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267: The Rio Trio: A Cocktail of COPs

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About this episode

This week, our hosts dive into The Rio Trio! No, this is not the name of a new cocktail but three COPs (Biodiversity in Colombia, Climate in Azerbaijan and Desertification in Saudi Arabia) which are about to happen back-to-back. Plus the plastics treaty negotiations in South Korea.

Join our hosts for their take on the history of these three different but interrelated COPs, all conceived in the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. How have they evolved, and how might they continue to evolve to be fit for purpose in a changed world? Since this subject is complex, Christiana uses her get-out clause and phones a special friend for much-needed clarity.

Christiana also asks the question: If we had a blank slate now, would it make more sense to kick start a process based on all nine planetary boundaries? Would this help us focus holistically on the interconnected challenges we face? Sit back and listen as the hosts try to make sense of this negotiating super season for the planet and all its peoples. 

Please keep tuned for special and in-depth coverage from the Outrage + Optimism team to guide you through each of these key moments. 


NOTES AND RESOURCES

How COPs are organised - Questions and answers 
From Cancun to Durban: Implications for Climate and Multilateral Diplomacy by HE Patricia Espinosa
COP16 host Colombia pushes for unified UN climate and nature pledges
COP Presidencies Launch ‘Rio Trio’ 
Biodiversity COP
Climate COP
Desertification COP

GUEST
Richard Kinley, President, Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability and former senior official at the UN Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC) from 1993 to 2017. He served as Deputy Executive Secretary from 2006 to 2017 and was intimately involved in the development of UNFCCC as an organization from its establishment and in its management and operations.


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Full Transcript


Tom: [00:00:12] Hello and welcome to Outrage + Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett-Carnac.

Christiana: [00:00:15] I'm Christiana Figueres.

Paul: [00:00:17] And I'm Paul Dickinson.

Tom: [00:00:18] Today we make sense of all the COPs, thanks for being here. So, friends, nice to see you. And I'm going to start with a quick story. I was out for dinner last night with some friends here in lovely Totnes where I live, and it included Nigel Topping, and he at one point talked about the Rio trio, and I thought he was talking about a cocktail, but actually I don't think that's correct. And he corrected me at the time to say that.

Paul: [00:01:01] Cocktail band or a cocktail drink?

Tom: [00:01:03] A cocktail drink. I assume that this was something that he'd picked up. He's working very hard on the other conventions, and I realized immediately my ignorance that actually there are three conventions that came out of the Rio negotiations many years ago. And and we have been talking together with our production team and also some of you, the listeners, and realizing that I was not the only one who didn't immediately know the differential and the specifics of these three different conventions. And they're important. They're important in general, and they're important right now, because in the next few months, there are going to be three critical COPs under these three different conventions. So today we are going to dive into history, guided by Christiana, to help us understand why there are three different types of COPs. So that's what today's conversation is going to be. Load More
Christiana: [00:01:51] Okay. Tom, can I just double check on what you said? Did you say you thought the Rio three was a drink? Did you?

Tom: [00:02:03] Yes, it was me. It was me, actually.

Christiana: [00:02:07] Tom, does that totally disqualify you from being a co-host of this podcast? I mean, I'm just asking. 

Paul: [00:02:13] Vacancy.

Tom: [00:02:14] It's it's possible. And I did think about not revealing this to the general public, but in my defence, the only context was I walked in and someone was saying, oh yeah, and you know, the Rio trio. And I thought, what is that, a cocktail? So if I flatter myself that if I had had any more context, I would have realized that it wasn't a cocktail, but there we are.

Christiana: [00:02:35] Okay. Well, I mean the good news about that one is that henceforth, everybody can say they're in your very good company.

Tom: [00:02:47] That's good. And if anyone has recommendations of how to make a Rio trio cocktail, we would also love to hear those. And we can maybe make them both a reality.

Christiana: [00:02:55] Well I think everyone should for the next three months.

Paul: [00:02:57] Some sunlight, some some some some grass, some sand. I think.

Tom: [00:03:03] There you go. Yeah. Okay. So there are three conventions under the United Nations that are the actual Rio trio. Is this is this correct, am I on the right line now?

