Annette Skovsted Hansen
This session focuses on the histories of stakes and people involved in negotiating a climate agenda since the preparation of the Only One Earth report published in 1972. Over time, the fora, the timing and the involvement of actors defining international climate negotiations have changed significantly. Tracing these historical developments and realising how they condition contemporary negotiations are crucial for understanding and influencing present and future COPs.
Annette Skovsted Hansen
Following an overview of the historical developments, this workshop enables participants to experience the interplay of stakes that have shaped climate negotiations across different historical contexts. Through this experience, participants will gain insight into how the negotiations at the upcoming COP are likely to diverge from previous negotiations.
Jonathan Krull
How do actors mobilise influence within and around formal negotiations? Outcomes of international climate negotiations are often assessed through the final negotiated text. Yet agreements are shaped long before ministers enter the room — through preparatory processes in capitals, coalition coordination, technical negotiations, informal consultations, and political signaling across multiple forums. Drawing on practical EU negotiation experience, this session opens the diplomatic ‘black box’ behind multilateral climate decision‑making to show how mandates form, alliances emerge, where flexibility exists, and how geopolitical dynamics and domestic constraints influence possible outcomes.
Jonathan Krull
In this interactive exercise, participants will assume the roles of lead negotiators. Faced with time pressure and political constraints, how do we identify priorities, defend red lines, explore alliances, and agree on key elements of a joint political statement? The simulation is designed to make tangible the tensions between ambition and geopolitical feasibility that shape international climate diplomacy and explore the room for compromise and movement in negotiations.
James Quilligan
While the public hears mainly about atmospheric temperatures rising toward mid-century, Earth is also accumulating heat in the oceans, land and ice sheets. This session explores what could happen if COP turned the IPCC threshold of 1.5°C from a moral concern - resulting in 'pledge-and-review’ negotiations - into a planetary accounting liability that would reflect the heat and energy imbalances already stored in the planet. It proposes that a Planetary Climate Ledger could provide the framework for coordinated planetary governance that would be capable of preventing today’s climate liabilities from becoming far more costly, unequal and violent for future generations.
James Quilligan
This workshop guides participants through the key biophysical metrics of a Planetary Climate Ledger, demonstrating how coordinated climate governance could be measured and why such quantification matters. Building on the lecture, participants will practice the basic structure of three ledger systems: a Municipal–Bioregional Asset Ledger, a Planetary Liability Ledger and a States–Corporations Reconciliation Ledger. Through this exercise we will illustrate how reframing the 1.5°C threshold through accumulated planetary heat (~900 zettajoules) would transform Earth’s climate negotiations.
