Alexandra Bennett 

This morning’s daily BINGO briefing was slightly modified because there was a special guest speaker, Paul Watkinson, the UNFCCC Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). SBSTA was the main UNFCCC body working on the technical aspects of Article 6 throughout Week 1, before the text was passed on to ministers of state. Even as business updates seem to slow because negotiations continue behind closed doors, Paul was able to provide some insight on Article 6 and a general direction of the possible outcome of the text. In addition, he reminded the room that the main goal of the COP process is to maintain and grow political momentum towards increased ambition on climate change.

The whole Duke gang met up in the afternoon to speak with an Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) employee who spoke about EDF’s role at COP, the mechanics behind Article 6, and an overview of climate policy action and needs at various levels of government. These smaller one-on-one meetings are extremely helpful for providing clarification on the complicated negotiation process. After stopping at the Germany pavilion for some much needed coffee, the Chilean Presidency held a short stocktake on the state of the negotiations – four main sticking points still remain, including Article 6. In the late afternoon, I attended a fun and uplifting session by the World Surf League (WSL) looking at raising public awareness of the climate crisis through sports.

Riley Pfaff 

This morning’s daily BINGO briefing was slightly modified because there was a special guest speaker, Paul Watkinson, the UNFCCC Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). SBSTA was the main UNFCCC body working on the technical aspects of Article 6 throughout Week 1, before the text was passed on to ministers of state. Even as business updates seem to slow because negotiations continue behind closed doors, Paul was able to provide some insight on Article 6 and a general direction of the possible outcome of the text. In addition, he reminded the room that the main goal of the COP process is to maintain and grow political momentum towards increased ambition on climate change.

The whole Duke gang met up in the afternoon to speak with an Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) employee who spoke about EDF’s role at COP, the mechanics behind Article 6, and an overview of climate policy action and needs at various levels of government. These smaller one-on-one meetings are extremely helpful for providing clarification on the complicated negotiation process. After stopping at the Germany pavilion for some much needed coffee, the Chilean Presidency held a short stocktake on the state of the negotiations – four main sticking points still remain, including Article 6. In the late afternoon, I attended a fun and uplifting session by the World Surf League (WSL) looking at raising public awareness of the climate crisis through sports.

Suzanne Mullins 

Today was an interesting mix of side events and meetings organized by Duke, as things at COP begin to wind down.  This morning, we met with a representative from the Environmental Defense Fund.  He clarified a lot of details about Article 6, which—though I have been attending related events all week—still was pretty confusing up until this point!  It was great to hear a thorough breakdown of what each component of Article 6 implies, and it definitely helped me understand why this section of the Paris Agreement has been a sticking point for parties.

Following the meeting, I attended a side event at the UK Pavilion which was about global investor action looking toward COP 26.  Though that area isn’t my particular interest, I actually found some of the speakers to be relatively interesting.  Mark Lewis, a researcher in asset management with the bank BNP Paribas, discussed what he feels is a profound change occurring in economics right now.  He talked a lot about oil and gas versus renewables; fossil fuels, he said, are inherently inflationary, while renewable energy is (not only beneficial for the environment, but) deflationary.  He noted that everyone today has grown up in a society where the civilization and intellectual environment are based on fossil fuels, and that much of modern economics emerged around the same time that the steam engine was invented.  Now, he said, renewables are emerging, and a new perception of economics needs to emerge with it.  We need to shift away from inflationary to deflationary thinking.  While oil yields high returns, it is quite risky; renewables don’t have any upstream issues—there is no exploration or “production,” but rather you just capture the energy that already exists.  The returns might be less than oil (not accounting for externalities), but there are much lower risks and things are much cheaper.  So long as we can overcome the psychological and political hesitations behind renewables, the economics issue is already solved.

Overall, the session was pretty interesting, and it was good to hear some positive, concrete ideas about moving in the right direction for our financial and energy future.

Marie McNamara 

Today I had the opportunity to attend the Global Stock Take. The Stock Take is an opportunity for delegate leaders to provide and update on COP issues and negotiated progress. With COP scheduled to close this coming Friday urgency was a commonly expressed ideal. There were a lot of perspectives to listen to and I did my best to take them all in. Many of the ideals expressed were very much in line with the hard line party grouping positions you read about. It was particularly interesting to listen to the minister representing India. He reminded the attendees of the Global Stock Take to remember the history, stressing that fundamental divides on issues must be addressed for the negotiations to be equitable and effective. I thought this was incredibly valuable to hear, especially as someone new to the COP. There have been negotiations for nearly 25 years now, and each country has their own priorities and degrees of climate risk exposure. Hearing the ministers speak today on behalf of their country delegations helped me put the negotiation process in perspective and made me more sympathetic to the variations in standpoints.

Grace Chan

Today was much less busy as things have already started to wind down. But I still had quite a few events that peaked my interest. In between the events, we were lucky enough to have meetings with two different experts in the climate change policy field. The first one was with a representative from Environmental Defense Fund. He discussed and gave a background about the current COP issues and what EDF’s focuses are. The second person we met with was a representative from the Hewlett Foundation. His perspective was very interesting- he has been to every single COP and was able to give a broad overview of the history, complete with his opinion of the successes and failures. It was great to hear about the beginning of the negotiations and a kind of ‘behind-the-scenes’ voice of the previous COPs since he had experienced them both as a negotiator and as an observer. It was very interesting to hear these two different perspectives from two highly experienced and intelligent individuals- one a non-profit lawyer and the other a career policy adviser. However, both revealed their opinions about the state of the negotiations and overall climate action. These discussions really made me think about the future of these climate change negotiations and how they might change focus in coming years. Will COP26 in Glasgow be more successful in concluding Article 6? Or will there still be a standstill from countries unwilling to negotiate? Will things be drastically different if the U.S. continues on its current trajectory of climate inaction and officially withdrawn from the Paris Agreement for another four years?  It has really pushed me to think more critically about my future career and how I want to be involved in and, hopefully, influence the world of environmental policy.