Paris - Day Ten

I don't watch a lot of sports, so I'm not sure if following the climate change negotiations is most like watching professional wrestling or basketball.

Multilateral negotiation is a team sport where the exceptional skills of a few star performers still rely on the talented back up of less visible contributors.

It is heavily scripted. There's always a little extra drama for the home crowd. There's always a lot of money involved.

I have a couple of favourite negotiators, not so much for what they say but how they say it. One of the two biggest stars from my perspective is Claudia Salerno from Venezuela. She's strong and articulate in her "interventions" (that's what they call the speeches negotiators make) and she doesn't mince words. Not everyone finds the positions she takes useful, but she's really good at her job. She is fluent in at least Spanish and English, and I like listening to her no matter what language she's using.

I also admire the negotiator from Malaysia, whom everyone calls "Professor" but I can't find his actual name. He also takes unpopular positions, at least with some parties; other parties like his positions just fine. He is passionate, articulate, opinionated and humane - or at least that's how he comes across.

Other distinguished negotiators: 

For smooth delivery and resounding reasonable-seeming interventions, no one does a better job than the EU. 

The Party with the best mumble: Belarus. 

Best-looking negotiating team: the Congo.

Night before last, Canada's team, headed by Catherine McKenna the new Minister of Environment and Climate Change, made a clear report to the President of COP on the progress of negotiations around the "cooperative approaches" - which is the language used in the agreement to denote market mechanisms to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions. Canada's team - the Minister, the Head Negotiator, the Chief Negotiator and the team specialist on market mechanisms - was comprised all of women, and under the bright lights of the plenary hall, with their tired faces and remarkably similar hair cuts projected on the big screens, they looked like a girl band about to perform a cover of "Roar."