The challenges and heartbreak of climate negotiations

On this episode, we discuss the deliberations, points of contention and wider implications of the Bonn Climate Change Conference, which recently took place in Germany. Dr Siobhan McDonnell who was part of the negotiations joins us for this podcast.

The Bonn Climate Change Conference aims to lay the groundwork for the political decisions required at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) at the end of the year.

Dr McDonnell describes the “real and palpable grief in the room” when new climate science was presented to the Alliance of Small Island States that showed predictions are now twice as bad in 2100 compared to what was presented in the latest IPCC report.

Despite this new data, a backwards step has been taken in the difficult negotiations. There’s now no longer an agreement on including the IPCC report as an agenda item at COP28. She says that the latest climate science is horrific and apocalyptic and the fact that negotiations cannot “even begin from that established understanding is very hard.” She also discusses how important it is that indigenous peoples are involved in climate negotiations as they are the most impacted across Pacific nations and how there is no financial support for the ‘non-economic’ damage caused by climate change.

Dr Siobhan McDonnell is a lawyer, anthropologist and economist who has spent over 25 years working with Indigenous people in Australia and Oceania on land rights, gender, and climate change issues, including as a climate change negotiator for various Pacific governments. She’s also a Senior Lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

You can find full show notes at policyforum.net. 

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