The Climate of Parties (COP) is an annual event where official parties who are signatory to the Paris agreement come together to set, negotiate and operationalize the goals for all the parties to help limit the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius of the pre-industrial level. These parties are primarily the countries and unions of countries like the European Union which collectively negotiate and set mutually agreed goals towards sustainable development.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are one of many examples which can be considered as outcomes of these events. This leads to a relevant question: If the countries are negotiating for these goals then what are students (like me), scientists, non-governmental organizations, activists, and indigenous people doing at this event? A climate skeptic would say: raising the carbon footprint. I respectfully disagree.
Inset photo: Shardul Tiwari, author of this article.
COP25 is a melting pot for climate change advocates, activists, decision-makers, scientists and even climate change skeptics. It provides a platform to various non-state actors, scientists, indigenous groups and youth-led groups to present and engage in the negotiations.
The 2019 voluminous conference, held during the first two weeks of December in Madrid, was attended by over 26,000 people participating in multiple events. I was privileged to attend COP25 as part of a group of observers from Michigan Tech University. From my experience of the event, I can summarize the event as divided into "categories."
This year’s COP had five predominant categories for the event. The first four categories were in the Blue Zone and the fifth category was in the Green Zone. The Green Zone was open to everyone and mainly included cultural events and companies with booths, and the Blue Zone was an official negotiation zone -- at least eight times larger than the Green Zone, based on my crude estimates.
Blue Zone categories
The first category consists of the general sessions which primarily include the Plenary sessions: opening, closing, midsession events presenting us with keynote speeches and panel discussions. For instance, even though I was at COP, I watched the opening session on television like people sitting at home because there were limited seats in the conference hall.
The second category is the activism, in which, as official observers, we students from Michigan Tech had a limited role since the United Nations takes this activism inside the COP venue very seriously. However, it would be wrong not to mention that it played a significant role at the COP25 as it does in overall climate change negotiations. The highlight of the event for this year’s COP was Greta Thunberg’s climate change march in Madrid and protest outside COP venue. The event was marked by remarkable energy and people asserting that we need to act now to mitigate climate change!!
The third category includes the official negotiations that are happening for various articles, sections, and subsections of the Paris agreement. Negotiations for various articles happen in parallel; hence a person has to choose their area of interest or research to follow the negotiations. This is the event where the documents are discussed, agreed and thwarted by the parties who do not agree to the terms. The event is open to observers "provided" all the official parties agree to the open sessions.
This session is in sharp contrast to the activism I discussed above. Attention to details in negotiation means it runs at a much slower speed than that desired by activists. However, it is important for students to observe both and learn the difference between official negotiation and activism. Observing negotiations makes students aware of the challenges of bringing 193 parties together, agreeing to every small detail and implementing the actions.
The fourth and one of the most important categories for students and young researchers is what are called "side events." Side events and press conferences are places where research organizations, NGOs, and development organizations can present the research work done in almost all the core science and allied fields of global climate change -- such as climate change policies, energy policy, transportation policies, and sustainable development.
I participated in the side events as part of a team of students from Michigan Tech, Colorado State University, and Clark University. We presented the group work on the role of universities and students toward implementing SDGs. The fourth category had a spectrum of events ranging from how scientists are presenting research on swiftly melting snowcaps that are leading to a global crisis to how spirituality can help humans deal with this time of crisis.
The experience of COP is a valuable one for the young researcher interested in climate change and global policies because one of the most important skills a scientist can gain is to learn how to communicate this science to the public and policymakers. By providing that platform, COP is a hotspot for researchers sharing their knowledge across a plethora of fields from global hunger to water pollution. It is one of the largest platforms for negotiations and, more importantly, for communicating science to the public.
Michigan Tech's observer team
Our team members included scientists, professors, young researchers and renewable energy entrepreneurs.
Dr. Sarah Green, Michigan Tech professor of chemistry, who led our team, serves as co-vice chair for the Scientific Advisory Panel on the Sixth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6), United Nations Environment Programme. Dr. Green said she was enthralled to see a number of talented people focused on the issues and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem and its multifaceted impacts.