Paul: [00:03:13] It came out of a summit in 1992, because you were not specific about the date Tom.

Tom: [00:03:16] Thank you Paul, thank you very much. Christiana, what are the three conventions? What are what is the Rio trio?

Christiana: [00:03:23] Well, first of all, let's differentiate between the three conventions and the three COPs because they're actually interrelated, but they're not the same thing. So the three conventions are the internationally legally binding agreements that resulted and were resulted from a multi-year process prior to 1992 and were then adopted in 1992, which was called the Earth Summit at the time, took place in Rio de Janeiro, and these multilateral agreements resulted there mostly, interestingly, as a push from developing countries who felt that the multilateral agreements that existed at the time were mostly of economic and commercial nature, and they were not taking environment into account. And so they pushed in the United Nations to have these three conventions. And so in the end, there were three separate conventions that came out.

Tom: [00:04:43] And by convention, you mean like a legal document. And that's a convention, it created a process.

Christiana: [00:04:49] Well, it's more than a document, right. It's a legally binding multilateral agreement. So so the the the document is negotiated, but once the text stands, then it takes international, international law, it takes the standing of an international agreement. So there are three conventions that came out. One is the climate change convention. The other is the Biodiversity Convention, both of which were adopted immediately. Well, not immediately after a lot of discussion in 1992. And then a little while later, there came the desertification convention that took a little bit longer. Now it is very clear that climate has taken on much more attention, much more engagement. And the other two conventions have consistently complained about that, especially when it comes to financial flows. There has been for a long time a competition of why is so much money, so much actually, there isn't that much. But from the others perspective, why is so much money going into climate and not into the other two? And, when they say when they say that, they mean, of course, the governmental public monies that flow from north to south, from the global north to the global south.

Tom: [00:06:19] So and I know Paul probably wants to come in, but can I just ask, so you were you were at the Rio negotiations in 92, weren't you?

Christiana: [00:06:24] No, I was not, actually.

Tom: [00:06:26] Oh, you weren't there. Okay right.

Christiana: [00:06:27] No.

Tom: [00:06:27] So was it, I'm just wondering, was it, like three different gavelling moments, like, we agree all this stuff on biological diversity, and then they gavel it through. That's a document that creates one institution. Then we then we talk about all the stuff on climate change. Gavel that through. That's the UNFCCC in Bonn. They do the same for desertification. So it's this sort of like Genesis moment, where these three institutions are created by the UN process funded presumably through the UN as well. And then they run separately to each other ever since.

Christiana: [00:06:58] Yes. They're not funded by the UN. They're funded by the governments through a budgeting process. And the headquarters of the climate convention went to Bonn many years later. But it was originally in Geneva. I feel like such a grandmother with all this. I'm actually channelling Richard Kinley, who used to be my total, you know, absolute fantastic fantastic deputy executive secretary. And if anybody should be interviewed about the history of the conventions, actually, it's Richard, because he knows more about this than anyone else, but I am I'm doing my best to channel him and to share.

Tom: [00:07:37] The young apprentice. Yeah. I have one quick question before we go into the history and then what the COPs, which I think we should get into try and simplify it for people. Why are the other two called United Nations conventions and the climate one is called a United Nations Framework Convention?

Christiana: [00:07:54] Well, you got me. That's a very good question. Wait a second, Richard, Richard Kinley.

Paul: [00:08:01] We're calling Richard Kinley.

Christiana: [00:08:03] Calling Richard Kinley. Wow, okay.

Paul: [00:08:08] Phone a friend moment. It's actually in quiz shows. You're allowed to phone a friend at this moment Christiana.

Christiana: [00:08:12] Yeah, I, I have to call. Richard, Richard, this is Christiana. How are you? I'm so sorry to interrupt you wherever you are.

Richard Kinley: [00:08:31] Christiana. Wow, what a surprise. Hey.

Christiana: [00:08:33] Well, Richard, this is, do you remember in our offices when I used to run into your office and ask you questions about procedures of the UN and legal things and all of that, because you're such a guru. So this is the equivalent of me running into your office with a question okay. Are you ready?

