ECO was awaiting yesterday’s Open Dialogue with excitement. After all, this is a key event to “enable admitted NGO constituencies to have an open dialogue with Parties” as mandated in (FCCC/SBI/2017/7).
However, after arriving ECO had to look in the dictionary to make sure that dialogue indeed means the kind of conversation that is carried out by more than one person…as in the opposite of a monologue.
For the first hour, only observers spoke, as no party was present in the room. The European Union eventually found its way to the room for a quick intervention in the end. ECO waited patiently for the presidency of COP27, Egypt. Or any other Parties for that matter. Maybe delegates lost their venue map and could not find the room…or maybe delegates got their fingers stuck in a bowling ball or their goldfish fell sick – ECO assumes there must have been good reasons why only the UK and the EU showed up.
That’s why all nine constituencies jointly request to repeat the meeting in week two of COP26 – this time with an actual presence from Parties. ECO looks forward to a real dialogue.