Author: Yared Hurisa

Many thanks to the Duke-UNFCC Climate Change Negotiation Practicum that I was exposed to a historic climate change conference (COP 25) in Madrid, Spain from Dec 3 to Dec 6, 2019. These four days flew like hours where we got lots of experience and networking opportunities. I am very glad to note that I came out of the conference meeting my expectations as I outlined in my pre-conference blog post.

A massive conference

I found the COP 25 so massive in that 10 of the Giga halls in the convention center were full handling several negotiations and side events per day and every hour. A number of these halls were having more than 20 conference rooms effectively managing over 20k conference participants in various forms of groups of countries including the observers and media.

The COP 25 Conference center in Madrid, Spain

As such, one has to be strategic to get the most out of this massive conference. For me, I identified and stick with negotiations and side events related to the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. I chose this topic because it is related to my background and master project on the global refugee crisis.

Intense negotiation

In my stay, I have witnessed tough negotiations being conducted among groups of countries. From the coordination meetings such as that of G77 and China, Africa, and the LDCs group, I learned that these blocks have to first come up with a common goal before sitting with negotiating parties, mainly the developed world. At times, coming to in agreement within own group becomes challenging and time taking due to different interests within a group.

Plenary session at the main conference center”: Baker

Blogging

As a part of the fulfillment of the practicum, we were asked to report back in the form of blog posts on the course website. This gave me a good opportunity to experience how it feels like a journalist. It also prompted me to organize interview sessions with a couple of prominent negotiators for the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage as well as from the Civil Society side and my country delegation. One of the interviews is already up while the others are pending.

With Harjeet Singh, Global Lead on Climate Change, ActionAid

Ethiopian Delegation

During the period, I participated in the conference as a part of the Ethiopian delegation that gave me unrestricted access to most of the events. The team is composed of excellent experts from various institutions such as the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and the Ministry of Agriculture. I did long interviews and conversations with the team lead and other members regarding the opportunities and challenges faced by the team. I was told that energetic, and experienced team members are among the strengths of the team while staff turnover and budget limitation as major constraints to fully participate in the conference and negotiation events.

Networking

I also spent time networking with the previous members of Ethiopian delegation who have got long years of experience in negotiation and serving the current delegation in different capacities. We discussed how their experience evolved over time. They stressed that continuing to attend the conference in the future is important to understand the process and support our country in a meaningful manner.

To this end, I would like to thank the course administrators, the Ethiopian delegation and the people I met at the conference who made my stay at COP 25 rewarding.

Yared Lemma Hurisa, Rotary Peace Fellow,

MIDP, Sanford Public Policy School, Duke University

This is part of a series of blog posts from the UN Climate Summit (COP 25) here in Madrid, Spain. Today is my third day of the conference which I got the privilege to talk to Mr.Vicente Yu, Coordinator for G77 and China for the Warsaw Mechanism for Loss and Damage. He graciously shared his views on the issue and the main elements of the negotiation.

Question: Mr. Vicente, thank you so much for your willingness to share your experience on issues related to climate change loss and damage in the international negotiation agenda.

Can we start by introducing yourself to our readers?

Answer: Well, I am, Vicente Yu. I am here at COP 25 representing the delegation of Palestine and coordinating the G 77 and China group which is the biggest group in this process. We are here to see if we can get together common positions on loss and damage so that we get something from this process for developing countries. I’m a lawyer by background. And I’ve been involved in this process since 2007. Long-time helping developing countries mostly.

Question: Can you give us some background about the loss and damage initiative within the UN Climate Negotiations?

Answer: Loss and damage have been a long-standing issue which many developing countries have been pushing? For almost 20 years now. And there have been work programs in the past in the UN Triple C on loss and damage. And then finally, we have Article 8 in the Paris agreement, which talks about loss and damage.

So at this session, what we are looking for, I think as G77 is to make sure that the mechanism that was set up by parties back in 2013, called the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM) will be an effective mechanism that will help channel resources to developing countries in order to help developing countries increase their ability to address the losses and the damages that they will get out of climate change from extreme weather events, slow onset events, non-economic losses, population displacement and those kinds of other things. So, that’s the whole objective that we have here.

We do not want the Warsaw mechanism to be simply to be just a talk shop among experts. We want it to be a mechanism really that the international community can use to help developing countries address when loss and damage to have money, technology, and the skills and infrastructure and other things that we need as developing countries, so that when these kinds of climate events hit us the loss and damage that we experience will either be avoided or be recovered or will be reduced.

Question: So, what are the elements of the negotiations undergoing in this mechanism and what you hope to achieve?

Answer: Here at COP you have these two big views, I guess, you know, mainly developed countries have the perspective that the current mechanism is sufficient enough whereas developing countries think that it is not enough that more needs to be done, especially on supporting action and support in relation to loss and damage in developing countries. So, that seems to be like the big dividing line in terms of positions. I’m positive that with the spirit here, at least within the group of G77 and China that we all recognize this to be a very important issue for all of us developing countries that we will be in a strong position to actually push this here at the COP 25.

Question: What are the main challenges you are facing right now in terms of coming to a common ground?

Answer: The main challenges we face definitely will be getting our developed country partners to understand what is it that we want? Why do we want it? And how do we get to the point where we find the Warsaw mechanism to be useful for us and effective for us? I think this is a big challenge. And I think the reason why it’s such a challenge is because developing and developed countries are from two different perspectives, we suffer loss and damage, many of us are not able to react to those whereas, developed countries when they do suffer loss when they do suffer from this loss and damage they can they have the money and technology to respond.

Yared: Well, I have finished my question. Thank you so much for your time.

Vicente: Thank you so much, guys.

By Yared Hurisa, Rotary Peace Fellow

MIDP,  Sanford Public Policy School, Duke University

I got this incredible opportunity of attending the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 25) in Madrid through the Duke UN Climate Change Negotiation Practicum. The course provided us an excellent foundation about the UN Climate Change regimes and main negotiation blocks. I was attending this course along with extremely dynamic cohort of students from different departments at Duke. The course is run by high ranking professors and guest lecturers.

At this moment, I am heading to the COP 25 in Madrid which is a part of the final accomplishment of the practicum. This will give real experience of what we have been discussing in class.  I am leaving from Durham, RDU Airport, North Carolina to Miami and then to arrive in Madrid early in the morning of Monday, Dec 2. This means that I am arriving on the opening date of the conference which is a little bit disappointing as it happened due to my own lack of experience to arrange my logistic on time. However, I am still highly motivated and excited to attend the conference.

I am expecting that I will come out of the conference with significant exposure and international experiences regarding climate change negotiations. I see the schedule of the conference from the wonderful COP 25 mobile app on my phone. This tells me that there are a number of grand events including mandated events, official side events, high-level segment, global climate action events, etc. From all these, I am very much interested to attend climate change adaptation-related events.

I am particularly interested to follow-up the negotiation related to climate change loss and damage. This has four thematic expert groups which focus on: slow onset events, non-economic losses, displacement related to the adverse impacts of climate change, and comprehensive risk management and transformational approaches. Out of the focus areas, I am very much attracted to the displacement impacts of climate change and the response being considered to address the issue.

Climate change can cause displacement of people from their homes and communities. Developing recommendations to prevent climate-related displacement is particularly important for less developed countries that are at the heart of the problem. In addition to its importance, the topic is related to my master project where I am investigating the problems and potential solutions around the global refugee crisis. I trust that by attending the conference events, I would get extensive knowledge including the opportunity to network with scholars working on the topic from all over the world.

Yared Hurisa, Rotary Peace Fellow,

MIDP, Sanford Public Policy School, Duke University