Avit Bhowmik, Assistant Professor in Risk and Environmental Studies, who is going to attend COP28 in Dubai, which starts today, reflects on the SB meeting in Bonn.
The annual Conference of Parties (COP) 28 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will be hosted by Dubai is knocking at the door. Almost everyone who keeps an eye on climate change policy at the global level is by now familiar with COPs. It’s held every November or December and on a different continent each year.
However, the COP is only the second annual meeting of all the signatory national governments to the UNFCCC. The first meeting is held in May or June and always in Bonn, Germany, where the secretariat of the UNFCCC is located. This meeting is called the meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB) of the UNFCCC, and even though it is a meeting of officials only (and not ministers like the COP) and no decisions are made in Bonn, it is still an extremely important meeting as this is where the agenda for the upcoming COP is decided. Hence, if a nation state wants to add an item to the COP agenda of the year, it has to do it during the SB meeting in Bonn. Hence, in many ways, what happens in Bonn could be even more important than what happens at COP.
Avit Bhowmik, Research Director of Centre for Research on Sustainable Societal Transformation and Researcher at Centre for Societal Risk Research, attended the SB meeting of 2023 in Bonn. During the meeting, Avit presented “The Long Game” – a project he initiated during COP27 highlighting the role of gamification of education for creating tipping effect in climate action. He highlighted the Long Game in several events to ensure that accelerating adoption of climate education is on the agenda for COP28.
Avit recalls the Secretary General of UNFCCC starting the SB meeting by saying - “We are at a tipping point”. Avit firmly believes that speaking this language of tipping point in international platforms like COP and SB meetings is a turning point, as we need rapid and abrupt transformations to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. Avit and his colleagues’ research shows that gamification of education can create this tipping effect by triggering action at scale, self-efficacy and “Active Hope”.
One of the big advantages of going to the SB meeting is that it is relatively less crowded and the actual negotiators from different governments have the time to talk and listen to ideas for making progress. Avit utilized this opportunity to connect and talk to UNICEF, Global Adaptation Program and Paris Committee on Capacity Building among others to highlight the value of the Long Game and discuss how climate education can be strategized in the negotiation agenda.
It is important to realise that only national governments are parties to the UNFCCC and can propose agenda items or decisions regarding any issue. Hence, it is essential to find a sympathetic government or group of governments who would be willing to adopt climate education in their agenda and push it for the negotiations. Avit is optimistic that this would happen since an important report on tipping points which Avit co-authored will be released and discussed during COP28. Before heading to Dubai, he is currently meeting with several NGOs and government bodies in Bangladesh to promote the Long Game and establish collaborations around this project.