Richard Kinley: [00:08:54] Okay. So like then, so I have an initial panic attack and then answer the question.

Christiana: [00:08:59] Okay. Okay. So, Tom, we're in the middle of recording an episode about the three conventions, and Tom has just asked me, why does the climate convention in its title have the word framework framework convention, and the other two do not? And I panicked and I said, I have no idea. I have to call Richard. So this is my call to ask you that question.

Richard Kinley: [00:09:28] Oh, well, I know that one reason is that the the General Assembly resolution that set up the climate negotiations. So the mandate for the negotiations, it used the term framework convention, and I think a lot of people were wedded to that term because they had come out of other processes that dealt with atmospheric things. So in particular, there's the ozone convention where they have the model is framework convention, and that means general principles, not so many specific commitments with the understanding that in a future round of negotiations you develop implementing protocols. So that's the concept framework followed by protocols.

Christiana: [00:10:20] I see.

Richard Kinley: [00:10:21] That basically that's what worked out in climate, so they were following, as I said, the ozone or there was also an acid rain model, and in biodiversity, I think it was a bit different, partly because the biodiversity didn't come out of the General Assembly mandate like the climate one did. It came from the UN Environment Programme. So I think so they have a different world there. And maybe they're also, I think there was sort of a bunch of biodiversity treaties already in existence. And whereas in climate they were starting from scratch, and the idea was more to find a way to bring these various biodiversity pieces together. And then I guess there's I wonder too, I wonder too if there's not a third element, which is and this was certainly true in the climate negotiations, because there was a real political tension between those who wanted framework, i.e. limited commitments or very general commitments, and those who wanted to go faster and have more commitments. And in the end, the Framework Convention on Climate was actually sometimes called a framework plus, because a few specific commitments did for the industrialised countries did find their way into the into the text.

Christiana: [00:11:43] Aha! How interesting.

Richard Kinley: [00:11:47] In essence, I think there's no difference. These are all treaties, and I actually think it's almost it comes from the process. It probably comes from who the negotiators are. It comes from this political desire to go fast or go slow, and these sort of things, like we used to talk about in my office, how the stars align. I have a sense that's sort of what. And these tend to be last minute decisions. I don't know if you remember, in some of our negotiations, we had extremely complex ways to refer to these agreements before, in the last session of the negotiations, they were actually given a name, a protocol or other legal instrument. These type of things ended up with, with a, with a proper legal terminology.

Christiana: [00:12:30] I can't believe that you say, do you, that you're asking me whether I remember the last night, nothing could be burned more into my memory than the last night of all our COPs. Richard, thank you. That demystifies this, maybe Tom is not going to be terribly happy because I think he wanted a much, much clearer and adamant answer. But thank you so much.

Richard Kinley: [00:12:59] As with most negotiations it's a bit of a mash up.

Christiana: [00:13:02] A mash up. Okay, there you go. It's a mash up. Richard, thank you so much. Sorry to interrupt your day. I will let you go and continue your day. And thank you for letting me pop into your office yet again.

Richard Kinley: [00:13:18] Anytime. All right. All the best, Christiana.

Christiana: [00:13:20] Thank you. Bye.

Tom: [00:13:24] Well, God bless Richard Kinley. And you said at the beginning, he was the one.

Christiana: [00:13:27] Indeed, I've always said that.

Tom: [00:13:30] Amazing. All right. So should we now start talking about, because I think one of the things that confuses people is the fact that each of these three conventions runs a COP process. Why do they, well, why do they all have to be called COP? And are they different and help us think that through?

Paul: [00:13:46] There's not a good tradition in humanity of calling different things the same name. It causes confusion.

