COP20 – Page 2 – COP 20: Lima, Peru

January 5, 2015

Voces por el clima

I was a member of the second group (lead by the fearless Jeff Niemitz) that attended Voces por el clima the first week and the real-deal COP20 the second week. I like to think as Voces as an excellent learning experience, and a great trial run before we got to the UNFCCC conference. The event was almost entirely dedicated to teaching climate change, because we spent the entire semester learning about climate change, personally, the biggest learning aspect of Voces came from learning to approach people, and improving my Spanish ability. That being said, Voces was filled with knowledgeable people and amazing art expressing the issue of climate change from a personal, abstract and human perspective. There were excellent photographs capturing sea level rise across the globe (they seemed to me to parallel James Balog’s work with glaciers), sculptures made from recycled material, and art lining the road to the main area.

Liz Plascencia and I teamed up, at first going around to the different booths (skipping the shameless Coca-Cola booth dedicated to green-washing and advertising) interviewing people from organizations that were relevant to our topics. However, once that tactic was exhausted we had to figure out a new method to find people that would be relevant to interview out of a seemingly random crowd. In the end we developed a scorched earth like tactic at Voces, we honed in on anyone we thought was a delegate and asked for an interview. The key was in the badges they wore: if it was pink (signifying delegate) we attacked. Initially we attempted small talk, trying to figure out what they did and specialized in specifically, before we asked for an interview. This proved less effective than just going straight for the gold and we transitioned to a more direct approach. In the end this method acquired us some lucrative interviews, with minimal complete busts. When we eventually arrived at COP, I felt very confident and comfortable talking to delegates.

Voces was certainly an informational place to be… especially if you spoke Spanish. Due to the fact Voces was largely centered on what Peru, and other Latin American countries are doing to combat climate change the majority of people there were exclusively Spanish speakers. While I have taken Spanish for many years and am proficient in the language, it certainly helped to team up with Liz (a native Spanish speaker) for interviews. After Voces por el clima my Spanish has never been better.

December 26, 2014

Fossil of the Day: Who was Bad, Who was Worse?

By Maeve Hogel

It is hard to believe it has already been two weeks since our time at the COP ended. It was a hectic and incredible experience every day. There were always several events or meetings going on at once and we constantly found ourselves running from one to the next. However, my personal favorite part of each day at the COP was reading the ECO newsletter which was handed out as you walked into the venue each morning. The newsletter was one page, front and back, and it had several different articles about negotiations or other big things going on at the COP. It was the perfect way to stay updated on everything that had happened the day before, since obviously we can’t be in every meeting or negotiation ourselves.

At the very end of the newsletter was a section called the Fossil of the Day Award. This award, given out by CAN International, was announced every day in the early evening. Its given to a country that is viewed as not doing their full part in the conference that day. There is a ceremony that goes a long with the award, including the playing of the Jurassic Park theme song. The Fossil of the Day Award is a great way to call out countries to do more.

On the last day, CAN gave out the Colossal Fossil, or the Fossil of the Year award, to Australia. Australia received 5 Fossil of the Day awards in the two weeks of the conference. You can watch the last Fossil of the Day below:

Check out all of the Fossil of the Day Awards here!

December 16, 2014

Climate March

On Wednesday December 10, 2014, I attended and marched in the Marcha Mundial en Defensa de la Madre Tierra in Lima, Peru, put on by the Cumbre de los Pueblos. I got a taxi from my hostel with two other members of the mosaic crew, and we took it to the Campo de Marte at the intersection of the Avenue de la Peruanidad and the Avenue Salaverry. The march seemed to have a good amount of people at this point, but it didn’t seem as big as we had expected. But the marching didn’t actually start until 11 AM, we were just gathering in the park at this point. We left to get some bananas for breakfast, and when we got back, it seemed a bit larger of a crowd had gathered.

My other two companions had to leave at this point to go to the COP, so I was left alone. I walked around for a bit and got handed a bunch of pamphlets and stickers and pins and was asked to sign a few petitions. I was also handed a sign that consisted of a big green heart with “100% energia limpia” written on it (it wasn’t until a few hours after the march that I found out what this meant—100% clean energy). I would carry this sign for the whole march.

