On the surface, UN climate meetings are a beautiful thing. Here are people from all over the world, literally from all but a handful of countries, coming together in the spirit of international cooperation to solve climate change. It's flat out inspiring.

I say "on the surface" because as you get familiar with the inner workings of the UNFCCC (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), you discover the absurdities of its beaurocracy (sub-groups of contact groups of Ad Hoc Working groups), the glaring inefficiencies (tens of thousands of pages of "non-papers" piling up at the Info Desk, replaced daily), and a startling lack of urgency that is exemplified by the fact that no meeting ever starts anywhere close to on time, nor ever seems to produce an immediately tangible outcome.

But let's focus, for a moment, on the positive. On the people. One of the first things I learned upon entering the intersessional meeting in Bangkok was that the UNFCCC process is not driven by diplomats alone, but is rather a robust ecosystem populated by a whole host of different groups with varied interests. From the NGOs to the media to the hardline activists to the official delegations to the UN Secretariat itself. It all makes for a fascinating push and pull of diplomatic games and strategic action and communication. Let's get to know the players.

Delegates

Each country that's a "Party" to these talks sends an official delegation to represent their national position and interests. Typically these delegates are selected, often employed, by their respective State Department (or national equivalent), and their numbers vary considerably from country to country. The United States, for example, had over 40 official delegates in Barcelona, and we can expect even more in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, a country with less resources (or cash)--like, say, Lesotho or the Cook Islands--can only afford to send a small delegation, sometimes only one or two members strong. (Interesting side note: the government of Denmark is actually sponsoring a delegation from the Maldives to come to Copenhagen, as the country wouldn't have been able to afford to send anyone otherwise.) This obviously puts these countries at a distinct disadvantage in the talks, as there are generally a number of meetings going on at the same time and, obviously, a one-man-or-woman delegation can't be two places at once.

Partially for this reason, a number of national negotiating "blocks" have formed, giving a louder voice and better representation to countries with similar national interests. There's the African Group, the G77/China (Group of 77 developing nations and China), AOSIS (the Alliance of Small Island States), the LDCs (the Least Developed Countries), amongst others. There's obviously lots of overlap between some of these blocks, and plenty of countries belong to more than one. And developed countries have formed blocks of their own (the European Union being the most obvious example). There's a whole rich dynamic of how these blocks function and interact, but we'll have to save that for another post.

Civil Society

The UN prides itself on its openness and transparency. As such, there's a special accreditation for "observer" organizations to gain access to the conferences and sit in on the meetings. For the most part, these observers are reps from the NGO community, and they do a lot more than observe, working hard to influence the process along the way. Technically, all observers organizations are recognized within six constituencies: Business and industry non-governmental organizations (BINGOs), Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), Indigenous peoples organizations (IPOs), Local government and municipal authorities (LGMAs), Research- oriented and independent organizations (RINGOs) and Trade union organizations (TUNGOs). A very quick rundown:

• BINGOs, the business community, are the toughest to pin-down, as they can variously represent the green businesses and clean energy industries of the future, the emerging financial world of carbon market a huge contingency), but also the established "brown" industries that are threatened by a low-carbon future and work actively to protect their interests.
• ENGOs, the environmental groups, are what most people probably think of when they think of NGOs working on climate change. More often than not they belong to the well-coordinated Climate Action Network (CAN) which unifies the environmental community around a shared goal of "[promoting] government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels."
• IPOs, the indigenous peoples groups, lobby hard to protect indigenous rights, which are threatened in a number of areas of the negotiations, particularly in the sections related to carbon offsets and REDD (reducing emissions through deforestation and forest degradation).
• LGMAs, representing local governments, tend to work together through the international association ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, and promote hyper-local solutions to the global climate challenge.
• RINGOs, the research and independent orgs, mostly covers the academic community, with professors and students from all around the world. The RINGOs tend to be there for straight observation, research, and documentation, and aren't as prone to lobbying the process as the other groups.
• TUNGOs, the trade unions, are a powerful populist force that often aligns with the "green" BINGOs and the ENGOs to support new job-creating clean energy industries.

The Youth

One of the most pleasant surprises of my time in the international climate arena has been seeing what a strong youth presence there is at these events, and their impact on the procedings shouldn't be underestimated. It's true that the global youth (or the YOUNGOs, as they've lately taken to calling themselves) are often "officially" involved with the ENGOs or the IPOs or even RINGOs (as students), but through a combination of strong physical presence, direct action, and impressive coordination, the youth have truly distinguished themselves as their very own faction in the UNFCCC process. Yvo de Boer has said before that he thinks "that civil society loses its power, when NGOs put down their banners and put on suits." The YOUNGOs, with their brightly-colored t-shirts, banners, and signs that cut through the dark-suited monotony of a typical UN meeting, are there in force to keep the public pressure strong and the base message powerful.

The Secretariat

Someone has to organize all of this, and the UNFCCC's administration coordinates the meetings, grants accreditations to observers and press. More importantly to the treaty itself, the Secretariat selects the chairs to run the various working groups, typically experienced diplomats that can help steer the delegates to agreement. Yvo de Boer, the the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, is charged with running the whole UNFCCC process, from Bali to Copenhagen and beyond. Perhaps the most crucial--and difficult--job is that of Michael Zammit Cutajar, chair of the ad hoc working group on long-term cooperative action (AWG-LCA) under the UNFCCC, and actually de Boer's predecessors as executive secretary. The AWG-LCA track in the talks is where all of the various sub-groups (on mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and so on) will finally come together, and Cutajar will sit as chair for the final session in Copenhagen. With his vice-chairs, Cutajar runs the meetings, invites comments and interventions and motions of support, and then works to consolidate the actual text according to everything that's transpired. It's a thankless job throughout, but the power and reward are potentially incredible. Cutajar clearly recognizes the importance of his work, as well as the incredible complexity and intricacy of the challenge. He has said that these talks are "like the evolutionary process in reverse, with the big bang at the end. The question is how big the bang will be."