Christiana: [00:13:51] Yeah. So first of all, what is a COP? In the United States, a COP is a police person. So let's let's just be clear that we're not talking about police people here when we say COP, when we say COP, we're talking about the acronym COP, which is conference of the parties. The conference of the parties is the legal body that meets with a certain regularity, and they meet differently across these three conventions in order to advance the progress of the agreements under each of the Conventions. Now, we haven't always had COPs. We used to have after 1992, a period during which we had something called INC's, which was the International Negotiating Committee, and that was when governments met after the adoption of each of the three conventions they met, in order to decide how the convention would be run, how it would be negotiated, what the voting rights are, what the procedures are. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so, at least from the climate perspective, honestly, I don't know how many INC meetings were there, for the biodiversity or the desertification. But I did enter debut myself into the climate discussion at INC 11, which was the 11th time that countries had gotten together. And it was at that time in the basement of the UN headquarters in New York. I remember there were about 100 people. That's as many people as were negotiating the climate, the climate convention.

Christiana: [00:15:40] And now, of course, we have just heaps and heaps and heaps. And I remember being completely overwhelmed by 100 people who clearly knew a heck of a lot more about this whole thing than I did, but, but, but so for those who now join the COPs and feel overwhelmed, you're also there in good company because it is an overwhelming experience, no matter whether it's 100 people or how many do we have now? 60, 70, 80,000. Just completely, completely crazy. So the conference of the parties is the, well, in the case of climate, it's the annual meeting. In the case of the other two conventions, they decided in their respective INCs that they would not meet every year, that they would meet every two years. So climate meets every year. And that's why the COPs in climate have a higher number, right. We're in our 30s, whereas the others are in their teens. That's because we meet every single year and the others meet every two years. And all of that was decided in the INC. The other thing that was decided in the INC, interestingly enough, is what is the voting, how how are decisions going to be taken. And while in the biodiversity convention and in the desertification convention, they agreed that voting and adoption of well, first of all, always one country, one vote, that is sine qua non in in the United Nations.

Christiana: [00:17:16] But also how do you adopt decisions. And so in the biodiversity and the and the desertification. They agreed decisions would be adopted by majority or by consensus, which means the absence of a formal objection. Which is different than unanimity, by the way. So consensus is when countries actively or passively agree to something in unanimity. You have to have every single country agree in there, and there's no discretion on the part of the presiding officer. When there is voting by consensus, there is a certain discretion that accompanies or that the presiding officer, in this case, the president of the COP, has to decide to decide on a rule. So the fact that climate does not have voting, the fact that in the absence of voting decisions in climate have to be taken by consensus has made decisions under the climate convention much more difficult than under biodiversity or under desertification, because please consider that all decisions there are meant to continue to deepen the process of protecting the planet, protecting living beings, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which come substantially from fossil fuels but also from land use. So of course, those countries that produce, export and burn fossil fuels are not interested in any decision that would thwart their business and hence, because they won't support it makes it very, very difficult. And Tom, I'm not sure if you were there during the COPs in which several countries, actually complained about decisions.

Christiana: [00:19:23] The first one that we had was in Cancun in 2010, in which the presiding officer, Patricia Espinosa, president of the COP, decided that she felt that there was consensus in the room and five countries said, no, no, no, they did not agree. Now, those countries did not know how to formally object because they have to use a certain language to formally object. They did not do that. They just complained. Had they used formal objection language, she would not have been able to adopt the decision in Cancun. And the same thing happened repeatedly for several COPs, which is why when we went in 2015 to the Paris Agreement, we had already decided that we did not want to risk any country putting in a formal [00:20:19] objection. But also we had also decided that the Paris Agreement would be such an important legal agreement for decarbonising the entire global economy over several decades that we didn't want to have any country out. Every country needs to participate. That is the reflection of reality. No country can hold itself out. So we took the perhaps crazy but courageous decision to aspire to a Paris Agreement that would be adopted not by consensus, but by unanimity, which made it substantially more difficult in the last few hours of the Paris Agreement, but is also one of the many strengths of the Paris Agreement. [00:21:18]

