Amanda Ullman

They say don’t meet your celebrities, but today I threw that advice to the wind. I started my morning attending a presentation by ITER, a nuclear fusion project created in collaboration by 28 different countries (the US, Russia, Japan, South Korea, India, China, and all of the countries in the EU.) Ever since a lecture on nuclear energy in my Energy and Environment class, I have been completely fascinated by nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion has the potential for incredible efficiencies. It’s estimated that just 1 g of deuterium-tritium, the fuel used in nuclear fusion, could produce the same amount of energy as would 8,000 L of oil. While ITER hasn’t produced anything yet, presenter Greg de Temmerman explained that the actual construction of the machine (which is 42 hectares tall) still needs to be completed. He noted that the first component was just recently installed, which was a huge milestone.

Walking out of the presentation re-inspired by the collaborative nature of the project, I found myself heading to the Pavilion run by Itaipu. You’ll recall, Itaipu is my other energy production fascination, and is similar to ITER in that it is governed jointly by a treaty between Brazil and Paraguay. After speaking with an Itaipu environment representative on the work that Itaipu is doing in harnessing livestock waste for biogas production, I was ushered to sit for a presentation in the Pavilion. Because the presentation would be conducted in Spanish and I was the only non-fluent Spanish speaker present, Itaipu’s representatives found me my own personal translator. Perhaps the most exciting part of the situation was that my “translator” was not a translator at all, but actually one of Paraguay’s diplomats to Germany who’s friendliness and openness to conversation overshadowed the fact that he seemed to have forgotten he was translating the presentation for me about 1/3 of the way through the presenter’s speech. My time with Itaipu ended with a conversation between myself and 2 Brazilian Itaipu employees, who, upon discovery of my plans to study Portuguese next semester, took it upon themselves to teach me a quick overview of Brazilian geography and customs. Our time together was cut short by an afternoon meeting, so I will look forward to speaking with Itaipu’s residents a bit more during tomorrow, my last day at COP24.

Corey Sugerik

Today was my final day at the COP and I am walking away feeling a mixture of emotions, and an abundance of thoughts. After attending several negotiation sessions for the past few days, I decided that I wanted to attend a few sessions that would uplift my spirits and instill some hope. The event that really succeeded in providing that was about intergenerational inquiry. Several panels of youth representatives explained why they advocated for climate action and how climate change has impacted them. To see such young climate change activists fighting so hard for something was truly inspiring. My main reactions from the week boil down to an incredibly cautious optimism. I think that the fact that the Paris Agreement was even negotiated to begin with is an extraordinary feat and if Katowice can produce a rulebook, I may regain some confidence in the ability of the UN to make a meaningful impact in the world of climate change.

Paelina DeStephano

Yesterday I heard from some of the activists and government officials working in coal regions advocating for just tranisitons. Today I went to a complementary event held by research institutions investigating pathways and policy recommendations for just transitions away from coal. One organization detailed economic arguments for transitioning away from coal, supported by economic models comparing least cost transitions to  Paris-compatible transitions. While coal is declining in either case, there still needs to be a faster managed decline if we’re going to make our global goals. Then we heard case studies from Germany, Poland, South Africa, and Spain. Each situation is so unique, with different energy economics, different regional contexts, and different government capacities. But across all case studies one thing was clear – coal is in decline.

Cai May Tan

Day 5 of COP 24 came and went very quickly today. I think the adrenaline of attending COP started to wear off today, for I found myself at a self-imposed impasse because I just did not know what to do. To be fair, my first few days were a whirlwind of events because I was just trying to go to as many events as possible. Today, I split my time between YOUNGO and tracking adaptation negotiations. For the majority of the afternoon, I worked on preparing a press conference statement for the adaptation working group. I found it extremely challenging to produce a two-minute press statement because like the Paris Agreement, you can be nothing but vague. It was ironic to see this being mirrored in a process that criticizes the vague, un-transparent and unequal. In the second half of my day, I attended a negotiations on SBI 49 agenda item Article 7. As I have mentioned in a previous post, negotiations can be limited to just banter between a few countries. In this particular session, there were a lot of arguments between arbitrary item proposals and suggested edits. The session moderator stressed that tomorrow is the last day to confirm the language on operationalizing the public registry. But, it did not look like Parties were able to come together because negotiations ran much later than intended, and some negotiators started to look frazzled and nervous. Co-facilitators suggested informal informal sessions, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Udit Gupta

I attended a session on the establishment of a public register for communication on adaption programs.     The decision to do so was arrived to in the Paris Agreement and as with other points, countries are supposed to agree to a work program. 7.5 hours of discussions were scheduled over three days and was today, was the second day of negotiations on the register. For over 2 hours today, the parties couldn’t agree on a small clause: if the pdf manual should have hyperlinks to external documents. While tomorrow is the last day to agree on the register – I believe a consensus on this small step is highly improbable.