As a constituency, RINGOs are provided with three \u201ctickets\u201d from the UNFCCC Secretariat, which enables constituents to observe informal consultations between Parties (member governments) that would otherwise be closed meetings. The tickets are distributed every morning at the 9:00 RINGO meeting, and this is the critical starting point of the day. As you can see from the picture, the daily meeting is a room packed full of researchers, many of them students. Those who had tickets the previous day give brief overviews of the sessions they observed, as well as uploading their notes to the RINGO website<\/a>, and I have found these sessions invaluable for navigating COP23.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t been following the Agenda of the Paris Agreement though, which the tickets are for, and so I don\u2019t join the end of session scramble. Although many researchers would consider these negotiations the place where real climate action (or inaction) is decided, it is not what I am here to study. Having spent many years looking at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I want to begin to place this body in the broader knowledge landscape of the climate field \u2013 that is, try to understand what other forms of knowledge contribute or attempt to contribute\/challenge\/contest how we know and respond to climate change.<\/p>\n In Paris in 2015, a decision was taken to establish a knowledge platform, the aim of which would be to strengthen and exchange \u201cknowledge, technologies, practices and efforts of local communities and indigenous peoples\u201d to climate mitigation and adaptation (see below). Here in Bonn, Parties have been negotiating the nature of this body and these are the \u201cinformal consultations\u201d that I have been following.<\/p>\n The consultations (or the formal\/informal) on this Platform have mostly been open, meaning that I can enter the room and observe. But you need stamina! The Parties need to finalise a text by Monday and when I left for the second night running at 10pm there was little convergence on where this platform should sit within the UNFCCC, whether it should be a negotiating body, and if it should be a small group of experts or open membership\u2026<\/p>\n Leaving at 10pm meant that I missed some of these discussions and, more importantly, I won\u2019t know when and where they\u2019ll resume on Monday. If I don\u2019t have this information, I\u2019ll be left wondering the conference centre trying to find groups of familiar faces (as I was the previous day). That brings me to the aspect of this experience that I have enjoyed most \u2013 the spirit of sharing.<\/p>\n Sitting and typing notes next to me was another researcher, and he decided to stay there until the bitter end. He also offered to share his notes, and in return I will share my notes from the sessions he missed. I can\u2019t tell you how heart-warming this is \u2013 there are many things that I sometimes find difficult about this job, and the competitiveness and adherence to hierarchies are two of the worst aspects. You can\u2019t share with everyone and there are some that would drain you like any other resource. But here in Bonn I\u2019ve bumped into other climate researchers with a sharing spirit and this makes it possible to extend the reach of our observations, and thus our capacity to know, understand and illuminate what goes on (and in whose interests) behind the closed doors of climate negotiations.<\/p>\n Read the previous COP23 diary entry here<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/environmental-justice-research-unit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/539\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-12-at-11.33.37-1024x146.png?resize=1024%2C146\")
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