Tom: [00:21:19] So I mean, that's it's super helpful to understand the decision making process inside. And if you look at the different COP processes, what's interesting is they have run parallel to each other. But of course the subject matter is so deeply connected, right. You cannot solve climate without nature. You know, if you let whole areas of land become desertified, that will have a big impact on biological diversity as well as on the climate. If you don't have a strong agreement on nature, then it's really hard to then subsequently agree on climate. So the three of them have kind of parallel tracked and kind of confused people because it's made it sent a signal from the very heart of international decision making at the UN that these are not one thing, they're multiple things, and they get discussed separately. And of course, for many countries it's very cumbersome because these COPs are complicated. And just what you just said about objection language, that's insider knowledge that you need experience to build up. And there will be different habits of agreement. Different cultures inside each of these different conventions and countries have to negotiate them separately. I mean, this is all a lot of complicated things for countries to get their heads around. So I wonder if there's anything else we should say about the history first, but then we should fast forward to today, because at the moment, one of the interesting things that's happening is that the Colombian Environment Minister, Susana Muhamad, has said that we should actually write a unified biodiversity, climate and desertification COP pledge to start bringing these together. So I'd love to get to that point. But anything else, Christiana, you want to say about the history before we do? Because you know it in a way that Paul and I don't.

Christiana: [00:22:52] No, I mean, if we call Richard Kinley back again, we would get three day treaties for sure. But but no, let's let's move into it. But I totally agree with you, Tom, that these are, you know, totally interrelated. I mean, if you ask Mother Nature, she would be laughing at us. The fact that we have built three different international systems, three different national teams, three different reporting reporting venues and reporting forms. And and she would say like, are you are you guys nuts. I mean, all of this is completely interrelated. Just picture, right, if you look at the planet from as the blue marble from outer space, would you be able to differentiate desertification from biodiversity, from climate change? The golden thread among all three of them, of course, is water. The fact that increasing temperature means a total disruption of the hydrological cycle, and the fact that biodiversity depends on the continuation of the hydrological cycle that we have been having over the past 12,000 years and desertification the same that that hydrological cycle is moving and hence we're having more desertified areas. So it's all about water. And so one, why did we not have a convention on water? Well.

Tom: [00:24:27] It's a good question.

Paul: [00:24:28] But that's adding to the problem right. You know fourth convention.

Christiana: [00:24:32] Well, I think it's because water is the, the, the source of life that is affected. It's not the source of the problem. It's it's not the cause, it's the effect. And and, and and therefore I think that's why water was not although.

Tom: [00:24:52] Although you could sort of say the same for desertification in some ways, although it's more, more complicated.

Paul: [00:24:56] But let me push back to both of you because, you know, in a sense you could have desertification and biodiversity loss. You know, this is caused by, you know, agricultural activities or development or whatever you want to call it, and also the change in climate. But was there not a unique problem with climate change correlated to the digging up of fossil fuels, which literally are taking, you know, they're kind of putting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at thousands of times the rate they're being absorbed. And therefore, there was an exceptional character to the kind of intervention we needed to make on climate change, because there was a necessary to necessary to curtail the activities of the fossil fuel industry uniquely, in a way that perhaps you could say agriculture and urban development didn't need to be developed, didn't need to be retarded as fast, or is that wrong?

Christiana: [00:25:47] Yes, you're right. And that's exactly the point. The climate convention goes to the cause of this, right. The climate convention said, okay, what is causing climate? It's greenhouse gases. Where do they come from? Fossil fuels and incorrect use of of land, and so yes. So so that's why the convention focuses on that.

Tom: [00:26:10] That's had all the momentum and the attention. So so I think that it's important for us to look at now like we have tried understandably right, our 1992 selves humanity kind of said, this is a big problem. We're going to break it down to little bits and try and bring people together to solve them. And you can see the logic behind that. And that's to some degree served us arguably for a while. Does it still serve us? Is it still helpful to have these processes as separate, where there are three COPs of different types happening in the next couple of months, all of which are going to be have some of the same people, some different people looking at the same issues. Or is it time to say we need to rethink this and actually have processes that put our arms around the whole challenge and try to address it as one that is bigger? So does that make it just impossible to manage, or does that make it easier to get our arms around and address?

