UNITAR High Level e-Workshop on Environmental Diplomacy
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century diplomacy and international governance. Given the many different stakeholders and communities who have roles to play, it is a contemporary challenge with regard to its demand on interdisciplinary knowledge, skills and languages, and the personal capacities needed to combine these so as to make diplomatic sense and success. National interests, political tensions, and challenges of the world today, such as the economic recession and competing development priorities, mean that negotiation deadlocks are rife and ways to overcome them are becoming more and more challenging to find.
The overall aim of this e-workshop is to foster the understanding of Ethiopian officials’ and public service officers’ on the main climate-related challenges, the related multilateral institutions’ mandates and mechanisms, and how the mutual interlinkages between climate negotiations and diplomatic activity.
This e-workshop will equally strengthen participants’ capacity in engaging in climate-related negotiations, be it on a bilateral or multilateral basis. The activity will accommodate a maximum of 40 participants.
At the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Describe climate change science and the observed and projected impacts of climate change;
- Track and explain the international climate change policy framework, including the climate change negotiations to date under the UNFCCC;
- Define both climate change mitigation and adaptation;
- Analyze international considerations for climate change decision-making;
- Appraise the key issues in the ongoing international climate change negotiations, and how to build and move forward from COP25 and prepare for COP26.
The training will take place over the course of four days, from the morning to the early afternoon. Spreading the courses between four days augments the learning experience by reducing the intensity connected to the online format.
UNITAR training courses are designed to be highly interactive and participatory, and will include–whenever possible –a variety of simulation exercises, case studies and pedagogical tools to enable participants to acquire a thorough knowledge and understanding of substantive topics, as well as a practical appreciation of negotiation processes and dynamics. Illustrations and case studies will be shared with participants so that they can strengthen their understanding of the topic.