3.4 The informal groups

The formal negotiations only take place in the plenary sessions of the COP. Only two plenary sessions take place at any given point of time. Other formal negotiations take place in the subsidiary body meetings. However, the bulk of the negotiations take place informally. Plenary sessions consolidate positions determined and negotiated informally in contact groups, corridor work, non-groups, expert consultations and informal workshops. This is inevitable since it is impossible to discuss all the various issues in plenary among 194 countries. The informal consultations and groups set up by the President of the COP and/or Chair of the subsidiary bodies help to find consensus in small groups through preparing, re-framing, re-defining, re-drafting and refining the negotiating process. The Chair may appoint individuals to preside over these informal sessions. These sessions do not generally have translation facilities, which makes it extremely difficult for non-English speakers to participate. However, agreement reached in any of these groups is not easy to oppose in the plenary sessions, because so much time has been invested in the informal meetings. These informal groups include:

Friends of the Chair/President: Sometimes the Chair can invite a few prominent negotiators to form a group called Friends of the Chair/President to help informally in developing consensus on issues.

Working Group: A group convened by the COP or by one of the subsidiary bodies to work on large scale issues. The Chair or Co-chairs must be designated by the Chair of the body calling the Working Group, and membership is open to all Parties. Examples: Working Group on Mechanisms, on Compliance, etc.

Joint Working Group: Two working groups, each convened by a different subsidiary body, brought together to work on cross cutting issues.

Contact Group: A spur-of-the-moment group called into being to resolve a specific issue on which there is disagreement. Membership is ostensibly open to all Parties, but is usually limited to those Parties individually invited by the Chair to participate, due to their different viewpoints.

Joint Contact Group: Two contact groups created separately and brought together to resolve differences between them.

Informal Group: A group called into being by one or more of the Parties, for purposes of informal consultation.

Non-group: Under circumstances of extreme reluctance to enter into negotiation, non-groups can be called into being by the Chair in order to encourage communication without the pressure of negotiations.