Tag: #COP11

COP Live Day Five #COP11

loremipsum

Welcome back to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11. Here we bring you our observations and impressions on day five.

COP11 agenda progress
The penultimate day for COP11, there will be urgency to get agreement on the outstanding agenda items today. The Journal shows that progress is slow on items 4.3 (environment), 4.4 (Articles 9 and 10) and 4.5 (the Secretariat’s attempt to co-opt harm reduction).    We are pleased that Parties are taking the time to discuss such important issues thoroughly.  Of course, GATC and ASH would not agree, their bulletins from today show considerable frustration that there is any debate.

Decisions have been approved for agenda items 4.1 (the so called ‘forward looking measures) and  4.2 (liability). New decisions had to be drafted for those.  We just hope that the final decisions are better than the ones included in the original COP11 documents.  We will have to wait to find out:  at COP10 the decisions weren’t published until after the meeting had ended, and this COP’s Decisions page is still empty.  

This, from the Journal’s report, has been baffling us:
“The Chairperson opened the session and gave the opportunity to one Party to make their statement on agenda item 4.1 which they could not do yesterday before the agenda item was closed.” 
Why wasn’t the Party given the opportunity to give the statement during the discussions? And, what is the point of giving a statement after an agenda item has been agreed?  Odd.

A reminder that Clive Bates has authored an excellent side by side commentary on the annotated agenda, you can find that here.  

Agenda item 4.4 (articles 9 and 10)
We have written about this in an explainer, here  and also this week in COP Live . GATC had urged parties to adopt it without amendment, so they aren’t at all happy that it hasn’t been rushed through. No agreement on Articles 9 and 10 was reached at COP10, is this fail set to be repeated at COP11? 

Agenda item 4.5 
This is the agenda item based on the Secretariat’s notorious paper on harm reduction (COP11/10).Here is Clive Bates’ overview of that paper:

“The Secretariat has failed to meet the legitimate and sincere request of several Parties for a COP discussion about tobacco harm reduction. It has instead responded with its own activist position and poor-quality reasoning. No delegate, whether for or against tobacco harm reduction, should accept a Convention Secretariat behaving with the dismissive attitude displayed in this paper.”

For a detailed analysis, please see his ‘Agenda Item 4.5 Commentary on FCTC/COP/11/10’ 

EU controversy 
Leaks indicate that Denmark and the European Commission are seeking to introduce bans on vapes and pouches.  The controversy comes just a week after EU Member States agreed on a common position for COP11, a position which did not include a call for global bans on safer nicotine products.  

More on this from El Nacional (Barcelona)
Controversy at COP11: allegations of a European attempt to ban vapes and nicotine pouches (headline translated from Spanish, by Google)

And, from Pouch Patrol:
Denmark is Trying to Ban Nicotine Pouches in Sweden

And, from eureporter:
HealthRevealed: Secret push for total nicotine prohibition at COP11 – Defying member states and risking over one million EU jobs

This all probably explains why GATC singled out EU member states for criticism this week, as we reported in COP Live Day Three. 

Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan got an ashtray award yesterday (shared with Georgia).  This article might explain why:
 Kazakhstan on the COP11 global stage: Why economic interests matter (Google translate)

The so-called ‘forward looking measures’ are in a COP document authored by tobacco controllers, people with no expertise in trade – and it showed.  It looks as though Kazakhstan has had the temerity to question some of those naïve proposals.  
From the article – and thanks to Google translate:
“Any changes to international trade rules and supply chains, particularly those related to quotas, directly affect industrial plans, create export risks, and limit the potential for job creation.”
And: 
“Kazakhstan called for a dialogue that balances public health goals with socioeconomic realities”

Sounds reasonable, to us

800% budgetary increase
We haven’t written much about FCTC COP finances but we can’t let this one pass by without comment.   The WHO’s tobacco budget is currently $1.2 billion. And, they wish to increase it – by  800% – to an eye watering $9 billion.

Do read Ian Irvine’s excellent article on this:
Opinion: The WHO wants nine times more money to control tobacco. Don’t pay!

