The Climate Backstage at UNFCCC Conferences - Ep. 04

Behind the scenes of the climate negotiations, where the whole world sits around the same table. We discover the swing of frustration and excitement underlying the process that brings to globally awaited treaties. It is a plot of interminable sessions, under the danger of a deadlock that is always around the corner, behind a comma or a single concept.
Scientists, delegates and a journalist unveil how a climate agreement takes shape in the halls and the corridors of an International Climate Conference.

Once a year, delegations from all over the world gather to discuss global actions against the climate crisis. It is the COP, one of the most longed-for appointments in the global effort to limit global warming as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
But how do we get there? What happens behind doors when scientists, delegates, and politicians from all over the world meet, discuss and decide?

In this episode, we enter into the complicated world of official climate reports and negotiations.

Lucia Perugini, part of the Italian Delegation during the UNFCCC negotiations, Shouro Dasgupta, contributors to the Sixth IPCC report and the Lancet Countdown report, and Leo Hickman, science journalist and Director of Carbon Brief, guide us into the room of a COP negotiation, through the delicate writing of official climate reports, and then into the process of conveying these crucial and yet complex results to people all over the world.
From their specific perspectives, they explain the reasons why any negotiation is important, any agreement can make a difference in fighting the climate crisis, the most important challenge we face as humanity today.


Foresight – Deep into the Future Planet, a podcast produced by the CMCC Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change and FACTA.

The concept, interviews and writing are by Elisabetta Tola and Giulia Bonelli.

The audio editing is by Lisa Lazzarato.

The Executive Producer at CMCC is Mauro Buonocore.

Foresight – Deep into the Future Planet, available on climateforesight.eu and wherever you listen to your podcasts.