Sunday Scribblings

How Not to “COP” a Deal

I have to confess that I really don’t know much about climate change, the statistics and forecast and the science, other than that I accept it is real and happening now. I also know that we need to deal with it, otherwise we face a continuing series of disasters.

The recent flooding in Valencia in Spain comes to mind, but then the reason it comes to mind is that it happened in a European country that I know. What worse things were happening elsewhere in the world that just did not get reported?

If I don’t know much about climate change, I know a good deal about the dynamics of negotiations, having spent over fifty years in labour relations. In any negotiation, process counts. How you set up and structure the negotiation is vital to the outcome. Get the process wrong and you are almost guaranteed a bad outcome.

COP29, which has just ended, is a shocking example of how not to run a negotiation. COP, by the way, stands for “Conference of the Parties” and is convened by the United Nations and hosted by a different country each year. The purpose of COP is to get agreement between countries on how climate change is to be tackled and how the necessary measures are to be paid for and by whom.

From what I can see, it brings together a cast of thousands. I wanted to know just how many attended, so I Googled it as you do these days. Here is what I got:

More than 83,000 people attended the summit in person, beating the previous record of around 50,000 set in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt the year before. The total number of registered delegates for COP29 in Baku clocks in at 66,778 – falling between the totals of the previous two COPs.

Now, how do you run a serious meeting with that number of people? I think the honest answer is that you don’t. This is more like a rock festival than a negotiating session. If you are not on the main stage, there are plenty of smaller stages where you can try out your material. If anyone will listen.

I know there is a small “inner circle” of leaders who do the talking at these events but it is very difficult to do any kind of business when you have 83,000 people looking over your shoulder, all of whom are completely certain that they are right about everything.

I have read a fair bit on the outcome of COP29 and, depending on which article you read, it was a success, a failure, a move forward, a move backwards.

Martin Wolf in the Financial Times writes:

“The assessment has to lie between failure and disaster — failure, because progress is still possible, or disaster, because a good agreement will now be too late.”. here.

This seems about right to me.

One thing that comes across from all the articles I have read is that the meeting was in the grip of “agreementitis”, a disease well-known to seasoned negotiators.

An outbreak of “agreementitis” occurs when negotiators have spent a considerable amount of time working together on a proposed agreement and end up in a “hothouse” atmosphere for the final push to get the deal over the line. They can lose touch with outside reality and answer only to the internal dynamics of the negotiating session which often has its own weird logic and where trivial matters can take on great importance.

The cry becomes “We have put so much time into this that we cannot let things fall apart at the last moment.” The unspoken assumption is that any deal, even a bad deal, is better than no deal. “We have to have something to show for all the hours we put in, all the effort we made.” The psychological pressure to fold becomes intense. No one wants to be the person seen as responsible for failure. You bury your doubts about the wisdom of what is being agreed.

This is often the case when a clock is running down, and a deadline is approaching. “The clock is ticking,” was one of Michel Barnier’s favourite lines as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, when he perfected the art of using deadlines to strengthen his hand.

A deal is made, often late into the night, when people are tired and fatigued and their brains have shut down.

Then, in the very cold light of morning, the question gets asked, “Who agreed to this?” The question often comes from a stakeholder who was not involved in the actual talks and has no emotional commitment to the deal.

Is this what happened at COP29? There is evidence to suggest that it did.

I was thinking about these issues when I saw this post on LinkedIn from Diana Junquera Curiel who works with the global union federation, IndustriALL Global. As she is a trade union official, she must know about negotiations. Curiel is responsible for energy industry matters.

In her LinkedIn post, she reports on her attendance at COP29 and lists all the events she spoke at or participated in. She was certainly busy but did she and her fellow union colleagues make any impact? It would seem not.

After telling us about all the events she spoke at, she then lists the “results” of the conference:

• Climate Finance: While countries set a target of $300 billion annually for developing nations by 2035, it’s a fraction of the $1.3 trillion needed. Developed nations’ preference for loans over grants deepens inequalities.

• Just Transition Work Programme: No progress. No funding. No implementation. Workers remain sidelined, particularly those in the Global South.

• Energy Transition: Stalled discussions on phasing out fossil fuels, tripling renewables, and building better infrastructure leave us far from the 1.5°C target.

• Adaptation: The Baku Adaptation Road Map is a step forward, but delays until 2025 for National Adaptation Plans put vulnerable nations at greater risk.

Now, if you believe that you need $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 and you come away with $300 billion, that looks like a bad deal to me. Further, the $300 billion is conditional and dependent and not guaranteed to be there when needed. There are no consequences if the developed world does not put the money on the table and China might, or might not, make a contribution. The oil and gas producers are under no obligation to cut back production.

This has all the appearance of a deal written on paper with vanishing ink. Now you see it, now you don’t.

When you are considering the final text of a proposed deal, always ask the question: How will this work in practice? Can it be implemented? Walk me through how you see it playing out. Who is going to do what and when? Who will be responsible for what? If you cannot answer those questions than all you have is a very dubious deal that will fall apart at the first time of asking.

It would appear that there are no consequences if developed countries fail to meet the $300bn target. In my experience, if there are “no consequences” and if one of the parties, in this case the countries of what is known as the “Global South” have no alternative to a negotiated agreement, if they have no BATNA, then it is not a negotiation. It is a discussion or debate.

In this case, a discussion involving 83,000 attendees.

As I was writing this, I came across this article in the Guardian “The Cop29 agreement failed island states. Now the UN’s top court must act on climate harm” here. I completely understand the author’s despair, but the idea that a court, in this case the International Court of Justice, can settle a global political problem of this dimension seems unlikely. Even if the court found for the plaintiffs, who is going to enforce the judgement? National court judgements have force because the police stand behind them. The ICJ does not have any police to enforce its judgements. In the age in which we live saying that a judgement would have moral force cuts no ice.

I know that if climate change is not tackled then there will be consequences for the “Global North”, not least a tidal wave of migrants fleeing from areas that are no longer liveable. But that is not for now and, like it or not, politicians have to work in the here and now as they respond to pressures from their electorates. Lectures from high-minded NGOs, answerable to no one but themselves, are not going to move the dial.

The hard truth is that electorates are selfish. They think primarily of themselves. As Jean-Claude Juncker, the former President of the European Commission, said in another context: “We politicians know what needs to be done. The problem is if that we do it, we will not be re-elected.” To prove this point, as I write the small Green party is being wiped out in the Irish general election for the actions is took in government over the past five years.

So the COP process as set up is built to deliver failure as I see it.

And when they all meet up again in Brazil next year, Donald Trump will be US President.