Reflections from Northwestern University's COP29 Delegation: Day 11
For a fourth year, a delegation of Northwestern University students and faculty supported by the Buffett Institute is among more than 30,000 researchers, policymakers, industry leaders and activists at the world’s largest annual international treaty negotiations and climate summit, the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), this year hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan. Each day, a different Northwestern delegate is blogging about their experiences and reflections. Day 11 features Cate Osborne, a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in history and environmental policy & culture.
Ethnography is in the details. After a week of intensive ethnographic fieldwork, it’s hard to miss the little things. Sure, COP is a scene—full of lots of big dogs (and people who consider themselves to be big dogs) bustling hurriedly down cramped, dimly lit corridors en route to their next meetings, where they’ll discuss adaptation finance or green tech or feminist climate solutions. Every event has a long, fancy name and is inevitably located in a room that’ll take you at least fifteen minutes to find after you get lost. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel a sense of imposter syndrome. Yet COP is so much more than this chaos. When you slow down, truly, and get a chance to look around, to see and feel the little details, is when you get a real sense for the people here, the decisions to be made, and the stakes riding on them.
The C13 bus that takes delegates to the site every morning.
My day started like every other here thus far, riding the C13 bus to Baku Olympic Stadium. For most, the bus ride is their only reprieve throughout the day—many folks sit with their headphones in, responding to texts or catching up on a few minutes of sleep. As ethnographers, however, even these somewhat mundane moments are important and worthy of analysis. Why would someone choose to sit in this seat, rather than another? What do their clothing decisions say about them? How can you characterize the mood of the space? Questions like these follow our interactions and observations throughout the day.
Observing a global stock-taking meeting organized by the COP29 Presidency.
As I sat in on a stock-taking meeting in a plenary hall, I focused my attention on my peers, the party delegates, the layout of the room, the accessibility options, the languages spoken and the general tone of the proceedings, among other details. Delegates had gathered to share and listen to negotiation updates, but it was clear that no new information would be discussed. As a disgruntled reporter seated next to me took notes—a designation I deduced from his brown UNFCCC badge labeled ‘press’—he mumbled under his breath, on the verge of rolling his eyes, that “we had heard this all before.” The general mood of observers—apprehensive—was distinct from party delegates—focused—which was a stark contrast from the lead negotiator for the COP Presidency—confident—who cheerfully updated us that he felt optimistic about reaching consensus between negotiating parties. Those of us in the know—I like to consider myself somewhat ‘in the know’—held back a skeptical chuckle.
It’s moments like these that color my experience at COP. While I continue to feel like a slightly-out-of-place onlooker, bogged down in the excessive acronyms and technical language, I feel like I can experience, see and feel more of the space than most. Even if I still get a little lost trying to locate a meeting room.
Cate Osborne is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in history and environmental policy & culture with a minor in political science at Northwestern University. She is passionate about environmental justice and is involved in local community environmental advocacy. At COP29, Osborne is interested in learning about meaning-making across parties as it relates to loss and damage and how these meanings change across groups.