Statements made during livestreamed plenary debate 
Yesterday’s Good COP 2.0 included an excellent discussion on the statements made by countries and NGO’s during the debate (COP11 agenda item 3) which was livestreamed earlier this week.  Host Jeannie Cameron had analysed the statements and divided them into 3 tiers.  She found that these 7 countries explicitly mentioned harm reduction in their statements: Albania, Gambia, New Zealand, North Macedonia, St Kitts and St Nevis and the Solomon Islands.  A bold move, considering that harm reduction as we (the people most affected) know it has now been thoroughly toxified by the Secretariat and Bloomberg NGO’s. 

Watch Jeannie with panellists Marina Murphy, Reem Ibrahim and Nancy Loucas on this link, from 30 minutes in: 

Good COP2.0TPA’s Good COP2.0 has just ended.  The round up of the final day is here, and you can watch it back on YouTube (link).  Here is a recent pic with some of the experts who participated:

Permission given to Copwatch to use this image

Congratulations to everyone involved in this tremendous event!     

Worth reading
40 experts to WHO: “Prioritize harm reduction in tobacco framework at COP11”

Where are All the Smokers from the Gateway? 

That’s all for today.  We’ll be back tomorrow for the last edition of COP Live from COP11.
#THRWorks 

COP Live Day Two #COP11

loremipsum

Welcome back to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11.   Here we bring you our observations and impressions from day two.   

Live streaming 
The live streaming of agenda item 3 continued in this morning’s session. The asterisks on the agenda denote which sessions will be live streamed. So, no more streaming is expected until the final day. 

You can access the videos for all the live streamed sessions on the COP11 homepage:

Country statements 
Started yesterday, these continued during the 3rd plenary session today. More on those another time but we were really pleased to hear Albania, Guinea-Bissau, North Macedonia, Guyana and St Kitts and Nevis push back against the edicts of the Bloomberg NGO’s and the Secretariat.  Internet issues caused us to lose track but World Vapers Alliance again did tremendous work on live tweeting, see their thread here:
https://x.com/vapers_alliance/status/1990704551004156157 

Propaganda briefs
Yesterday we correctly predicted that New Zealand would get the ashtray award. Given how many Parties rebelled today, we wouldn’t like to predict who will get it tomorrow – could five or more ashtrays get awarded?  Although…bullying surely works best when parties can be singled out, not when there are so many of them. As a preventative measure, it certainly doesn’t seem to be working as intended – could this be the beginning of the end for these notorious and nasty awards?

Our baddies award for today would surely go to the International Pharmaceutical Federation delegate, who gave this statement to COP : 

“May I categorically state for the record that the misnomer of harm reduction is completely at odds with therapies available through pharmacist consultation and please know Madam Chair that pharmacists will take every opportunity to counter this narrative of greed and death.”

How can that NOT be viewed as a conflict of interest?

GATC’s propaganda briefing is all about NGO activity and pushing the party line – we didn’t see any reporting on what Parties had said during the actual COP proceedings (rather than the NGO planned side events).  However, that briefing is rather long and we confess we didn’t get through it all – did anyone? 

Firebreak investigation 
David Zaruk has published an excellent investigation into the 29 WHO approved civil society organisations admitted to the FCTC COP11 – Mapping Bloomberg’s Billions Against Tobacco Harm Reduction. 

Alongside that, do look at the list of NGO participants at COP11, in the Provisional list of participants, (page 49 onwards).  These include:
African Tobacco Control Alliance – 35 delegates
Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids – 31 delegates
European Network for Smoking Prevention – 38 delegates
Global Alliance for Tobacco Control – 61 delegates
Smoke-free Partnership – 10 delegates
University of Bath – 12 delegates
Vital Strategies – 6 delegates
And yet –  not one single organisation representing people with lived experience of smoking or quitting smoking using consumer products has ever graced an FCTC COP participants list.

Keeping track of COP11 progress
Now that COP11’s business is being conducted well behind closed doors we recommend you look at the daily official Journals (here’s today’s), to get a sense of how the agenda is progressing.  From some of the statements given by Parties earlier, we predict that there are stormy seas ahead for the secretariat and Bloomberg funded NGOs – we don’t see them getting many of their pet policies adopted. Let’s hope we are right. 

