Day in a Life at COP28

6am: Wake up!

It’s time to meet the rest of our Climate Policy Lab (CPL) research faculty and fellows and eat a hardy breakfast that will keep me going for most of the day (you never know when you will eat next). We discuss our plans for the day – which of our research partners I will meet, who from our team is presenting, and which negotiations we want to observe.

7am: Go to the COP

We walk to the metro, the sun is out, but the temperature is still very pleasant – mid-70s (24 Celsius). The metro looks modern and clean – gleaming even. With COP registration, we got an insulated water bottle and a metro card. The train comes soon after we arrive. The first two train cars are marked with pink signs: “for women and children only,” no men allowed.

We hope that the line to get into the Expo complex, which is our third day attending, will not be as long as the previous days, which took us two hours. Most of the time, you are waiting and moving slowly in the sun. By the time you get in, you are already drenched in sweat and exhausted.

Once your badge is scanned, you enter a whole new world at Expo City Dubai! It’s very expansive, with unique architecture, sculptures, fountains, and rows of country flags, making previous COPs seem very small. They say around 80,000 people registered for this COP, which, when you are standing in the long lines to get in, you can imagine, but once you are in, you would never know as the space is so vast. People are spread out over an extremely large area; the scale took us all by surprise.

9am: RINGO daily briefing

*Mieke, Hilary Clifford, F’13, and Travis*

Many university faculty and students, as well as representatives of non-governmental organizations, go listen to briefings by RINGO (Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations) on some of the negotiations held the day before and learn about access to negotiations on special topics happening today. There are a limited number of passes given to interested RINGO members to attend some of these sessions. One of our fellows is able to take advantage of this opportunity today.

As Travis and I head to the CPL booth, we are stopped by someone seeing our lanyards and saying, ‘hey Fletcher!’ It is Fletcher alum Hilary Clifford, who is a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. Department of State and is part of the US COP28 Delegation. We talk about the US commitment of $17 million to the Loss and Damage Fund, then plan to see each other at Fletcher’s 90th anniversary celebration in a few days.

10:30am: Staff our booth

This year, we are sharing a booth with four other Boston-area universities: Northeastern, MIT, Boston University, and Boston College. We have put up posters showcasing our academic and research programs, uploaded our slideshow of our work, and strategically placed our CPL banner to help stand out.

*Mieke, Travis, and Seth at our shared booth*

I am amazed every day at how many people stop by our booth, either because they are a Fletcher alum, are interested in our academic programs, want to do collaborative research, used to live in Boston, or know someone who goes to one of our universities. There is a steady stream of people. Today, an anti-fossil fuel person strolls by in a large red cloak.

I am excited to see Tori Okner stop by our booth – she is a Fletcher alum, who is Head of Outreach and Governance at the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Partnership in Bonn and is a regular at COP. She oversees their pavilion events, where they showcase collaborative work aimed at supporting countries to create and deliver on ambitious climate action. She mentions she would like to see more Fletcher students as interns at her organization, which could then easily lead to a job there as they are expanding rapidly.

12pm: Meeting with research partner from Ethiopia

Through our Postdoctoral Fellow, Abay, Travis and I have set up a meeting with one of our Raising Ambition project partners in Ethiopia, Abas Mohammed Ali, at the Ethiopia Green Legacy Pavilion. Abas is Director of Economic Analysis and Policy at the Ministry of Planning and Development, who has led other economic and energy modeling efforts for Ethiopia. We meet in the pavilion, sit on small Ethiopian stools, and are served traditional Ethiopian coffee – a very pleasant way to meet and talk.

1:30pm: Lunch

Abay and I join Bethany, who has found a good Indian street food place, Gub and Shub. We have a surprisingly peaceful and delicious lunch in a lovely indoor space. Most days, I don’t have time for a sit-down lunch, so this is a treat.

3pm: Attend joint ICM and CPL event on Raising Ambition

Most of our delegation is able to attend our joint panel event with our Mexican partner ICM (Iniciativa Climatica de Mexico), titled Raising Ambition Through Green Growth and Equity. It is a collaboration among CPL and four of our country partners: Mexico (Adrian Fernandez from ICM), Brazil (Natalie Unterstell from Instituto Talanoa), Indonesia (Agus Sari from Landscape Indonesia), and India (Easwaran Narassimhan from Sustainable Futures Collaborative). Kelly and Travis were also on the panel, discussing our latest updates from our Raising Ambition project and the role of green industrialization.

*Adrian, Natalie, Easwaran, Travis, Agus, and Kelly*

4:30pm: Coffee

An afternoon latte provides a welcome and needed break. Fortunately, there are a good number of coffee stops. This will keep me going through the rest of the afternoon and evening! As we wait in line, I start a conversation with the woman behind me. She works with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and has come across many Fletcher graduates at CRS. She would like to see if we could set up an arrangement with Fletcher to have students work on research projects for them.

5pm: Staff our booth

Back at our booth, a young woman from Estonia sees our CPL banner and says she is a proud student of Fletcher’s newly launched virtual negotiation and confliction resolution executive education program for the Global Environment Facility and their partners. To my surprise, she recognizes me from our training videos. Prof. Melissa McCracken and I recorded four videos each – me on the Mutual Gains Approach to Negotiation and preparations for COP28 and Melissa on conflict resolution.

As I talk with our research partner from Landscape Indonesia, Agus, a man from the organization ‘Friendship’ stops and discusses one of their projects in Bangladesh to restore mangroves. They would like to scale this project, but to do so, they would like to collaborate on a research study to show evidence of the effectiveness and benefits of mangroves. I mention our current research project in Uttar Pradesh, India, studying the impacts of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) on income, productivity and, resilience. Agus mentions that Indonesia, in partnership with the UAE, just opened the new Mangrove Alliance for Climate (MAC), which “seeks to scale up, accelerate conservation, restoration, and growing plantation efforts of mangrove ecosystems.” While they are talking about that, a student walks in and is asking about our academic programs. I see from his badge that he is from Bangladesh and decides to introduce him to the person from Friendship – they end up having a great conversation and exchange cards as well. All four plan to stay connected!

7pm: Dinner

Our team decides to head to the Marina area of Dubai for dinner. We take an Uber, but as we get closer, the traffic is horrendous. The driver suggests we get out and walk the last 6 to 8 blocks, as it will be faster. As we walk over the Al Gharbi Street bridge and inner marina, we are surrounded by tall buildings, lots of lights, and many people. We finally make it to our destination – a Turkish restaurant by the name of Bosporus. We get a table outside with a view of the marina. The food is fabulous, and the view is splendid.

10pm: Work and sleep

We finally head back to our hotel and are exhausted after a long and successful day. I spend another couple of hours catching up on emails and preparing for the next day’s presentations and networking activities. I lay in bed thinking about our eventful and exhausting day. Tomorrow another day full of opportunities!

Mieke van der Wansem is the Director of Programs at the Climate Policy Lab at The Fletcher School.

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