At one point the energy seemed to really start to come to a head and there was a bunch of performance art and drumming and traditional music and chanting being done, although at this point I couldn’t tell if the march had begun yet or not. But the energy was absolutely intoxicating. We had by this point blocked off all the traffic in the Campo de Marte traffic circle, and police had to direct traffic. I walked around in the middle of the street for a while checking out all of the different groups of protesters. It seemed that the march was split up into blocks of different groups, separated by large signs telling what their purpose for marching was (I think, it was all in Spanish, which I don’t speak). There was no block for people with big green heart signs so I walked around and checked out a bunch of different groups, one of which was a bunch of women banging on cans and chanting something. I tried to chant with them, but the language barrier made this impossible. I kept walking through the crowd until I realized that I was now standing in a line with a bunch of people with bandanas tied around their mouths and heads. This was the “Bloque Hip Hop.” I stood in their lines for a while, but I felt very out of place there as they seemed a little too militant with their bandanas and their anti-capitalism signs for my green heart. Also, based on the amount of daps that were given, it seemed that they all knew each other pretty well. So I left their crowd.

The slogan of the march was “Change the system, not the climate,” meaning that this protest was meant to challenge the current manner of dealing with climate change, and try to change that. In fact, this I believe was the whole purpose of the People’s Summit—to offer alternatives to current negotiating systems. There were definitely enough people there to help out challenging the current system. By the time the marching began, I couldn’t see where the end of the crowd was.

As we began marching, I again joined in with the women banging on cans, mostly because they seemed nice and there were others with big green hearts in their crowd. The march was a lot of fun. We marched for about 2 hours (?) through the neighborhood of La Victoria (?) taking over highways and other streets. It was a lot of fun seeing how we were blocking off traffic, although the cars weren’t having that much fun. I almost got run over a few times by angry drivers.

I attempted to chant along with people, but it was all in vain—I couldn’t understand the Spanish. Occasionally I would yell the Spanish words I could make out, like “porque” or “clima,” but overall it was hard for me to chant in Spanish.

Every so often people would start yelling and running forwards which was fun. I also tried to check out a bunch of different groups in the march and not hang around the same people the whole time. There was a group with orange flags that said “PCP” on them. I have no idea what this meant. There was another group with green flags that said “CCP, ” The FENAOMP group, the CGTP group, and at the very front of the march were a bunch of people holding a huge green tarp with something I couldn’t make out written on it. And of course there were the women dressed in purple and the Bloque de Hip Hop, among other groups that I can’t remember.

As I said, we marched about 2 hours through the streets of Lima, sometimes on larger two lanes roads and sometimes on smaller city streets where we walked alongside residents of Lima not participating in the march. The march ended in a big circle I don’t know where. The whole circle seemed to be a big party. There was one person making a speech on a truck in Spanish to a substantial crowd, a few different bands playing, people burning coca leaves and making speeches, and people hanging around the park making demonstrations or just hanging out on the grass. The whole scene was pretty fun, although I decided to leave as I didn’t know anyone and couldn’t understand anything as it was all in Spanish. Getting out was hell, because the march had screwed up all of the traffic patterns and the roads were blocked up for as far as I could see. I had five taxis reject me until I finally found one that would take me back to Miraflores. All in all though, a really great experience, and I got a big heart sign from it, which, sadly, had to be cut up so that it could fit in my suitcase to go back home.

¡Cambiemos el Sistema No el Clima!

December 16, 2014March 26, 2015

Pacha Mama

It only made sense that we end our semester long climate change adventure visiting some of the most incredible sites provided by Mother Earth, or “Pacha Mama” known as by the Quechua indigenous people of the Andes. After our experiences at COP20 chasing down delegates, collecting and trading business cards, shuffling from meeting to meeting, and escaping the heat (from both inside and outside the plenary) with some gelato, it was exciting to visit ancient sites that climate change could prohibit future generations from enjoying. I considered myself lucky to be able to visit Machu Picchu, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, where within the next year the Ministry of Culture in Cusco has decided tourism will be restricted to a certain number of visitors who must be accompanied by an official guide. The ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu is a gold mine for Peru’s tourism industry. Our guide, Hamilton, informed us just the 1Sol fee to use the bathroom generates 6,000 Soles per day.

This tourist attraction is huge part of Peru’s economy and they would never close it, but it is sad to see that years of previous human degradation will restrict future generations to enjoy one of Mother Earth’s marvelous sites. This same concept applies to the Earth’s changing climate, years of environmental degradation caused by previous generations of humans is changing how future generations will be able to live on our shared planet. My experience at COP20 was both optimistic and skeptic. While it is optimistic to see progress in negotiations and progress in the use of sustainable technology, there is still a long way to go until we reach a global participation and agreement. Every year there is this extravagant event where representatives from each party meet to discuss what needs to be done to save the planet. However, much of this event is excessive and wasteful, which makes it seem counterproductive. But I am certainly invested in following the road to Paris and beyond.

