One defining feature in climate negotiations is the work of political groupings or
coalitions in streamlining positions of likeminded member states. In acknowledging this role, and at the request of member states, the UNFCCC in its work allocated one week prior to any body meeting - COP, SBI and SBSTA - for member states to meet as groups. The UNFCCC calendar in this preparatory week has always been allocated to developing southern coalitions. The preparatory week for the Bonn SBI/SBSTSA/ADP
2-9 program was as follows: Least Developing Countries (LDC) would convene on May 26 and 27; Small Islands Developing States (under AOSIS) and African Group would meet May 28 and 29, followed by the G-77 and China (G-77) on May 30 and 31. Although not officially listed on the UNFCCC program, it was common practice that negotiators from other coalitions like the Umbrella Group, Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), Arab League, Likeminded Group,
Cartagena Dialogue, Coalition of Rainforest Nations (CfRN) and the European Union would also use this opportunity for face to face consultation and planning. For Pacific state delegations, this week meant lobbying in multiple coalitions, some in parallel, to ensure that their key positions were reflected in the work of coalitions. The following accounts explore the internal monitoring and coordination that takes place within coalitions, especially in relation with the ADP2-9 process as seen through the AOSIS, G-77, CfRN and Cartagena Dialogue393. These preparatory meetings are not recorded and restricted to only member state delegations of each group. The following accounts are an insider’s reflections on the work of coalitions in the preparatory phase, namely AOSIS, G-77, CfRN and Cartagena Dialogue. These accounts not only reflect the intricacies of building cohesiveness inside coalitions, but also their linkages and bargaining amongst the various political groupings.
Inside: AOSIS and small states’ politics
Although on the official program the SIDS/AOSIS was allocated May 28 and 29, an email from Chair of AOSIS Maldives, was sent a week earlier notifying of an additional day of preparations on May 27. Changes to the schedule and additional matters to the agenda were a constant feature, it proved to be wise to be in the know, or better still to anticipate these changes. In the conference room of the Königshof Hotel around 50 delegates from the various ocean regions would convene to prepare for the upcoming ADP2-9. AOSIS was the historical home for Pacific island delegations, and this
gathering would be the first opportunity to gauge areas of common ground on positions and continue to forge relationships with small island states from the Caribbean, Indian, Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans.
393 The researcher’s access was restricted to these four coalitions which Samoa is associated with. The
LDC held daily coordination meetings and were active in the negotiation throughout. The CVF were mainly active during the COP21 negotiations.
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AOSIS Coalition Plenary
The participants organised themselves in their respective country delegations behind a table microphone. There was no set order as to where countries sat; delegates would simply collect their country plaque from the entrance of the conference room and place it where they sat. In this main coalition plenary, the heads of delegations or their
representative would be given the opportunity to speak, by signalling gestures of tipping the flag plaque or raising their flag plaque to get hold of the Chair’s attention. One of the first procedural rituals for the heads of delegations or their representatives was to email the AOSIS secretariat with their delegation contact list394. This confirmation of participants to the AOSIS secretariat, in this case the Maldives, would ensure members would receive all coalition negotiation information.
The first order of business would be given to state representatives to present any updates on high-level meetings, or UNFCCC committee meetings that took place between Geneva and Bonn. The delegations from Marshall Islands and Singapore would apprise the group of the MEF Washington and the Petersburg Dialogue focussing on areas of pre-2020 ambition and mitigation in the Geneva draft text. From the
Caribbean, Belize informed the group of that regions’ High-Level Support
Mechanism395 meeting and negotiator training. The same opportunity would be given to Samoa to detail the work from the Pacific from its Pacific Climate Change Roundtable and negotiator training. The coalition would also come to know the discussions around climate change adaptation partnership between Pacific countries and Japan, at the Japan-initiated Pacific Leaders Meeting (PALM 7).
Outside of the UNFCCC discussions, SIDS representatives in the various regime bodies would update the group on progress. Of key importance were the discussions around the Structured Expert Dialogue working group looking at the issue of the 1.5 degrees long- term temperature goal. The remainder of this first day of preparations was devoted to
394 Although the heads of delegations and some notable delegates did not need were automatically added
on the email list, member countries were encouraged to re-introduce members present at the beginning of each negotiating session.
395 The German based NGO Climate Analytics, as explored in Chapter Six, were influential in
coordinating and leading training for SIDS and LDC countries. there would two HLSM for the Pacific, and two HLSM for the Caribbean states in 2015.
presentations of experts from the coalition involved in off-session workshops and dialogues around loss and damage, mitigation and adaptation. The issue of finance and the possible complications in the agreement for the Global Environment Fund and the Green Climate Fund was a particular priority and focus of discussions. The
presentations and candid discussions from amongst the coalition members also looked at political profiling. By this, the group conducted a stocktake of possible country and coalition partners that may support or impede the groups’ established positions, both within the G-77 China and wider Annex I countries.
