size of national delegations at COPs

asked by Chris on Wednesday 6th October 2010

Question

I am PhD student working on the issue of integrating developing countries into a global climate regime. In the context of my research I am also looking at figures that help me to assess the institutional capabilities of dealing with policy instruments in different countries. Therefore I would like to evaluate the number of participants each delegation encompassed during the last COPs. I have found documents enlisting all participants for a COP on the UNFCCC website. However, I would like to summarize the size of the delegations (e.g., Germany 40 delegates, Belarus 20 etc.). Since it is a big effort to count the number of participants based on the document manually, it would be extremely helpful to get hold of some sort of a table with the data or the aggregated numbers directly. I am looking specifically for numbers for COP15 but it would be great to compare them to earlier COPs as well.

Thanks a lot for any help on this!! CA

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climate policy, Human and institutional capacity building
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+2 #2 John Broderick 2010-04-19 08:58

Chris, it may also be worth looking at the size of NGO delegations in comparison to nation states. There's an article here with a simple countdown of registrations at Bali and the emissions trading lobby IETA was by far the largest http://www.newstatesman.com/global-issues/2007/12/bali-climate-change-emissions

 
 
+1 #1 Juan Carlos Arredondo 2010-03-24 12:54

Chris,

I do not think that there is such a table, at least not on the public realm. Maybe someone has donde the painful job of counting as you intend to do. Very rare that a country says how many people they took to a COP... you may read something along the lines of "they brought hundreds and we are just a few....".

Traditionally, developing countries take small or very small delegations because of the implied cost and the lack of enough experts on the subject within their own public or academic sectors. Developed countries' delegations usually are close to a hundred (or more) delegates per country.

Some developing countries even have to take advisors who may not necessarily live in that country as members of its delegation. Some countries may receive financial support from the UNFCCC to participate in the COPs.

Not that I am of any help to you, but thought could be useful for you to know if you are no acquainted on how it works.

In other words, counting might wait for you. If you do that, the rest of the world (or at least some people) will really appreciate it.

Cheers