02 — review of ‘23
What worked. What didn’t. What to work on in ‘24.
President Emanuel Macron’s One Planet Polar Summit in November marked the first major initiative from the Head of State of a G7 economy on the cryosphere. It was hastily organised in light of this year’s devastating losses in Earth’s frozen zones, which have way outpaced scientists’ worst case scenarios.
The summit was led by Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, French Ambassador for the Oceans and Poles and Paul-Bertrand Barets Special Envoy for the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs — with ICIMOD on the partners committee alongside WMO, UNESCO, and, crucially, the International Climate Cryosphere Initiative.
The event set out to catalyze an exceptional mobilization of the international community in the teeth of our unprecedented ‘ice emergency.’
Much more needs to be done, much, much faster, but it was a key highlight of a big year for advocacy at ICIMOD.
Seeing our brilliant young Cryosphere Analyst, Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, at age 31, presenting to and alongside scientists double his age was goosebumps good.
His was also one of the three knock-out voices from High Mountain Asia we submitted to appear the film shown to heads of state. Watch the 9-minute film here
More generally, media and global advocacy was the key highlight for the communications unit in 2023.
The failure of outcome text from the UN global conference of parties in Dubai to explicit signal the phase out rather than phase down of fossil fuels has been rightly condemned. But the UN Secretary General attended our briefing on cryosphere science, his two major visits ahead of the Conference were both to the cryosphere (the Antarctic and High Mountain Asia), and on his surprise return to Dubai for the final deliberations he repeatedly cited cryosphere.
In Pam Pearson’s words, “Despite the media spin on the ‘historic’ inclusion of fossil fuels, the lack of IPCC and other ‘benchmarks’ in overall fossil emissions reductions and the lack of improvement since Glasgow’s phase down (not phase out) of coal must largely be seen as a defeat for science-based decision-making.
“The debate over how to refer to 1.5ºC limit was intense and fraught, as the first two drafts of the decision referred to well below 2ºC or even below 2º. Between the first and second drafts the emphasis shifted quite clearly to 1.5º, named 11 times (compared to 2ºC’s four times).
“Most importantly, in the real core of the GST — guiding the next round of NDCs due in 2025 — governments agreed these should be consistent with 1.5ºC alone “as informed by the latest science.”
“This does not follow scientific recommendations in terms of avoided risk by the long shot”— and we know from data we’ve just pulled together that much of the HKH has already passed 1.47ºC — “but negotiators discussing research in cryosphere impacts is new.”
COP takeways:
Coordination is key: the daily ICCI briefings were invaluable
Work your rolodex: having negotiators’ WhatsApp numbers is crucial
Invest in the green zone, not just the blue
Go out as a grand coalition — you will not get cut-through otherwise
COP was our least successful media moment of the year. See point four above. But highlights were meets with operatives from the Global Strategic Communications Council and the Climate Emergency Collaboration Group. It being insanely heartening to know that there are shadowy forces out there working for the right side of history.
Lastly, what to do more of in 2024?
More focus on the fundamentals, especially:
- key messages that are developed ahead of time
- no communications activity before strategic communications objectives have been clearly defined
Not rocket science but we faced avoidable problems in 2023 because we were in constant delivery mode, without sufficient investment in these first key tools for thought.
2024 will see more investment in
- digital and digital skills
- leveraging ICIMOD’s platform for those furthest-from-power
- video archive and storytelling
- the team, and team fun.