AOSIS Coordination Groups and Coordination Leads
The second and third day of preparatory meetings for the AOSIS was divided into ‘coordination’ thematic groups. The coordination groups for AOSIS, and in all other coalitions in climate change negotiations, are the main wheels that drive the political groupings’ vehicle forward. For AOSIS and its preparations for ADP, it had been determined at the Geneva conference as well as meetings at the UN Missions in New York that there would be four key coordination thematic groups for ADP2-9:
Adaptation and Loss and Damage, Finance, Mitigation and Legal. During the four month interval, the Chair had put out a request for states to nominate and at the same time individually approach possible negotiators to lead the four coordination groups. There were two ‘lead coordinators’ for each thematic group; with an unwritten principle to try and have equal membership from the three ocean sub-regions396. At the time of ADP2-9, Marshall Islands had two delegates leading coordination in the mitigation and legal groups. Depending on instructions from their capital, some states chose to follow one or two issues, and some had delegates jumping from one coordinating group to the other. Parties with sizable delegations, like Singapore, had the luxury of having three to five negotiators following each of the groups in comparison to states like Samoa, where one person would follow two or three coordination groups.
During the coordination meetings, the thematic group coordinators would lead
discussion amongst the group on who would follow what issue in the negotiations. For the Adaptation and Loss and Damage unit, discussions revolved around breaking the
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team into two subgroups (adaptation group and the loss and damage group) with individuals following particular clauses or articles of the negotiations. Although state red lines are a priority for delegates, the information sharing, and tasks allocated provide a sense of belonging and building cohesion. By speaking on behalf of another state during the negotiations, not only provided a sense of responsibility to represent others, but also built an obligation to the group. The coordination groups shared intelligence and networks from other coalitions and strategised a way of working with them. In this political stocktake, similar to the stocktaking that took place at the coalition plenary level, there was a more personal or individual profiling. In one instance, the mitigation group identified the second lead negotiators from Japan and New Zealand as the key players from the Umbrella coalition whom they needed to follow and look out for in the corridor.
The monitoring of information and receiving up to the minute information is key to surviving in the negotiations - therefore it was vital for delegates to sign up not only to the emailing list of the coordinating group, but also its various social media platforms like WhatsApp, google drive, dropbox and skype chat groups. Similar to the way the main coalition emailing list was used, members of the coordination groups were encouraged to sign up again to reflect the active members of the group in the current session.
As indicated in Chapter Three, most negotiations take place within the various spin-off negotiation chambers. The main actors or negotiators that enforce both the positions of their countries and coalitions, are the coordination groups. To be exact, in the practice of AOSIS (and as practiced by other coalitions), the main spokesperson for the coalition in these spin-off chambers are the lead negotiators. They would make interventions on behalf of a coalition or yield the floor to a fellow coalition-coordination member to make the intervention. However, as one Pacific negotiator affirms, this does not mean that states cannot make individual interjections as “it is our sovereign right to speak, intervene or seek clarification”397. The same negotiator went on to state, “but this is a rare moment, because it will show to other coalitions that AOSIS is not cohesive, and
we have no coalition consensus”398. Despite what seemed like clock-work operations, there were certain positions that the coordination groups could not agree upon. In one case, in the mitigation coordination a negotiator from Grenada did not agree to points raised by Singapore on the matter of review cycles and language on the 1.5 degrees long-term temperature goal. With the support of fellow Caribbean countries and
Marshall Islands, the coordination leads sought an agreement from the group to refer the matter back to the coalition plenary and heads of delegations.
AOSIS Coalition Cohesiveness: managing differences and strategies
On the final day of preparatory meetings, the coordinators would make presentations to the caucus on key issues and what to expect in the coming week. The issues where there would be no agreement from the coordination groups were then brought up for
discussion. By the time these grievances were raised, the members with differences would have already conducted informal talks; sometimes with their state lead
negotiators or heads of delegations. In the case of Grenada and Singapore, the issue did not find an agreement and the Maldives Chair asked that the matter be referred to the heads of delegations meeting to follow in the next two days. This was a strategy in of itself for the Chair. By reassuring coalition caucus that all was not lost and there was another option to find consensus, the Chair bought himself time to approach the
delegations with vocal grievances - Grenada, Singapore, St. Lucia and Marshall Islands, both bilaterally and as a group for a compromise on the language.
From finalising AOSIS key positions, the coalition-plenary discussed strategy, most importantly the strategy of working within the G-77 China bloc. Many scholars,399 and negotiators,400 have pointed to the increasing fragmentation of the southern-developing coalition group. With more than 13 regional, issue-specific, and economic coalitions all lobbying on the basis of a diverse set of interests, AOSIS needed to take into account a political stocktake of the group. The strategy that many negotiators in the room adopted
398 Pacific negotiator (Talanoa 7), in discussion-talanoa with the author, May 28, 2015.
399399 See Betzold, Castro, and Weiler., and Lau Øfjord Blaxekjær and Tobias Dan Nielsen, "Mapping the
narrative positions of new political groups under the UNFCCC," ibid. (2014).
