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SEI report

Building climate diplomacy back better: imagining the UNFCCC meetings of tomorrow

The OnCliNe project initially set out to assess feasibility of “online climate negotiations” pre-COVID-19 pandemic. This report addresses how meetings under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) could be held online in ways that increase the effectiveness, inclusiveness and transparency of the UNFCCC process.

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Citation

Klein, R., Harris, K., Bakhtaoui, I., Lager, F., Lindblom, A. and Carson, M. (2021). Building climate diplomacy back better: imagining the UNFCCC meetings of tomorrow. SEI Report. https://doi.org/10.51414/sei2021.019

“We need to design a process people didn’t know they needed.” This observation, coming from a technical expert at one of the project’s stakeholder roundtables, captures well the challenge for the UNFCCC process in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019, few participants in, or observers to, the UNFCCC process would have likely claimed that designing an online UNFCCC process was desirable or necessary. But many would have argued for broader reform of the process, noting the current lack of trust and power imbalances. In many ways, our analysis finds that the fierce debate about whether to move more of the process online can be seen as a proxy conflict for these long-standing and diverging interests and perspectives.

This report reflects the sentiment of many stakeholders that there is an opportunity to harness the interruption and introspection that the pandemic imposed into a “positive disruption” of the process. If actions taken now can transcend the tendency to return to “business as usual” as soon as circumstances allow, and instead work towards a meaningful transformation of the climate talks, the UNFCCC process can be made more fit for purpose for tackling one of humanity’s greatest challenges. This will require creativity, courage, and active and decisive leadership.

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Read the report / PDF / 344 KB

SEI authors

Richard J.T. Klein
Richard J. T. Klein

Senior Research Fellow

SEI Headquarters

Katy Harris
Katy Harris

Senior Policy Fellow

SEI Headquarters

Frida Lager
Frida Lager

Research Associate

SEI Headquarters

Marcus Carson
Marcus Carson

Senior Research Fellow

SEI Headquarters

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