Christiana: [00:27:03] Well, you know, this this conversation about bringing them all together is a, is an almost an ancient conversation in the sense that I remember that conversation way back in 2010, and it was already a pretty active conversation then. I think the three issues, the three global environmental issues, because let's just separate global environmental issues from local environmental issues right. There are many other conventions, by the way, on environmental issues, all of which report to to the UN Environment Programme. But they're local environmental issues, these three that deal with global environmental issues. I think the reason why, in their infinite wisdom, the governments in 1992 negotiated three separate ones is because, honestly, it was really difficult to get our hands around any of them. And I think it was made out of okay, let's just try to understand what the heck is happening here. There just wasn't enough information. There wasn't, you know, the perhaps the link among all the three was not as clear. We were really cutting our teeth into the political slash legal slash procedural human capacity to begin to bring under control things that humankind had been doing for a hundred years. And so I think it was just out of, wow, you know, out of learning. Let's let's just learn what on earth is going on here. But it did lead to this separation and silo effect, which means that it's very expensive because the the funding of the three conventions is really expensive. The funding of what, at least in large countries and small countries, maybe they have one team that does all three, which is an exhausting job. But in large countries you have three separate teams that negotiate each of these conventions, sometimes to the tune.

Tom: [00:29:22] Sometimes sitting in different departments, and they sometimes don't know each other that well has been my experience. 

Christiana: [00:29:28] Yes. And sometimes there are hundreds of them, right. I mean, I remember having been told that the Chinese climate delegation even way back then was 500 people. Just, you know, dedicated to that negotiation. I remember that was actually true in 1997 because we had because they were sitting back home writing all the numbers. Anyway, it is very expensive process, and it's very cumbersome because each of these conventions has a reporting requirement. And so somebody has to sit there at home and fill in these very complicated forms with a heck of a lot of data and sometimes overlapping data from one form to the other. And I say form just simplifying. But it's it's many different reporting formats that they have to obey, so it's very expensive process. And however, my sense at least way back when, when I was a part of these conversations, is that, interestingly enough, the huge resistance to bring these things together is from the negotiators themselves. So that was really that was really interesting to me, the negotiators themselves, because let's be clear, they are the ones that would have to decide to bring these together right. And they would have to decide on a joint rules of procedure system and a joint voting. And how would all how would the reporting come together, etc., etc.. It's not an easy process. They were the ones that had the most resistance to the even the idea that we would bring it together.

Tom: [00:31:17] And of course, Christiana, as you know, the the COP, not the convention's the COP presidencies themselves as the three different COP presidencies of the ones happening in the next few months Azerbaijan for climate, Colombia for biological diversity, and Saudi Arabia for desertification are looking at a sort of Rio trio partnership. Do you think that's the beginning.

Christiana: [00:31:39] All within the next three months.

Tom: [00:31:40] I know it's crazy, right. Do you think that's the beginning of this coming together, or do you think it's just sort of like a partnership to deliver them three separately, but with links?

Christiana: [00:31:49] I think that's a question that we have to ask ten years from now and then look back. I think it has the potential of beginning a process or continuing a process that has been, you know, at least considered for quite a few years, but as I say, the resistance, the resistance is so great.

Paul: [00:32:13] Yeah. I mean, everyone's got a job, I guess, holding a desertification convention in Saudi Arabia. I mean, a little bit afraid the horse has kind of bolted in that country. But, you know, the idea behind the UN is, is, you know, it's not meant to get you to heaven, but it's meant to stop you going to hell, but I do think, you know, the the notion of negotiation between countries is extremely interesting. And it put me in mind of a of a quote by Kishore Mahbubani, who said, but today the world's billions of citizens no longer live in separate boats. They live in more than 190 cabins on the same boat. Each cabin has a government to manage its affairs, and the boat as a whole moves along without a captain or crew. The world is adrift. And so the question is really how we can transfer to these UN systems power of intervention. Now, there was a ridiculous piece of Fox News that I picked up on just the other day talking about the, the, the extraordinary convention for the future, not the convention, but what was it called, the declaration for the future. And it was described as possibly something that would be used to to bash the a cudgel that would be used to bash the United States. But the point being, we're trying to find something international that, you know, it's not going to be able to be legally binding, but it must increase its capacity, its capability. And my my instinct is that three secretariats are weaker than one, but it's about the execution, not just of secretarial function, but a kind of international diplomacy. And we are in new territory. I mean, it's only since, I suppose, World War II that these things have really come together. There was the League of Nations after World War One, but we've never really had attempts at world government before. Apart from just gigantic empires.