400 Four seasoned Pacific negotiators commented in separate talanoa sessions, the increasing number of
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was the numbers game. By gaining the support of the 136 states G-77 on a position, there would be more weight on the position when negotiating with Annex I states. As ADP2-9 was not the last session before Paris, the more seasoned negotiators strategised that Bonn was a technical or procedural negotiation. There would be no agreement in Bonn but to streamline the text; for negotiators it was important to outreach, to rally as much support as possible, rather than negotiating the text401. During the plenary, the AOSIS Chair stressed to lead coordinators the need to garner the support of key countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil, India, Bolivia and Indonesia to the coalition’s cause.
The coalition plenary was also the site to raise any differences in regard to the AOSIS communication strategy. At the highest level would be the chair’s formal speeches to the group during the ADP plenaries (opening, closing or during negotiations), as well as the plenaries of the G-77. Accompanying these official speeches would be a press statement from the group drafted by lead coordinators, affirming both its positions and any serious concerns (usually its red lines) in the negotiations. The practice for AOSIS, is that the Chair secretariat would circulate by email these statements one day or the night before the next plenary. Member states with concerns were invited to contact the chair directly or voice strong dissent within the group plenary. Silence or no
communication for changes was perceived as consent from the group. Nevertheless, throughout the week, it would be a rare occasion that there would be a statement without any changes after circulation. As these speeches and press statements act as official records of the group’s position, there was notable scrutiny amongst parties402 of each line in the event the Chair misrepresented the compromises by states as agreed to inside AOSIS.
The coalition plenary also acted as a venue for a group bilateral: between AOSIS and the Co-Chairs of ADP2-9403. There were various forms of group bilaterals. Depending
401 Pacific negotiator (Talanoa 6), in discussion-talanoa with the author, May 27, 2015
402 From observations during plenary and spin off sessions, negotiators from Marshall Islands, Solomon
Islands and Tuvalu were constantly vocal in negotiations. This behaviour is not surprising, as they were lead coordinators/negotiators for AOSIS and LDC.
403 The Co-Chairs for ADP were Dan Reifsnyder of U.S. representingAnnex I countries, and Ahmed
on the advice of the Chair the AOSIS representatives would be either heads of
delegations only, or key negotiator coalition leads, with an open invitation to any state willing to attend, or in this case a full coalition caucus. The AOSIS bilateral with the Co-Chairs was an opportunity for the delegates and the coordinators to raise questions on procedural format and express their concerns on how negotiations should operate. Beyond the Co-Chairs, coalitions or states that may have a position standoff with AOSIS, may conduct a bilateral with the wider group in a plenary, or privately with selected representatives. These bilateral meetings with AOSIS were a common practice throughout the two week ADP2-9 session.
AOSIS Heads of Delegations Group
The most pressing differences in positions, affirming the strategies of AOSIS are raised in the heads of delegations group. Like coordination groups, the heads of delegation are an additional layer of authority that comes into play during negotiations. For ADP2-9 the majority of heads of delegations were at the UN ambassador or deputy ambassador level, with the rare instance of a permanent secretary from the capital attending. According to one Pacific head of delegation, because of the familiarity of the
ambassadors with each other over the years, the discussions can range from friendly to tense404. The heads of delegation try as much as possible to iron out any differences, as in the case of the mitigation between Grenada and Singapore where only at the heads level was AOSIS able to find agreeable language on the five-year cycles. At the same time some of the most sensitive group issues are also raised. One of these issues raised by a particular member state, was the use of non-governmental organisation
‘consultants’ by states. According to one Pacific head of delegation, this issue questioned the use of scientific and legal experts and possible leaking of the AOSIS position, happens from time to time, “it leaves us with an awkward feeling, and mistrust among the group’s technical negotiators”.405 States using NGO consultants was not peculiar to just Pacific states but applied throughout AOSIS and all member states in the climate negotiation regime. “It is always NGOs that drive [the UNFCCC process] … they were always on the negotiation table”.406
404 Pacific negotiator (Talanoa 20), in discussion-talanoa with the author, June 3, 2015. 405 Pacific negotiator (Talanoa 25), in discussion-talanoa with the author, June 8, 2015. 406 Pacific negotiator (Talanoa 17), in discussion-talanoa with the author, June 4, 2015.
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AOSIS Secretariat: Maldives and Islands First
A notable arm in the work of the coalition is the Chair and its secretariat. The Maldives delegation were not only present in all coordination groups, but so too were its team of associated NGO experts. The Islands First, a non-profit organisation first came to be involved in AOSIS and climate change politics under the Nauru chair from 2011-2014. Their institutional knowledge in the UNFCCC and the previous AOSIS chair was key in Maldives retaining the work of Islands First into 2015; the group like all other NGOs in the process were accredited to Maldives.407 With its mission to amplify and empower island voices by advancing their priorities in climate change and sustainable
development forums408, Islands First supported the Maldives mission in New York by providing research and information sharing capacity. The Chair’s role in coordinating and monitoring the group’s positions and maintaining cohesiveness required a strong secretariat. In the preparatory meetings and throughout the negotiations, the secretariat officials would constantly be on their toes compiling talking points, speeches, and press statements from thematic coordinators, before reporting back to the membership for consent. Vital to the consistency of the messages of the group was the planning of daily