[Hofgarten - 1] Time for some research
Off to Bonn! Off to the Rhine and the kebab shops, to the ice cream on the Marktplatz and the drunk students playing obscure games on the public lawns. Off to the Hofgarten. I am Bernard Soubry, you are my dear reader, and whoof, we’re off. First email.
This is the moment—this, right now, sitting on the Eurostar speeding toward Brussels—when the layers shed off and we get into Game Day mode. Forget about sneaking through Oxford on a Sunday morning. Forget the past month of stitching together past friends and present pandemic, building IKEA furniture on riverboats, going for bike rides in Scotland and hikes in Wales. Forget the inevitable emotional backlash that will come when you realize you’ve left a place that you consider home and people you think of as family, again.
Nah, forget all that. Going to Bonn; time for some research.
Context: Where are we going? The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Subsidiary Bodies meeting. Those who were with us for Fondue, and Maybe a Lake will remember what these are - the hungry dogs of the Convention, raring to get things done. To those who have just jumped on board, I offer a new metaphor:
COP26 was a rager. It was the big, annual meeting of all the parties to the UNFCCC; it took two weeks in Glasgow to finally hammer together the Paris Agreement’s rulebook. Drunk on that achievement, a bunch of things were promised (a global phase-down of coal; an end to deforestation. Easy.). It was, in fact, a reason to celebrate: for the first time in God knows how many years, these countries have an agreement to transition to economies that won’t cause catastrophic climate change, and a big book of rules that explains exactly how they’re going to do it. Shots for everyone.
The SBs (as they’re called, in the parlance of been-here-too-long reporters and diplomats) are the morning after. They are the equivalent of the UNFCCC blinking its bloodshot eyes into the sunlight of a new day, taking in the wreckage of the living room, and hoarsely asking no one in particular: “What… did I do last night?”
SBs are a little bit less brash than COPs, a little bit more beans-and-rice than cajo de cabra. You get all the technical discussions: expert dialogues, IPCC updates, bunker fuels (don’t even ask). Everyone’s already been here before; we’re mostly just happy to see each other. Some people, I only really see at SBs; we get a five-minute catchup of the past year between sessions. It should, in theory, be a low-key meeting. In theory.
But the SBs are also where all the boring, technical details get decided. How do greenhouse gases get broken down in Excel spreadsheets? How often do countries have to submit new climate plans? How much money does the UNFCCC get, and from whom, and for how long? These are, to be sure, boring and unsexy topics that would make a newspaper editor want to sandpaper their eyeballs. But it's in the boring and unsexy that climate governance gets done.
So, much like someone who didn’t show up to the party because they preferred playing board games at home but wants to seem like they were there, I read up on past summaries , on what the news is saying. I do it in stolen moments on the train to London; in the dark tube of the Eurostar going through the English Channel.
And when I feel saturated with old negotiations, I look through the window at the fields of France and Belgium, think of what’s to come, and figure there’s only so much you can prepare for. For the rest, well, just rock and roll.
I’m glad you’re rolling along with me. Just a little reminder of what’s to come: every day, you’ll get at least 500 words and a photograph about what’s happened in the past twenty-four hours. You can talk to me by replying to this email. And, per usual, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link below.
Tomorrow, the venue, the menu, the seating. We’ll dig a little deeper into the conference, try to get our feet firmly anchored. For now, travelling at 215km/h through misty rye and flax fields, snacking on apples, and wondering what’s to come.
Til then,
B