UNFCCC AND COP PRESIDENCY 06-NOV-2017

Nick Nuttall

Head of Communications and Outreach

Spokesperson for the UNFCCC

Patricia Espinosa

Executive Secretary

UNFCCC

Nazhat Khan

Chief Negotiator for COP 23

Fiji Ambassador

In this press panel Patricia Espinosa and Ambassador Khan field questions from the press around China’s role in the future, the sexual harassment allegations at COP 23 and the NFCCC’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach, the Talanoa dialogue, the role of the USA in COP 23 and in the future amongst other things.

U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa said last week the secretariat did not have enough money for a “dedicated team” on sexual harassment, adding: “We need a lot of support.” She said she did not know of any specific complaints among the secretariat team. “As you know there are many situations where people… don’t come forward formally. Sometimes… women speak about certain situations but then from there to really going into a formal process of making an accusation, it takes a lot of courage.”

Climate negotiator Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, which presides over the current round of negotiations, welcomed the UNFCCC’s “zero tolerance” stance.

“The difficulty is people don’t come forward they don’t complain and one of the reasons that they don’t is that there are no frameworks in place to deal with it,” she said.