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Posts by Monica Araya. Para ver los artículos de este autor en español y portugués haz un clic en las banderas arriba.

A New “Why” for Climate Action

The world needs a new “why” for climate action.  Unless the public embraces a vision for climate action that is consistent with their notions of prosperity, politicians will not challenge the status quo inside their governments and political parties.  Latin American countries need a new “why” for climate action; and nowhere is this potential for reframing political storytelling on climate action greater than in middle-income developing countries.  The public is worried about climate change. But is it asking politicians to commit to bold climate action at home? Not yet.

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May 7, 2013 | More on Climate Justice & Equity, International Climate Negotiations, Key Posts, Public Climate Change Policies | AILAC, Chile, China, Costa Rica, UNFCCC, USA | Comment

Shaping the Durban Platform: Latin America and the Caribbean in a future High Ambition Deal

After the longest session on record, governments at the COP17 in Durban in December 2011 agreed to negotiate by 2015 a climate deal to enter into force in 2020. The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action defied predictions that the meeting in South Africa would lead to a collapse of the UN climate talks. Many parties from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have worked many years to make possible the political compromise achieved in the final hours and included in the Durban Platform. Today, the challenge is to make this platform ambitious enough to avoid dangerous climate change.

In this new CDKN and Energeia Policy Brief we discuss the outcomes of the COP17, the contribution Latin America and the Caribbean made and the implications of the Durban Platform for the region. The Brief finishes by offering a set of recommendations:

1. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries supporting high ambition at the international climate negotiations need to continue to shape a more ambitious climate narrative by acting together, domestically and internationally, and strengthening existing work with experts on bold action both within and outside the COPs.

2. Informal exchanges inside and outside of the UNFCCC process to jointly define key milestones for the Durban Platform and identify areas of convergence and divergence must take place within LAC countries and with Africa and Asia between now and 2015.

3. Both at home and abroad, the LAC region needs to improve how it communicates its successes on low carbon, climate resilient strategies to keep building confidence and generating a stronger impact at the international climate negotiations.

4. LAC countries need to continue to explore how best to advance national conversations linking climate change issues such as mitigation and resilience plans to national interests and potential losses in food security, infrastructure and trade.

To read the Policy Brief click here.

April 18, 2012 | More on International Climate Negotiations, Public Climate Change Policies | Brazil, Caribbean, Cartagena-Dialogue, COP17, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Perú, UNFCCC | Comment

The Squeezed Middle: Why Latin America Matters in Climate Politics

Latin America matters in international climate politics. Its emerging leadership role at the international climate change talks, on low-carbon pathways and climate finance illustrate how some Latin American countries may shape the negotiations and the region this decade.

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April 13, 2011 | More on Adaptation, Climate Finance, International Climate Negotiations, Market Mechanisms, Public Climate Change Policies | Cartagena-Dialogue, China, COP16, Costa Rica, Mexico | Comment

The Cartagena Dialogue: A Sui Generis Alliance in the Climate Negotiations

In December 2010, the international community explicitly stated “We choose consensus” at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Cancun.* Although countries remain divided and the Cancun Agreements do not guarantee climate security, on that December day we triumphed with a pragmatic spirit, which was much needed for the UNFCCC negotiations to repair the damage left from Copenhagen. The conference’s results and skill of both the Mexican diplomats and the UNFCCC chief surprised even the most optimistic of commentators (who were very few).

Yet a little over a month later, we are left questioning how we can raise the ambition of the efforts and give them the proper legal form. In the 21^st Century, a global mark that guarantees climate security requires an agreement between China and the United States. China and the United States, the “G2”, are the two principle economies and the two greatest greenhouse gas emitters in the world. And yet there is still no solution for this geopolitical jigsaw puzzle.

Nonetheless, this paralysis between the “G2” should not reduce us to a role of passive observers, or even worse, to one of victims. In Cancun, the progressive and pragmatic countries, especially those of us small countries and those at greatest risk if diplomacy were to collapse, opted to be proactive.