Good COP 2.0
The conversation you can join is TPA’s Good COP 2.0, which is taking place in Geneva and streamed on YouTube.  Everyone is welcome – if you are in Geneva and want to stop by just go to Hotel Royal Geneve and pick up a guest lanyard from the TPA reception desk on the first floor. Today’s speakers have included David Williams, Martin Cullip, Marina Murphy, Maria Papaioannoy, Gabriel Oke, Liza Katsiashvili, Heneage Mitchell, Jeffrey Zamora, Carmen Escrig, Diego Verrastro, Julio Ruades, Mark Tyndall, Roberto Sussman, Konstantinos Farsalinos, Juan Jose Cirio, Sharifa Ezat, Benjamin Elks and Jeannie Cameron. Tomorrow’s programme will have an Asia focus.   

Visit TPA’s YouTube channel to stream the live sessions and also watch back on the past two days.  And, catch RegWatch’s special coverage of Good COP 2.0 here:  https://regulatorwatch.com/brent_stafford/good-cop-2-0-day-2-of-5-regwatch-live

That’s all for today 

#THRWorks 

COP Live Day One #COP11

loremipsum

Welcome to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11.   Here we bring you our observations and impressions on day one.  

COP11 participants list
This is now published on the COP11 site:  https://storage.googleapis.com/who-fctc-cop11-source/Additional%20documents%20-%20Diverse/fctc-cop11-div-1-en.pdf 

We haven’t had much time to look at this but notice that Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids has a whopping 31 representatives at COP11, and the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) has 38.   

Live stream
According to the agenda, today and the last day are the only times we can expect to see the COP11 proceedings being live streamed (or, ‘webcast’, as it is referred to on the COP11 home page).  Today we saw the opening being streamed, the adoption of the agenda and also the various country statements given at agenda item 3.  UPDATE – there will be more livestreaming on day 2 (Tuesday) as agenda item 3 is not finished.

Also live streamed were two side events which are not part of the agenda (though designed to influence outcomes at COP):  the Ministerial roundtable (we already wrote about that here) and the Strategic Dialogue. It was easy to get these two confused, as they seemed to have the same speakers and were announced in quite different places on the COP11 site. We hope to get time to discuss those in more detail later in the week, but in the meantime please look at World Vapers Alliance’s excellent thread on X: https://x.com/vapers_alliance/status/1990409941132206241 

The agenda
The agenda was adopted quickly (unlike at COP10), to audible jubilation from the officials sitting at the front.   The agenda is here but consider instead looking at Clive Bates’ commentary on the annotated agenda, which includes analysis of most of the main items.  

The country statements
These are termed ‘general debate statements’ in the agenda but it’s not a debate in the usual sense of the word.  Delegates from various countries stood up to give an update on their progress, one after the other, but there was no discussion.  We and other tobacco harm reduction advocates listened hard, as this is the only opportunity we have to hear what our governments wish to say at COP11.  

We are analysing the statements now and hope to bring you more on those later in the week – but the headlines are that:

New Zealand gets today’s Copwatch award 🏅, with Serbia as the runner up 🎖️

…and we are bitterly disappointed in the UK and Japan, for not highlighting the role that safer nicotine products have played in their impressive reductions in smoking prevalence.   

The Philippines didn’t stick its neck out this time either, but that’s probably the effect of the five previously awarded ‘dirty ashtrays’ (never underestimate the power of the official NGO’s at FCTC COP). 

Propaganda briefings
The Global Alliance on Tobacco Control published the first of their bulletins / brainwashings this morning – see here.  It’s basically a compilation of their greatest COP11 hits, an attempt to push the Parties into following their and the FCTC secretariat’s diktats.  This, sitting on that page, looks to us like a warning to Parties not to step out of line: 

We hope to be wrong, but fear that the ashtray will be going New Zealand’s way tomorrow.

Good COP 2.0
The conversation you can join is TPA’s Good COP 2.0, which is taking place in Geneva and streamed on YouTube.  Everyone is welcome – if you are in Geneva and want to stop by just go to Hotel Royal Geneve and pick up a guest lanyard from the TPA reception desk on the first floor. Today’s speakers have included David Williams, Martin Cullip, Tikki Pangestu, Roger Bate, Clive Bates, Kurt Yeo, Juan Jose Cirion, Alberto Hernandez, Adam Hoffer, Benjamin Elks, and Carissa Düring.  You can catch up on those discussions on this YouTube link. 

That’s all for today!  

#THRWorks