No, this isn’t about the Beatles. At the COP I wanted to introduce myself to the RINGOs–research and independent non-governmental organizations. Without knowing a lot about the UNFCCC process, there doesn’t seem to be a significant role for climate change scientists or research institutes if they are not already attached to country delegations or inter-governmental organizations. Only recently has the UNFCCC begun to differentiate among the non delegate observers (the ‘yellow’ badges). So RINGOs are now part of 5 categories of NGOS–environmental organizations (eNGOs), business associations (BINGOs), indigenous peoples organizations (IPOs) and local government and municipal authorities (LGMA).
RINGOs seem to be composed largely of foundations, such as the Pew Center, think tanks like the International Institute for Sustainable Development (which I always thought of as a Canadian institution because it was started here and a huge percentage of its funding comes from Canada even though it now has offices in NY and Geneva), and a couple of universities, like Imperial College. I’m interested in RINGOs because it seems to be a good association for McGill’s School of Environment to be involved in.
Didn’t get much information about them because I got waylaid by the tree puppets people (who must be connected to the RINGOs in some way). I’ll blog more about them after their Wednesday meeting.