Have you ever wondered why the UNESCO process is how
it is? How could you change it, etc? Creating a model of reality is the perfect
opportunity to test scenarios, new processes.
In line with the goals set by us for our Rio+20
simulations (educating the youth, acting locally), we encourage each city to
experiment, and we suggest you to pick one of the following scenarios:
Don’t forget to let us know
which scenario you’re implementing! Keep in mind some include modifications in the Rules of Procedure.
A) How can the role of local
authorities be reinforced?
The program “Agenda 21”,
directed at municipalities, local governments, and civil society groups, was
one of the most successful outcomes of the Rio 1992 Conference. The local scale
seems to be one of the most relevant scales at which to apply the general
principles that are decided at an international level. Therefore, it can be useful
to look into a possible further-reaching involvement of this group of actors.
è
Thus, local authorities could
negotiate directly on concrete and common issues depending on their own
situation. One delegation of local authorities could take its own commitments.
è One variant of this hypothesis
could focus on world megacities and give them one vote since some of them have
a GDP and/or a population more important than some states.
Example of specific delegations: Mexico City area, The
Megacities of New York or Tokyo, Singapore.
B) How can the need to
consider long-term issues be reconciled with the inherent tendency of
negotiations to focus on short-term questions?
Politicians and negotiators
often tend to adjourn important topics related to climate change. This problem
is related to terms of office of politicians, and short-term poll outcomes. In
order to remediate this, governments could nominate a
delegate to represent their long-term interests (for example a young citizen
elected or designated by local associations).
C) How could the negotiations
be “regionalized”?
Whether the issue is climate,
deforestation or local pollution, the decisions and outcomes of negotiations
should be implemented for regions and not countries, thus reinforcing the
cooperation of the individual countries. In the case of Kyoto, this would mean
negotiation by area, and then negotiation within the defined areas to attribute
certain carbon reduction targets to each state. The main limits and
difficulties of this model would first be to define the regional areas: which
legitimacy, which efficiency for these areas? And how to decide their creation
(need for a specific UN agreement)?
To implement this hypothesis,
the simulation structure (contact groups, meetings
schedule…) should be
re-organized by taking into account:
- Geo-economic unions like the ASEAN, the European Union or the Mercosur- Common ecologic issues and interests such as deforestation.
D) How could one envisage organizing
negotiations through “aggregated interest groups”?
NB: This hypothesis is the
most complex to implement. It necessitates a well-organised and large
secretariat.
In order to make negotiations
more efficient and prevent deadlocks, one could reduce the number of
participants so that for each topic, the different interest groups would be
represented. International negotiations have so far been conducted by heterogeneous
and inflexible global interest groups (G77,
industrialized countries against developing countries…). So, how about
bringing together stakeholders in homogenous and flexible thematic interest
groups?
States would have to – for
each theme negotiated – pick a group that would then represent them in the
negotiating process concerning that precise issue. The members of each group
would hence differ from one theme to another and for each issue several
homogenous interest groups would be created. The
right to vote would, however, remain with each individual state who would be
invited to validate the negotiating results obtained by the thematic interest
groups.
To implement this hypothesis, the simulation structure (contact groups, meetings
schedule…) should be
re-organized by taking into account specific issues, which can explode
conventional interest groups like the G77. For instance instead of organizing
one unique meeting to negotiate a World Environmental Agency, organize one
meeting for its mandate, one for its funding…
E) How transparency can be
reinforced by publicizing negotiation meetings?
Delegates usually negotiate
behind closed doors with the single pressure of their national mandate. In
order to restore a balance of pressure, civil society could be allowed to
attend every meeting and to speak (at least once). We can try to make the negotiations
transparent and public by allowing some journalists to attend, record and
broadcast all the meetings.
Don’t forget to send us:
-
hypothesis
chosen + justification
-
list
of the delegations
The full document can be found here, thanks to Paris+20.
Yours sustainably
MyCity+20
/Any question regarding this post? contact
mycityplus20@gmail.com