"COP to me was a cauldron of activity where global citizens from science, government, and business sectors churn ideas into policies and projects to respond to our rapidly changing climate," Green said. "I was impressed at how well Michigan Tech students engaged with the COP. Some tracked specific issues; some connected with students from other institutions; others met with representatives from specific countries or NGOs; everyone met somebody new and gained new perspectives. I believe voices from youth, indigenous peoples, and students are increasing pressure for action; that pressure must be sustained if it is to effect the change in global energy policies required to stabilize the climate."**
Michigan Tech Alumni Bruce Woodry -- investment banker, developer of renewable energy projects, engineer, father, and grandfather -- is also a climate activist. Woodry said he was honored and pleased to attend COP25 with the Michigan Tech group.
"One of the highlights for me was the honor of meeting the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change, who spoke for some length with some of the group chairs," Woodry said. "The science is rock solid and irrefutable… and depressing. At the Madrid climate strike on December 6th, which I attended along with an estimated 500,000 others, there were two faces in the crowd: sad and angry. Climate strikes, while contributing to climate crisis awareness, are not moving the needle. We need to take immediate and bold action to avert (mitigate) the most severe effects of the climate crisis. This is not a democratic party issue, not a republican party issue, it is a humanity issue. The earth will survive just fine -- it’s rocks and water. But all living things, including humans, are at risk. If you are not fearful of the future of humanity for our kids and grandkids, you should be."
Clara Mosso, from Argentina, a PhD student in Ecology at Colorado State University and a former Fulbright scholar at the University of Florida, said she considered COP25 a great platform for collaboration and a learning opportunity.
"I felt this was a great opportunity to collaborate with students from different universities and was a great networking opportunity … to learn about the multilateral negotiation process," Mosso said. "I chose SDG 5 of gender equality because I was shocked to experience and learn the extent of gender inequality that persists in higher education."
Natalie Hodgman, also a student at Colorado State University, said her interest in environmental policy and in interactions between different stakeholders led to her decision to attend COP25.
"I decided to attend COP because of my interest in environmental policy and my interest in interactions between different stakeholders and parties," Hodgman noted. "I wanted to know how countries would pressure each other to commit [to] more ambitious goals to achieve climate solutions. While my observations have shown that interactions are less fiery than I thought, I have had a wonderful time at COP, and I am very thankful to learn from so many well-renowned figures. I chose SDG 13 because I was interested in the links between adaptation and mitigation strategies and actions."
Katarina Hou, a master’s student of Environment Science and Policy at Clark University, said she was delighted to receive the opportunity to represent her University at COP. Her drive to work for gender equality and gender representation at the climate negotiation process led her to COP25.
"I decided to attend the COP because I was really curious about the international climate negotiations process," Hou said. "I chose SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy and SDG 5 on gender equality for my research. I joined SDG 5 because gender is a cross-cutting component in all aspects. You cannot have a just policy without gender equality because gender rights are also human rights as well. Throughout the COP, I've followed Gender and Climate Change negotiation, sitting in the same meeting room as Parties delegates and taking notes. It was a very interesting experience to witness how negotiations proceed -- which delegate speaks more and what they are asking for. I've also noticed that the dynamics of each issue of negotiation feels quite different. After spending about 10 days at the COP, the ugly reality set in where I felt there was a disconnect between the negotiations and the world (activists) that are demanding more ambitious actions. It was disheartening to see that, but at the same time I was hopeful that we are still giving it a fight because it matters."
The United Nations’ climate summit is one of the biggest and arguably the most important platform to keep the argument of climate change at the forefront of policy making. It is not a perfect platform, in fact far from it; however, it is an important platform that can be further strengthened by upcoming young scientists, policy makers and researchers. Hence it is imperative to learn about the system to further improve it and subsequently grow with it. Actively participating in these mega events is a learning experience and a first step towards approaching the multifacted challenge of climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Editor's Notes:
* Shardul Tiwari, author of this article, is a Michigan Tech doctoral student in environmental and energy policy. This is the first in a series of two Keweenaw Now articles on the Michigan Tech observer team at the COP25 climate conference in Madrid. Watch for the second article, by Adewale Adesanya, also a Michigan Tech doctoral student in environmental and energy policy, coming soon.
** Dr. Sarah Green will present "International Climate Action: Report from the 25th UN Conference of the Parties (COP25)" during the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition's (UPEC's) Celebrate the UP! 2020 (Virtually), from 6:30 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Apr. 25. The program of guest speakers will be livestreamed from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. this Saturday on UPEC's Facebook and YouTube pages. Click here for details.
