This is the first write up of my blog series on COP29. My name is Moumita Das Gupta and I am a lawyer from Bangladesh. More than a decade ago I started my professional journey as a court practitioner in a district court of Bangladesh. But at a later stage I followed my heart and focused on legal research on climate change issues beside my court practice. Presently, I am an Advocate affiliated with the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and working as a Research Fellow with Centre for Climate Justice – Bangladesh (CCJ-B). I am also volunteering with World Youth for Climate Justice (WY4CJ) as the Coordinator for Bangladesh National Front and with Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law as the National Rapporteur for Bangladesh as well as the Regional Leader for Asia. Both in my professional and volunteer capacities my works are related with law, policy, institutions, advocacy and litigations. I really enjoy this combination of activities.
From climate change perspectives, laws, policies and institutions are always being evolved in a top-down approach. Structures are being prepared globally which being interpreted and adopted nationally later on. The global developments of climate change related laws, policies and institutions are mainly the outcomes of the international negotiations held at the yearly Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC or COP. Though I am not involved in the negotiations, often, my works are related with the outcomes of negotiations. Thus I try to follow the outcomes of negotiations.
Earlier in 2022, I received a scope to attend the COP27 in person supported by ICCCAD. This year, I am fortunate enough to receive the scope to attend the COP29 online supported by CISDL. This is a great opportunity for me to follow the COP either from my office or from my home.
At the first week of COP I have followed several sessions either live or recorded versions. Firstly, I shall write on the sessions that I followed live.
On the first day of COP (11 November) I was following the opening session. I observed the adoption of agenda for COP29. There were long breaks during this session as there was lack of consensus regarding adoption of agenda. The COP President was declaring agenda items, checking for objections and adopting when no objections were being raised.
On behalf of the African Group, Kenia raised deep concerns regarding Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM), Santiago Network and Loss and Damage fund. The COP President opined that these matters are to be decided by the SBs or Subsidiary Bodies. Under the agenda item 8, to support a few of the agenda, it was proposed to establish seperate contact groups.
Agenda items were adopted covering administrative matters (agenda 2 series), matters relating to finance (agenda 8 series), review of long term global goal under the convention and of overall progress towards achieving it (agenda 13), facilitating dialogues on moutains and climate change (agenda 17) and report of the SB for scientific and technological advice (agenda 3a). This session made me to feel how difficult the negotiation processes are. Also it was a fun to follow the COP process through online platform.