December 9, 2014December 9, 2014

How a Side Dialogue at the COP Could Increase Ambition: the Structured Expert Dialogue

This past week the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) had two meetings at COP20 (20^th Conference of the Parties) in Lima in which IPCC and other experts presented information about the current scientific understanding of the impacts and consequences of 2°C warming with an eye towards strengthening the long term temperature target to 1.5˚C.

The biggest outcome from this meeting is that 2˚C is too much. With 0.8˚C warming already having occurred since pre-industrial times and 0.6˚C being baked into the current climate regime, there seems little hope that warming could stay under 1.5˚C. That is to say that we are already committed to approximately 1.4˚C warming and there seems to be little action to stop fossil fuels use immediately. In talking with various IPCC experts, they agreed that it is highly likely that we will blow past the 2˚C limit and warm the planet by several degrees by the end of the century. This means severe impacts.

Taken from IPCC presentation on 12/2 during the SED at COP20 — The Reasons for Concern or Burning Embers Diagram depicted here is taken from IPCC presentation on 12/2 during the SED at COP20

The Reasons for Concern or the Burning Embers Diagram came out with the most recent IPCC synthesis report.This is the most important figure to the 2013-2015 Review because it shows impacts of warming levels as well as corresponding CO2 concentrations and needed emission reductions. This figure represents an enormous effort from IPCC authors and is one of the more important inputs from the IPCC to the COP. This figure now theoretically constrains global emissions seeing that the 2˚C goal was set in Copenhagen. Carbon dioxide emissions must be limited to between 2,500 and 5,000 GtCO2 since 1870. 1,800 GtCO2 has already been emitted leaving between 700 and 3,200 GtCO2 left to burn. This range will be dependent upon climate sensitivity and response. The lower scenario represents highly sensitive climate response, while the high emissions scenario represents a much less sensitive response. The SED will be concluding in February in Geneva in time for a report by June on the long-term temperature goal. The SED is important in the COP because the Review theoretically sets the level of ambition for the Paris Agreement. While a bottom-up agreement will come out of Paris in 2015, this review sets the groundwork to help ratchet up ambition in succeeding COPs under a pledge and review strategy. With the 1.5˚C target being virtually unreachable, the Review becomes political. Can the countries most impacted by climate change represented in the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) and the Africa Group get parties to agree to the 1.5˚C target? If so, this could have major ramifications for loss and damage as well as compensation. This is an important piece of the COP to watch and many people are not paying attention to it. Another Review is expected to coincide with the next assessment report of the IPCC.

December 9, 2014

The Life of a Climate Change Groupie

My week at the COP20 in Lima was a completely different experience than I had ever imagined. I am normally a relatively shy person when it comes to approaching strangers, but in order to succeed in getting interviews, I had to push myself out of my comfort zone. So the first question I faced was how on earth do I get these intelligent, busy and experienced people to talk to me? From my time at the COP, I found several successful ways to score an interview. The first approach was stopping at any information booth that had to do with our topics. We began asking the booth operators what their organization was and from there we evaluated whether interviewing them could help us further our research. Most of our potential interviewees informed us that they “weren’t the person to interview” and handed us a business card of “someone that could help us with our research”. However later we learned the chances of the mysterious business card person e-mailing us back was a fifty, fifty chance. We were lucky with some of our booth-approach interviews for we were able to talk with the Head of Climate Alliance, a Peruvian indigenous chief, a scientist who worked on the REDD+ monitoring technology and other NGOS.

Another interview approach is something I call the after-side-event-creep. The technique consists of attending specific side events and waiting until the speakers have finished talking. Then you approach them (often more awkwardly than I participated) and then say “Hi I really loved your talk! Is there anyway I could ask you a few questions for my undergraduate research”. This mechanism I found to be more successful, but it does allow for the occasional embarrassing interview strike out. With this approach, I learned several lessons to be a successful climate change groupie- One: you must be fast. The speaker often has a line of fellow climate change groupies that that tend to shoot you death glares if you take too much time in your interview. Also there is a press for time because the room is often booked for another event directly afterwards, so the speakers leave the room quickly before you have time to chat with them. Two: you must pick your interviewee wisely. Often you want to chat with all the panelists, but usually there is only time to interview one person. So it’s important to evaluate which panelist could provide you with the most vital information and which panelist most likely to agree to an interview. Three: have your equipment ready. For the first couple interviews, our equipment was all over the place, creating obstacles for everyone around us. We learned to have tripod ready with the camera attached, so again the interview did not take too much time. This approach was the most groupie-like, but by the end of the week I felt like we had almost perfected the process.