Christiana: [00:34:00] Is that is that a plea for bringing them together Paul, is that what you're saying?

Paul: [00:34:05] I think it's a plea. There's one other thing you said, which I thought was you said, this is expensive. And of course it is expensive for all these different countries to negotiate. But I think the funds that we as nations apply to our collaboration to protect the life support system of our planet are absolutely minuscule. I would love to see the UN system far, far better funded and much better able to kind of use basically science to support policymakers in their sacred role of protecting the public. If you see what I mean. I think it's not too much resources. I think it's it's it's a failure to appreciate the systemic problem we're trying to solve.

Christiana: [00:34:39] Yeah. Well, that's for sure.

Paul: [00:34:41] I mean, the UN should evolve, right, is that is that logical? I mean, I think institutions decades, a long time, you know, things should change. And there are probably lots of people in the UN listening to this podcast. How would we advise them to shape their institution?

Christiana: [00:34:54] Well, the UN should evolve and can only evolve at the behest and with the support of its members. That's the conundrum that we have, right.

Paul: [00:35:06] Catch 22.

Christiana: [00:35:08] Yeah, you could say. Does the Security Council at the UN, should that evolve? Yes. But who has to agree to that? The Security Council members. So that that's why, you know, we're in a catch 22 here about it, so if you if you ask me, yes, I would definitely agree that these things ought to be brought together. If you then ask me how I would pause there and go like, oh my gosh, how would that occur. So the first thing I think that we would have to do is conceptually erase from our heads, our brains, our knowledge of history the fact that we have three ongoing processes, just like ignore that for a moment and say, okay, if we had the luxury of starting now, tabula rasa, complete clean table and design something today that makes sense, that is science based and that could actually bring together all these topics. I would actually say we would have to expand it beyond the three topics. We would have to design something that looks at what Johan Rockström, i.e. Johan Rockstar, as I call him, calls the planetary boundaries, which are nine boundaries that that institution, the Potsdam Institution, has identified as being the physical boundaries of nature beyond which our human life on this planet is endangered. And so if I had my druthers, I would say, okay, let's erase all three conventions and let's start a process that is actually based on all nine planetary boundaries, because we have now evolved to the point where we realize that all of this is interconnected. There is no such thing as addressing one issue that doesn't affect the other issues. An improvement in one improves the others, and a decrease in protection in one decreases the protection in the others. It's all interconnected. It is all interwoven. So but this is, but I quickly add, and that would take years to negotiate and to structure and design and take for approval. And do we have those years because at least on climate, we have an emergency.

Tom: [00:38:09] We're out of time. I mean, I really like that, Christiana. And I think that, you know, because as soon as you say, we're going to bring those three conventions together, the immediate question will be, well, let's add something else. Let's chuck in another issue. And what about another issue. And then it becomes a dustbin of problems. Whereas thinking about it differently, what are the planetary boundaries that we need to defend to secure the future. The other place and okay, we're sort of asking for things now that I would break down previous thinking if we were reimagining it tabula rasa is not just making it about government action, actually thinking about how do we make this now about collaborative action across all of society that brings everyone together to defend the planetary boundaries. And then you have something which is, you know, because we don't necessarily need more international agreements. We now have the agreements in place. We need to implement them. So if you had those two things coming together, you would have something that potentially could meet the challenge of this moment. But as you say, the pathway from here to there feels too hard. But maybe there's a way of maybe, maybe the moment of necessity creates a certain sense of possibility that wasn't there before, that we can't yet see.

Christiana: [00:39:14] Well, from your lips to God's ears, because I think, I think it would be up to the needs and challenges of this century to be able to do that. And I think we could say, right, in the last century, those people who negotiated this for us, they did an astonishing job in putting together these three conventions, even recognizing that there were problems, etc., etc.. Awesome job for the last century. For this century what should we do? So that mammoth heroic effort that went into the design and the negotiation and the adoption of these three conventions, can we do that again for something that is more holistic and that is more coherent with the science that now tells us that all of these things are interwoven and interrelated.

Tom: [00:40:20] Love that. Okay. Paul?

