Panama City, Panama | Photo Credit: Advanced Source Productions, Creative Commons licensed
After a two month hiatus, International climate negotiations kick off again in Panama this Saturday. I’m packing my bags to join the Adopt a Negotiator project on the ground, where we’ll track developments as they happen. This is the last opportunity for negotiators to meet as a full group before the year’s work is finalized at the COP in Durban 10 weeks from now. I’ll be joined by Clancy Moore, from Australia, as well as a number of other TckTckTck friends reporting from Panama and tracking the negotiations remotely.
So, what are the hot issues for Panama? Recent events in New York might give us some clues. While world leaders gathered in the city for the opening of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and a myriad of other big events, the presidents of Mexico (which hosted last year’s COP) and South Africa (host for this year’s COP) took advantage of the opportunity by consulting with other visiting heads of state on goals and possible outcomes for this year’s climate conference. Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative, both leaders highlighted the future of the Kyoto Protocol (due to expire after 2012) as the most pressing issue this year. Their public comments left the impression that collecting the political support and leadership needed to secure the progress Kyoto helped us achieve in the fight against climate change was the main focus of their meetings throughout the week. With negotiations for a more ambitious deal to fight climate change years overdue, in Panama we’ll be on the lookout for negotiators willing
to stand up for the few tools we’ve got.
UN Climate Chief, Christiana Figueres, was also in town for meetings. In a press briefing at the UN, she pointed out four key issues in the lead up to Durban:
- Sorting out the future of the Kyoto Protocol was at the top of her list.
- An official review measuring the gap between commitments countries’ made and their stated climate goals is due for 2013, and countries need to agree to the rules.
- We need clarity on climate finance by sorting out how countries will ramp up from their near-term commitments ($30 billion between 2009 and 2012) to their long-term commitments ($100 billion annually by 2020).
- Countries have worked on the design of ambitious technology and adaptation efforts for much of the year, and they agreed that Durban was the moment to operationalize them.
We’ll be watching for progress and push-back on all of these fronts – looking out for leaders and laggards in the negotiations, so that you can stay informed and take action as you see fit.
When you take action, you won’t be alone.
In the wake of a seemingly endless streak of record-breaking extreme weather that’s continued since the the last time negotiators met just months ago, more people are waking up to the dangers of climate change and the urgency of confronting it.
Business meetings on climate change hosted alongside the UNGA used to focus on wealth opportunities aligned with mitigation. Interest in mitigation hasn’t slumped, but this year I saw a marked increase in efforts to understanding strategies for climate resilience, the role of adaptation in specific business sectors, and the implications of a world where increasingly extreme weather is the new normal.
Voices from citizens around the world are growing louder and stronger too. Efforts like Al Gore’s global Climate Reality project saw millions of viewers. Last Saturday, 350.org volunteers organized thousands of events in 175 countries for a global day of action called Moving Planet. Leaders like Greenpeace International’s Kumi Naidoo are calling for nonviolent direct action and hundreds of people around the world have heeding his call, trying to stop projects like Canada’s fossil fuel intense Tar Sands.
Stay tuned
We’ll be your connection to the inside – tracking the talks online, translating the negotiating jargon, answering your questions and bringing you perspectives from our TckTckTck partners.
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