that negotiators will speak more freely and make better progress without representatives of civil society in the room. This is not entirely convincing, but ECO will certainly be looking for demonstrable signs of progress the rest of this week in Tianjin.
Submitted by Anonymous on
The meeting this week in Tianjin is the first UN climate conference in China. We, the Chinese NGOs, want to give guests from around the world the warmest welcome and wish you all a pleasant stay in the city. Although Tianjin is a city famous for its local comedians, we hereby kindly ask the delegates to take this session seriously – please don’t turn it into a joke.
The climate conference in Tianjin is a historic event: the first opportunity for us to collectively present to the world our true grassroots climate change movement in China. In the run-up to the Tianjin conference more than 40 leading environmental NGOs synergized their individual initiatives and spared no effort in creating a full programme of Chinese NGO activities. We have prepared and are proud to present a package with many goodies called ‘Green China – Race to the Future’.
On Monday, many of you witnessed the opening ceremony at the Chinese Great Climate Wall with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. Some of you might have participated in the CCAN side event on impacts of climate change and the side event by the Beijing-based GEI on sustainable rural energy.
Besides the side events you can find in the Daily Programme, we have organized a series of events in the Meijiangnan International Club, a venue about 10 minutes walk from the Meijiang Center across the Youyi Road. The events include dialogue between different NGOs, presentations of Chinese NGO campaigns, and initiatives from the private sector.
The full programme of activities and a map how to get to the venue is available in the Meijiang conference center. You can also walk up to the Chinese NGO stands in the entrance and ask NGO colleagues directly for more information.
Among these activities, we particularly want to highlight the official launch and press conference of the Chinese NGO
position on climate change on Wednesday morning. It is a unique chance for the
international community to get to know Chinese NGO colleagues better and learn how we see the challenge raised by the climate change and what we want on this issue. We strongly encourage you to make good use of this opportunity, and we look forward to meeting you soon!