The Mexican President of the conference was patient and open to dialogue so that Cancun would give the key and necessary signal: we have no definite solution (in mitigation and in its legal form); however we can take an intermediary path within the construction of the climate architecture. That night—in one of its scarce occasions—the international community strove to reach an agreement. We progressive countries celebrate this success.

However, important dynamics unraveled behind the scenes. Cancun demonstrated that climate alliances can and should incorporate the voices of both developing and developed countries. In order to face the paralysis we are in, we must open up new dialogues. Only then, with quality proposals, can we counteract the unilateral impulses of those countries that threaten to break the consensus because they are either big or inflexible or both.

I participated in a promising dialogue that took place in Cancun: the Cartagena Dialogue for Progressive Action. In my opinion, it is the most imaginative and constructive platform that currently exists in the climate negotiations.

What is the Cartagena Dialogue?

The Dialogue emerged as a spontaneous and informal effort to elaborate the negotiation texts in Copenhagen. Given the bitter result of COP15, a small group of negotiators decided to rescue the effort together and transform it into a positive platform. Crisis tends to create the most skillful ideas.

And so, this informal space was born. It was open to countries with ideas to create an ambitious regime, both comprehensive and legally binding across constructive positions and that, within the domestic sphere, strive to continue with or promote low carbon economies in the medium- and long-term. These countries share a main goal that the negotiations advance, and that countries work together positively and proactively both within and with other regional groups.

For example, in the Cartagena Dialogue we openly discuss the motivations behind distinct positions (“What does country X want to gain through this and why?), we clear up misunderstandings (“I have heard that your group is against Y, is this true?”) to explore the spaces for convergence in the negotiations (“What do you all think about a paragraph that suggests…”)

But I must stress that the Dialogue is neither a negotiation block, nor does it have the intention to challenge the blocks in the negotiations. The dialogue serves as a discussion forum to exchange opinions and to explore options and texts that can generate support and consensus from other parts.

Why the Cartagena Dialogue?

The name comes from the first group meeting, which took place in Cartagena, Colombia, in March 2010. In July 2010, the Dialogue took place in Maldives, and it met for the third time in Costa Rica (October-November 2010). There were additional informal gatherings in Bonn, Germany, and in Tianjin, China.

In the year 2010, the following countries participated in one or more meetings: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, the European Union, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malawi, Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Mexico (as President of the COP16), the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, Rwanda,  Dominican Republic, Samoa, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

The most inspiring part of the Dialogue is the unusual and refreshing constructive spirit that allows for the exchange of ideas. Outside of the formal negotiation rooms, a safe space is created where frank discussions can take place to explore areas of common interest in a fluid environment without pressure.  One can breathe a refreshing air of trust—which is very different from the polarizing environment that prevails in the plenaries and usually results in stalemate or paralysis.

From Cancun to Durban

Given the fragile political conditions facing Cancun, a key objective during 2010 facing the conference in Mexico was to find convergence. We needed to establish the precedent that it was possible to have an agreement, which would capture what we ‘can live with,’ even if it does not meet one hundred percent of what my country individually wants (or even if it had some paragraphs that we do not like at all). And we succeeded.

In Cancun, the Cartagena Dialogue met daily and several times at night in subgroups to search for consensus, to take the pulse of the negotiations, and to explore strategies to work with the most inflexible countries.

The Dialogue will meet for the next time in Malawi in March 2011. There, we will exchange ideas of how to make beneficial and strategic contributions at the COP17 in Durban.

It is complex and often frustrating to reach an agreement among nearly 200 governments. There is no recipe for success. But we know the ingredients: discipline, better listening and less screaming. Through the Dialogue we have explored how the “engineering of convergences” work. And innovatively, we have drawn up the only informal platform that includes as many developing countries as developed.  The challenge in 2011 is to instill ambition and legal certainty to come closer to the climate security objectives that science—and our consciences—demand.

*We know that Bolivia had objections but the international lawyers have reminded us that consensus does not have to mean unanimity.

A special thanks to Cecilia Pineda, Brown University, for translating this piece.

February 2, 2011 | More on International Climate Negotiations | COP16, Mexico | Comment