So, Roberto sniffs, UNFCCC is a convention and not an organization. Killer point, eh?

Notwithstanding that Claudia accurately refers to UNFCCC as a Convention and nowhere in her piece does the word “organization” appear (nor the word “organisation”, for that matter).

The irony of all this to me, as a former senior officer at UN (at least, that is what my PA Form says I was) is that a lengthy and detailed public “Overview Schedule” for a supposedly important world conference on Climate Change is not the Agenda after all, and does not allow one to discern what is really going on.

Instead, as Roberto testifies, the important stuff takes place in off-agenda “informal” sessions – having other agendas.

This is perfectly consistent with my own experience with UN-related decision-making. Specifically, decisions are reserved for the sequestered few, cloaked in opacity, while everyone pretends to openness and transparency.

So it does not matter how much or little the meeting will cost. No country that believes in open processes is likely to get its money’s worth. Some participants no doubt take this work seriously and work 20 hours a day. They are quite useful as part of the cloak of opacity.

Meanwhile, the sequestered few relax, dine, sip Pimms, and wonder where to hold the Twenty-EIGHTH Session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 27).

Roberto Kinley, you speak the truth – you just don’t seem to comprehend how much truth.