More than 200 climate campaign groups will issue a joint call for reforms to the way United Nations (UN) climate talks are conducted, saying that the negotiations have “reached breaking point”.
The campaigners want decisions to be adopted by voting rather than requiring consensus among governments, as well as an end to what they call the “trade show” aspect of COP climate talks. They are also proposing measures to reduce polluting industries’ influence in a set of demands to be released at the Bonn mid-year talks on Monday afternoon.
UN expects climate finance roadmap to offer “clear next steps”
Lien Vandamme, a senior campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said in a statement: “For 30 years, the climate negotiations have systematically failed to deliver climate justice, undermined international law and allowed the fossil fuel industry to write the rules.”
Rachitaa Gupta, coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, said that the UN’s climate system “must fundamentally reimagine itself”. “It must reform,” she added. “Anything short of this is continued complicity in the climate crisis.”
Consensus not voting
Unlike with many other UN conventions, decisions at the annual conference of the parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) require consensus. While that is not clearly defined, it is interpreted to mean at least the vast majority of governments.
This stems from the first COP in 1995, when fossil fuel-exporting governments like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked the adoption of voting rules. The rules for approving decisions have never been formally agreed, leaving governments to require consensus by default.
“The climate process must no longer be held hostage by the narrow interests of a few,” says the “United Call”, a document of a dozen pages outlining the reform proposals. “The absence of agreed procedures for decision-making allows big polluting countries to hold the negotiations hostage,” Vandamme added.
At COP29 last year, oil-dependent nations like Saudi Arabia blocked agreement on how to follow up on COP28’s commitment to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, while developed countries watered down ambition on a new climate finance goal, with some Global South governments expressing their disappointment even after it was adopted.
In 2011, Mexico and Papua New Guinea formally proposed an amendment to the climate convention for decisions to be taken if three-quarters of governments vote in favour. But that push was unsuccessful. Adopting this amendment would itself require a vote with a three-quarters majority.
End fossil fuel influence
The groups’ statement also calls for measures to “end undue influence” on COP delegates from fossil fuel companies and other big emitters of planet-warming gases. Research from the Kick Big Polluters Out campaign estimated that 1,800 fossil fuel lobbyists attended COP29 last year, mainly as part of trade associations but also as members of government delegations.
The joint call says that the countries hosting COPs should not enter into corporate partnerships, especially with companies that have a high-carbon footprint. Previous COP presidencies have used these partnerships to help cover the costs of hosting – for example, working with energy companies like Iberdrola, SSE and SOCAR.
Vandamme said it was important to host COPs in different regions but “COP hosts needing money to organise the conference cannot be an argument to allow corporate sponsorships”. She said governments should collectively help the host nation fund it, “for example through partnerships or contributing finance to support a COP”.
COP host integrity
The joint call points out that “climate talks have been hosted in countries with problematic human rights records and significant fossil fuel interests”. The last three COPs were in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, which are all large producers of oil and gas. The campaign groups said they want future COP presidencies to “demonstrate tangible progress on climate action”.
The COP host country is chosen by government negotiators from each of the UN’s five regional groups: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe and Others. The right to host rotates each year between the groups.
Next year is the turn of the “Western Europe and Others” group, and their negotiators are currently deciding between Australia and Turkiye. After that it will be Africa’s turn – with Nigeria bidding to host COP32 in Lagos – followed by Asia-Pacific, with India wanting to host that summit.
While the joint statement does not go into details of how to ensure that COP host nations demonstrate climate progress, Vandamme suggested that the UNFCCC could draw up a set of criteria for governments to use when they are choosing a COP country.
Governments will still decide on the location, Vandamme said. But, she added, “they should do so based on information provided by the candidate host country regarding their climate progress, as well as a commitment to respect, protect and uphold human rights, to avoid conflict of interests on the Presidency team and the COP organisation, and clarity on the logistics”.
Brazil: Let’s deliver on our old climate promises before making new ones
Recent talks in Bonn have been beset by visa issues, with many developing-country delegates struggling to get visas to enter Germany in time. “Year after year, discriminatory visa policies deny delegates access to timely visas, effectively silencing those on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” the statement said.
It calls for “a unified, simple, equitable, digital visa system with guaranteed approval within one week for all accredited participants to UNFCCC meetings”. Such systems were put in place for COP28 in Dubai and COP29 in Baku, it adds.
While individual campaign groups have called for similar reforms in the past, those organising Monday’s joint appeal said it is the first mass call for such a broad set of changes. Last year, prominent figures like former UN chief Ban Ki-moon signed a joint letter, organised by the Club of Rome network of thought leaders, calling for some of these reforms but leaving out the proposal to make decisions by voting.
The post Campaigners to issue mass call for reforms to rescue UN climate process appeared first on Climate Home News.
Campaigners to issue mass call for reforms to rescue UN climate process
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
related
Analysis: Lula presidency saved at least 20,000km2 of Brazilian Amazon since 2022
Why land-use emissions have fallen by a third this century – in six charts
Analysis: 84% of nations miss deadline to identify ‘nature-harming’ subsidies by 2025
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.
Gallery photos taken by Raeed Ali, Pacific Community Mobiliser at Greenpeace Australia Pacific