Lastly is the luck-of-the-draw approach. A great deal of the strongest connections I made occurred randomly without the help of my detailed schedule. Due to circumstance and timing, I was able to chat with people who provided me with valuable input on my research. The first day at the COP sat next to a man on the bus who worked on REDD+ projects in Indonesia, which provided me with information on how Indonesia differs from the Amazon. Another interview only occurred because I dropped a pamphlet and the man sitting next to me picked it up and then began discussing the event. He use was a key member of Leave It In the Group and I had a 30 minute long interview with him. My classmate and I also met an undergraduate from Northeastern who we later met up with an discussed our concerns about REDD+ and Indigenous communities.

From taking undercover selfies with Christiana Figures to following a man who resembled the past President of Peru to memorizing the faces of delegates from photos on the Internet to trying to strike up conversations at the printer, the Week 1 team were successful climate change groupies.

December 6, 2014March 26, 2015

Dinner with Delegates

Thus far our time in Lima has been spent sightseeing, for both people and places. We have been spending our days at Voces por el Clima interviewing delegates and representatives from various countries, Peru, Bolivia, Netherlands, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to name a few. While also exploring Lima outside of COP venues, we continue to run into party members and representatives. We were fortunate enough to have dinner with Gabriel Blanco a delegate from Argentina who has attended 9 previous COPs. Through a more relaxed interview involving cebiche and cerveza, Señor Blanco held nothing back about Argentina’s insufficient climate action. While it was surprising to hear about Argentina’s climate denial, it was even more surprising to me that Argentinas government continued to send delegates to a convention in which the argentine people had very little commitment towards. Leaving that dinner was a bit frustrating to hear that despite this being the twentieth conference of the parties, some governments are still in disagreement about the changing climate which is greatly impacting the lack of education for its citizens. Therefore a cycle of negligence occurs. However, Gabriel Blanco seemed somewhat optimistic for the outcomes in Lima, and we told him we will come to Argentina to help change the minds of the many Argentines who remain apathetic towards climate change.

December 6, 2014

Life Outside the COP: Voces Por el Clima

Just down the road from the COP 20 venue is the Jockey Club del Peru, the home of Voces por el Clima. Voces is an exhibition that showcases the different aspects of climate change, especially in Peru. The venue includes booths from a wide variety of organizations, as well as side events on topics from sustainable cities to indigenous peoples.
We usually arrive at Voces shortly after it opens at 10 am. We start our day in the food court, sending emails to contacts, planning out of day, and watching the COP which is being broadcasted live on the big screen. Around lunch time, the exhibitions begin to get more crowded, with lots of delegates coming over from the COP to enjoy the exhibitions. We have had great success conducting interviews both with delegates, and with representatives at the booths. Most people here are happy and excited to talk with us, whether it be in English or in Spanish. We have even had the opportunity to have dinner with Gabriel Blanco, delegate of Argentina, to talk about the COP and our research.

Brady Hummel in the middle of interview Rene Van Berkel, head of UN Industrial Development Program.

Sending emails and making contacts in the Voces por el Clima food court.

When not conducting interviews and exploring the many facets of Voces por el Clima, we had been soaking in the culture, food and sites of Lima. We are staying in a part of Lima called Miraflores, which is a more modern section of the city. However, we had the opportunity to explore the historic section of the city, even watching the changing of the guards at the Presidential Palace. We’ve eaten ceviche, sipped on chicha morado, and enjoyed the many free pisco sours. We are excited to get inside the COP next week, and to continue take in everything Peru has to offer.

December 4, 2014December 4, 2014

The Daily Schedule at COP20

20141202-IMG_0804 — The main walk of COP20.

Half of the Dickinson research team is into their fourth day at COP20 and we are starting to get into a bit of a groove, but in traditional COP fashion it is hectic and can shift without notice. It starts off for me with a 06:30 wake up time. I spend the next hour gathering my things, running across the street to the supermarket to grab my breakfast and lunch, and then walk to the shuttle bus to COP at 07:30. The bus rides are long, but provide a good place to meet Party delegates or other observers (that’s what we are). We also occasionally fall asleep on the busses, since they are so comfortable.

