BONN, Germany — Early Saturday morning, after a series of false alarms and premature scheduling announcements, negotiators at the 23rd Conference of Parties in Bonn, Germany, found enough common ground to bring these latest climate change negotiations to a close.
For two weeks, delegates from nearly 200 countries pored over the technical details that govern what responsibilities countries will have to one another under the historic Paris Agreement. In addition to looming deadlines and changing politics, they faced the daunting pressure of a year dominated by devastating weather events, which seemed to touch every region of the globe — and which lent a sense of personal urgency to the negotiations.
COP23’s host — the Pacific island of Fiji — sought to impress upon the 25,000 people assembled in Bonn that small island developing states and other climate-vulnerable nations do not have decades to fashion an international response to climate change. With storms bringing unprecedented damage, and sea levels threatening to rend the lowest lying places unlivable in the immediate future, the Fijian COP23 presidency represented a view of climate change from the frontlines.