Week one of the conference lead us to think the COP of action was more a COP of congratulating the year’s work. While entering the Paris Agreement into force is important, the work necessary to get the ball rolling will take a long time, considering all aspects of the agreement are consensus based. Key aspects of the treaty include, among other issues, agreeing on how markets will contribute to action on climate change, as well as how much and through which funds will developed nations help the developing.

This conference is a meeting of the parties for not only the Paris Agreement, but also the Kyoto Protocol, the Warsaw Mechanism of Loss and Damage, and other climate discussions.

Having finally experienced first hand the difficulties of negotiations, I understand why the process is a slow one.

The first day of COP included only one shock event- Turkey’s request for more money. The G77 (a conglomerate of developing nations) have long been requesting more money for adaptation, mitigation and capacity building. The technicalities of Annex one and two countries (criteria setting developing countries into least and more developed) mean that funding is allocated differently.