The Benefits of Public Participation

2 December 2010

There isn’t much reason to praise the United States these days, so ECO is pleased to report that the US got it right in yesterday’s SBI contact group.  Echoed by supportive interventions from Mexico, the EU and Bangladesh, the United States highlighted that enhancing observer participation is not for the benefit of the observers, but rather is to benefit the Parties and the entire UNFCCC process.
Today, the SBI Chair is continuing contact group discussions on observer participation.  We appreciate the emphasis he has placed on this matter as demonstrated by his willingness to chair the contact group himself.  
Moreover, the Chair’s management of the contact group was a model for the implementation of one of the most important measures necessary to make civil society participation more meaningful.  Observers were given not just the opportunity to make one intervention, but were able to participate in the give-and-take of the discussion on an equal basis with Parties.  This kind of opportunity to provide input directly and in real time is vital to ensuring relevant, useful public participation.  
It is important to build on this progress.  The SBI should call on the Secretariat to implement new practices that ensure real-time access to negotiations and negotiators.  For example, open contact groups and other negotiating sessions should be the rule, not the exception.  Civil society should have immediate access to proposals and other documents that are necessary to make relevant input.  Observers should have substantially enhanced opportunities for oral interventions and written submissions should be included in MISC documents along with Party submissions.  And civil society must be able to use varied tools, including non-violent demonstrations and stunts, to put the spotlight on inadequate or inequitable developments in the negotiations.
These kinds of new rules and practices should be developed through a process that involves stakeholders as equals.  This means not only soliciting input at the outset, but also giving civil society the opportunity to review and comment on proposed new rules and practices before they are implemented.  
Finally, the SBI should avoid creating mechanisms that look like enhanced participation but really aren’t.  Some have proposed creating a few high-level panels through which NGO input would be directed to the COP or other UNFCCC bodies.  This would be an unwieldy process at best resulting in watered down input that would almost certainly come too late to be useful.  Similarly, while a pre-COP NGO dialogue might result in some interesting general input, it cannot be a substitute for real-time direct input into the negotiations.  That is the heart of real public participation benefits.