Paul: [00:40:24] Maybe there is a way and, I would like to suggest to you both just a last thought from me about why there might be an opportunity to redesign our political architecture over these conventions. And it essentially comes from me being very inspired by somebody half my age called Louis Ramirez, who's been working with flood victims in the UK, of which there are thousands and thousands of people who've had their homes damaged by flooding. And we're beginning to see grassroot political movements build up of people who are suffering from extreme weather events. And it's not just in the UK, and it's not just in the US, it's in every country. And I'm going to offer up the prospect that, just as it may seem very ambitious to imagine an entire new international political architecture we do now have, I don't want to use the word advantage. That's the that's the wrong word. But we do have now have the impact of extreme weather, of these natural problems, of the floods, the droughts, the biodiversity loss, the desertification galvanizing people in a new way. And our challenge, I think, is to find new political movements that can bring national and international coherence to the sort of the cry of people who are no longer talking about these as as problems in the future, but are experiencing them as, as life altering facts. Now that I think is offers a lot of potential.

Tom: [00:41:57] Great. Okay. So, as you I mean, there's a lot to be said about that that connects to our last week's episode on hurricanes as well, and the way in which extreme weather, actually what it leads you to do is complicated, but we can get into that some other time. The thing that I would leave us with is just we have these three right now, notwithstanding this vision of potentially integration. And I love the idea of the planetary boundaries. We have these three COPs coming up. Hopefully you understand a little bit more now about the history of each of the different COPs. The first one is the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is happening next week in Cali, then after that will be the COP in Azerbaijan, which will happen in early November.

Christiana: [00:42:32] The climate COP.

Tom: [00:42:33] The climate COP. Thank you. Showing my bias there. And then finally the desertification COP, in the first half of November. And then the desertification COP will happen in Saudi Arabia in the first half of December. So we will bring you more in-depth analysis of what's happening in each of those different locations with people who are involved as we go forward. But hopefully you are now slightly better armed in understanding this is not a cocktail yet, although we're welcoming recipes, and so maybe it will be as well. 

Paul: [00:43:02] No sand, I don't want sand in my cocktail.

Tom: [00:43:03] Long history back to 92 and.

Christiana: [00:43:06] But hold on, Tom, before we close this, could could we just say that we have, I think, you know, when we look at the history, we see that these things sort of begin to bud and emerge, and we have yet another environmental treaty in its emergent stage, the plastics treaty. And the plastics treaty is also meeting at the end of November this year. I mean, hello, so if you have a cocktail for the three conventions, do not have it in a plastic cup. Okay. That's the thing. 

Paul: [00:43:45] 11 million tonnes of plastic into the ocean each year, and it looks like it's due to triple in the very near. Yes. We couldn't do with a plastics treaty more urgently.

Christiana: [00:43:53] So, just to put it into its perspective, the plastics treaty doesn't have a COP yet. It's into its INC process okay, so that's a really good example of how these things happen. The United Nations has decided that they would create a plastics treaty. And this international negotiating committee is has been meeting now and will meet for the fifth time. Therefore it's called INC five, the last week of November, in order to finally, just through five, which is very, very quickly just through five INC meetings, decide how they are going to then operate as as a treaty. So that is.

Paul: [00:44:42] A treaty or convention I should, should I have said treaty?

Christiana: [00:44:44] Treaty, and so I believe that we will try to do an episode also about the plastic treaty right.

Tom: [00:44:54] We will, also about that. Yeah. So you got all of them coming up, yeah. The rio trio plus.

Christiana: [00:44:56] Okay. So we have quite a menu, quite a menu here on on different COPs.

Tom: [00:45:02] There you go.

Paul: [00:45:03] And just so you know, that broader vision for the UN was in part also about the Sustainable Development Goals. So there is there are multiple different ways of framing our goals. The trick is going to be getting there.

Tom: [00:45:14] Thank you friends. Lovely to talk to you. Thank you for the history Christiana. Lovely to talk to you both. See you next week.

Paul: [00:45:20] Bye. 

Christiana: [00:45:20] Bye. 

Tom: [00:45:21] Bye.

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