The first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that I worked on was in 2009. I didn’t actually go but rather volunteered for Farhana Yamin representing the Marshall Islands, doing some research. She invited me to come and her delegation would pay half of my ticket and accommodation. She said she would give me a letter to my government to be a delegate and ask them to fund the other half, or get funding for me to come. I couldn’t, because I had law exams to do toward qualifying for the London Bar at Inns of Court School of Law, now City Law School.
My actual first COP was in 2011 with the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), founded by the eminent international law barrister Philippe Sands, who had advised Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) with our very own legend, Angela Cropper, back in the 1980s.
I’ve been involved with each and every COP since then, from working behind the scenes as a junior barrister in London in various think tanks, where I wrote briefing papers and advised on ad hoc requests – in what we affectionately called the “war room” – to going with delegations to field ad hoc queries from Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries as a legal adviser and liaison, and heading my own Institute for Small Islands while going with my country delegation. It has been an exhilarating and intense ride. I loved the mental challenge of the UNFCCC process. I still do.