Today I attended an entire day of Climate Action Network International (a group of international ENGO’s) preparation sessions. The real negotiations start tomorrow. We began with a capacity building sessions followed by strategy sessions where we broke out into smaller issue based working groups.
This was a great way for myself and others to get caught up on the COP history and process and get us all on the same page. In small groups we learned about the main elements of the COP: mitigation, adaptation, Land Use, Land Use Change & Forestry (LULUCF), Clean Development Mechanism, Technology Transfer and Shared Vision. This event was attended by representatives from literally hundreds of ENGO’s from around the world.
Each of the working groups (base on the above mentioned issues) broke out and did some great strategizing and reported back to the group with various tasks appointed all around.
The Climate Action Network International group will be doing daily press conferences about the relevant topics from each days’ negotiations for conference goers and the media. The Climate Action Network Canada will also be meeting daily to strategize ways to lobby the Canadian government. I plan to attend all of the Climate Action Network Canada meetings a I’m sure we will be doing some press releases of our own.
The “Fossil of the Day” awards will also be handed out daily to the three countries who are doing to most to stall the negotiations. Canada has won numerous Fossil of the Day awards at past COP’s. These awards are put on just like Oscar-style awards, complete with envelope-opening suspense, ball gowns and trophies (topped with a big chunk of “coal”) all done to the theme song from Jurassic Park. The media love these awards and you will likely hear about Canada winning at least one of them. Of course that all depends on the developments with the federal government back home.
We’re all looking forward to get things started tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Emily
