Stakeholders engagement in the climate negotiations

1
Stakeholders engagement in the climate
negotiations

• Challenges and opportunities

Sebastien Duyck,University of Lapland,sebastien.
duyck_at_ulapland.fi
2
Overview

• Recent developments (up to and at the COP16)
• Access to information and Transparency issues
• Public Participation
• Review Processes
• Short term opportunity for improvements
• Key recommendations

3
Progress over the past year

• COP15 a dramatic exercise of democratic denial
• Lack of transparency of the main process
• Impossibility for many delegates to obtain their
  accreditation
• Exclusion of almost all observers from the last
  days of the negotiations
• Constructive discussions through the year between
  stakeholders and the secretariat
• Important progress regarding logistical challenges

4
Particular issues at the COP16

• Limits imposed on peaceful actions
• Restrictive opportunities for actions
• Logistical constraints
• Multiple venues, most NGO activities located 8
  kilometers away from the negotiations
• General issue of the lack of access to
  negotiating sessions

5
Access to Information - Transparency

• Main issues
• Lack of access to many sessions
• Tripartite discussions between the secretariat,
  the host country and civil society
• Additional Opportunities
• Increase use of the webcasts
• Publication of official transcripts

6
Public Participation in the Negotiations

• Contributions to the session
• Interventions in the negotiations
• Submissions of input
• Freedom of Demonstration
• Timeframe and flexibility for the organization of
  peaceful actions
• No censorship of messages by the Secretariat

7
Review Processes

• Rapid and transparent appeal process open to NGOs
  
• With regards to decisions over exclusions/restrict
  ions of stakeholder engagement
• Legal standing for stakeholders
• Implementation of the mechanisms established
  under the Kyoto Protocol

8
Short term opportunities for Improvements

• In-session workshop on stakeholders engagement
  (June 2011)
• Role of civil society in the planning of and
  during the workshop
• SBI needs to take a substantive decision on the
  basis of the outcomes of the workshop
• Need to focus on effective participation at the
  core of the negotiations, not on the creation of
  parallel processes
• Other workshops foreseen in the Cancun Agreements

9
Participation in the bodies established under the
Convention

• Creation of new bodies foreseen in the Cancun
  Agreements
• Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund
• All meetings open to observers and all relevant
  information made available, including webcasts of
  the sessions
• Procedures for the active participation of
  members of civil society
• Adaptation Committee
• Include civil society representatives as members
  of the AC
• Open the meetings of the AC

10
Key recommendations for the UNFCCC

• Open meetings to observers as a general rule
• Allow for more effective participation through
  interventions and submissions
• Review the participation guidelines, in order
• to restrict participations only with regards to
  objective criteria
• to respect the freedom of expression of observer
  organizations
• Include fully civil society in the workshops and
  in the bodies established under the Cancun
  Agreements