20141203-IMG_0840 — Keziah and Jess conducting an on-the-spot interview.

By 08:30 or 09:00 we arrive at the venue, after which we generally sit down for about an hour and talk about the coming day’s events or interviews. We then break off to either track down delegates to speak with, head to the exhibition hall to meet interesting people from all around the world, attend side-events, attend negotiation sessions, secretly slip into closed events until we are politely asked to leave, or conduct interviews. This morning I will be attending a side negotiation and text editing session on Climate Financing Mechanisms. This type of event is one where negotiators from the Parties attend and offer edits to text in the draft agreement or discuss the negotiations.

At 11:30 everyday most of the group attends the Climate Action Network (CAN) press conference in Press Room 2. This is a great 30 minute press briefing hosted by CAN, a global network of civil organizations. Three new panelists speak everyday, one is usually form Greenpeace and the other two are generally wild card NGOs. They touch on everything from negotiations around forestry to the discussions around what the “safe” warming limit is. Afterwards we grab the business cards of the three panelists, in hopes of interviewing them later.

The mornings go fast and by 12:00 we are all sweaty and exhausted, so at 12:30 we have the team meeting, eat some lunch, drink water, and rest our aching feet. Soon after we are back on the hunt for delegates or doing scheduled interviews. For instance my afternoon today involves and interview with a Professor from PSU, an NGO observer who we spoke with after a press conference, and an observer from a second NGO (CDKN) that works on knowledge brokering (post on this forthcoming).

The afternoon are also when most of the side-events occur. This afternoon I will be sitting in on one that is about promoting climate technologies. This events provide good information for our research paper, introduce new research, and are a great spot to find delegates or experts to interview about research topics. We also tend some time running around the exhibition hall doing quick interviews with those representing groups that pertain to our research.

20141202-IMG_0820 — Rehana, Jess, Joe, and Will working at Mezze during dinner.

Around 18:15 I generally head to the exit with a few others, but some of the group stays until 20:00. Once we are back in the city, we find a good dinner spot. Last night we had some Middle Eastern food, and the two nights before we enjoyed great local food at a restaurant called Mezze. After dinner, we all converge at Butler University’s abroad center. They have kindly offered it to us in the evenings as a meeting spot. Here we download the footage we shot throughout the day and discuss how the day went. Generally we are out of there by 22:30 and head back to the Flying Dog (our hostel).

For the next couple of hours I usually organize my things for the next day, take a shower, grab a bite to eat, download any more footage that wasn’t downloaded at Butler, and relax for a bit, always making it to bed by 01:00.

November 10, 2014November 12, 2014

Brazil: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In today’s class lecture we discussed Brazil’s progress towards mitigating climate change. Brazil has made an enormous effort in reducing tropical deforestation, “Brazil has kept 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere since 2004″ (Atkin, 2014). Brazil once had the highest deforestation rate in the world mainly due to livestock and logging. Rainforests are an important carbon sink, however deforestation emits large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus changing the climate. Although Brazil’s 70 percent decline in deforestation has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions, other parts of Brazil are still feeling the effects of climate change. Sao Paulo is suffering from one of the worst droughts to have hit Southern Brazil in several decades. The water scarcity is causing violent conflicts between residents. As the climate continues to change, and droughts become more prevalent we can expect to see more violent conflicts and citizens protesting for access to resources like water, which are necessary for survival. Rainy seasons in Brazil have shown a pattern of less rainfall each year, “The Sao Paulo metropolitan area ended its last rainy season in February with just a third of the usual rain total only 9 inches” (Gomez-Licon, 2014). The government is being blamed for the issues of water scarcity, which shows that as the climate keeps changing and water becomes more limited there must be systems implemented for distributing water equally. Otherwise the world’s poor will be exposed to more vulnerabilities, and violent conflicts will increase.

Atkin, Emily. “Brazil Has Done More To Stop Climate Change Than Any Other Country, Study Finds.” ThinkProgress. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/06/3446097/brazil-cuts-carbon/>.

Gomez Licon, Adriana. “Sao Paulo Drought Leaves Brazil’s Biggest City Desperate For Water.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 07 Nov. 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/sao-paulo-drought_n_6118888.html?utm_hp_ref=green>.