United Nations Climate Negotiations in Bonn, Germany

In June 2024, Dahdaleh Global Health Graduate Scholar Ana Carolina Cardoso travelled to Bonn, Germany to attend the 60th session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB60) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The SB60 is the mid-year session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) of the UNFCCC. During these sessions, the subsidiary bodies and observer organizations oversee that the commitments made in the previous year are followed through and that signatory parties of the climate agreement continue to build consensus to carry out the decisions and mandates from one COP to the next. This year, country delegates, representatives of civil society, business, academia, and Indigenous Peoples organizations, convened with the UNFCCC secretariat to advance consensus on the many agenda items that will be negotiated during November 2024’s COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“Thanks to the support I received from the Dahdaleh Institute, I was able to travel to Bonn and observe international climate negotiations up-close. Being there allowed me to further understand the operation of the UNFCCC and all its moving parts, which was fundamental to inform my research proposal design. It also provided me with unique possibilities to engage more deeply with the climate negotiations, collaborating inadvocacy work alongside the official civil society constituencies that I had previously connected with, such as IIPFCC and YOUNGO. Finally, it was an important opportunity to strengthen the relationships and researchpartnerships I started at COP28, as well as to build further connections in the international climate space. This work was extremely important not only for my academic and professional development, but also to enable my full preparation for my upcoming fieldwork research at COP29.”

In Bonn, Ana conducted exploratory fieldwork related to her doctoral research, which explores the topics of climate futures, anthropocene, and decoloniality within and around global climate policy. During the SB60, Ana closely followed climate negotiations on many thematic areas, such as just transition, mitigation, adaptation, global stocktake, and the revision of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform. She also collaborated with the Children and Youth constituency (YOUNGO), participating in the Just Transition working group and in the writing of the constituency’s closing statement. Finally, Ana supported the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) alongside research team members from the York University’s Centre for Indigenous Knowledges and Languages (CIKL) project “Indigenous Climate Leadership and Self Determined Futures“, Dr. Angele Alook and Dr. Graeme Reed. They participated in the Indigenous Peoples Caucus to support the safeguarding of the rights, knowledges and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples in climate negotiations, demanding full and effective participation in decision-making processes such as the SB60. 

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