Cop27: Three young Latin Americans talk about behind-the-scenes negotiations

First modification: 11/21/2022 – 17:06

From Sharm El-Sheikh, by our special envoy to COP27.

In the halls of the climate conference in Egypt it is common to hear the voices of young activists demanding a greater involvement of countries to protect the environment.

However, other young people chose to join the delegations of their respective countries directly. In one of the COP27 pavilions, R.F.I. He spoke to three young people who had the privilege of being part of the negotiating teams. Salomé Montero from Costa Rica, Eusebio Castro, from the Dominican Republic, and Randolph Rodríguez, of Panamanian origin, tell us how they experienced this climate conference in which the central point of the negotiations was the creation of a fund to compensate vulnerable countries to climate change.

Salome Montero, 25 years old, studies human rights and sustainable development. She has followed in particular the financial chapter of the negotiations at Cop27.

“I understand very well that we are in a very complex situation at the socio-political level in many places. So each country has been pressured to change their priorities. I found it very curious how these bilateral relations between parties have developed, to pressure them to include or not include things in the texts”.

The young negotiator recalls in particular a tense moment in the negotiations in which “a delegation did not show up to press an issue”, or when “a delegation stood up and blocked the denial so that it would not be discussed”.

Listen to the full interviews:

randolph rodriguez, with a degree in bilingual executive communication, focuses his work on the issues of climate empowerment. “Something that caught my attention was that in a negotiation meeting we had, seeing the refutation of Muslim countries in the face of the rhetoric of human rights. They did not want to accept it. We couldn’t negotiate the deal for one sentence and it was postponed.”

As for Eusebio Castro22 years old, a law student in the Dominican Republic, focused on the issue of human rights in his delegation’s negotiations.

“I was able to present a clash between China and the United States, which later was between the G77 and developed countries, in which an agreement could not be reached by two or three words. It was very surprising. The dispute arose over the reference to human rights within a climate financing issue. What was sought, from the Latin American countries and island countries, was that there be direct financing for vulnerable communities. The United States wanted this financing to be voluntary from all countries and not from developed countries to developing countries,” Castro narrates.