COP29 Erasure – COP29 Media Center Crippled

Tuesday, 19 November 2024, 1:32 am
Article: Alastair Thompson

The official video record of COP29 is being erased every 12 hours & nobody here knows

The Media Center for UNFCCC COP meetings was transformed in 2021 in Glasgow during the UK Presidency of the COP. The new high tech set up has cameras in all official meeting places recording the events in full. The content from this system is then made available to media in the MEDIA Center via the IBC (Interational Broadcast Center) platform.

The center also has desks for several hundred journalists to work during the COP.

The content recorded using the system each day includes:

- Press Conferences

- Side Event Meetings (Civil Society and Nation State organized thematic meetings

- Plenary Meetings held in the large halls

- And (I think) negotiations meetings.

For the past four years I have been one of the users of this system and have posted content obtained from the system to youtube from the Glasgow (Scotland), Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt) and Dubai (UAE) COPs to my channel which can be found here.

And it is because of this that I became aware that something had changed on Friday.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

The first signs came on Thursday day four (14 November 2024) of COP29 last week during the first week of the COP. Ordinarily reporters attending COPs can request access to get files downloaded through a media desk. This can be useful to extract quotes or report on events that we are unable to attend due to timetable clashes etc.

A small team then provides us with the files recorded by the system locally on USB sticks or portable storage drives.

Content can also be obtained by broadcast media in audio and video streams in multiple languages when there is translation provided via an array of around 100 terminals used by TV Broadcasters, technically able journalists and documentary makers to find and download content directly.

Files can be output from this system in multiple languages easily so they can be be used in different countries.

Some content is also live streamed (webcasted) and this is accessible via the UNFCCC website. I do not know whether this content is affected or not at this stage. I think not.

For the past four years all of this content has also been archived by the UFCCC which is based in Bonn Germany, presumably for historical purposes.

However the cost of that storage has become an issue it seems - and maybe also the costs of running the IBC.

My understanding from sources close to the issue is that the cost of this archiving system is one of the reasons for this change.

That said, all the content being currently recorded here at COP29 is being stored locally on the same storage array system that was deployed in the UK, Egypt and Dubai.

Therefore cost do not appear to be reasons for the video and audio recordings to be deleted every 12 hours, nor for the recording files to not be available in the media center throughout the duration of the COP29 meeting as has historically been the case. A strange decision that has the effect of making most of the content inaccessible as it takes some time for recordings to be available to be downloaded from the interfaces in the IBC.

Meanwhile not only has the rationale for deletion not been discussed either publicly by the Presidency or the UNFCCC with parties - it has not been discussed privately either.

And as of right now hardly anyone here at COP knows that this is happening – unless they are actively seeking to access the content like me and cannot do so.

I think it would be reasonable to guess that the number of items being deleted each day is probably over 50 and maybe under 1000 - excluding videos of negotiations if these are also being recorded (I will try to find out if they are shortly).

Discovery of this issue

On Thursday last week – on day four (14 November 2024) of COP29 – the system changed, and as I use the system regularly and have done for the past 4 years I noticed quickly.

Only three videos were available on Thursday 14th November.

And a similar small number came through on Friday 15th November.

And the same limited access permissions also applies to the self use Audio Visual terminals used by broadcasters to access files.

From Thursday, 14 November 2024 on only the recorded items which are marked as “for archive” by the team setting up the files for recording are available for on both of the systems in the media center aka the IBC or International Broadcast Center.

All content not marked "For archive" is being deleted in a rolling process every 12 hours. As a result nearly all of the content recorded on Thursday (day 4, 14 November 2024) and Friday (day 5, 15 November 2024) of COP29 has already been deleted, vanished down the digital media memory hole.

From a media access issue the issue is worse than this. Files - especially large files from events like plenaries - can take hours to be processed and made available – I would guess that roughly half of the content is deleted before it can even be offered to be made available to participants because they have left the venue already and are asleep.

So at a practical level this means that nearly all of the video coverage of COP29 is being deleted – in near real time.

But perhaps worst of all and most importantly – as far as I can tell the decision to make these changes suddenly half way through the COP came before anybody at COP29 - including the negotiating parties - was informed of this change.

And this raises COP Governance Issues

The fact that nobody knows about any of this here in the COP yet - and that concern of this is only just surfacing at the beginning of the second week suggests that the parties to the COP - i.e. the nation states with delegations attending it - were not consulted. Contacts in several civil society groups who have close eyes on the COP also confirmed last night that this is the case.

I will seek confirmation of this shortly from the "Conference Affairs" coordination office which I understand made this decision.

But some understanding of the unusual nature of this development can be deduced through a brief discussion of the legal status of the meeting and how it is governed.

“COP” stands for “Conference of the Parties” in this case to the UNFCCC Treaty aka the UN Framework Convention On Climate Change or the UNFCCC.

Legally the COP is its own governing body a i.e. it is a Treaty Party led process and the parties to convention meeting here in Baku are in charge of proceedings. And given the impact of this change they would have been expected to be told.

But it appears however that neither the Presidency which is currently held by Azerbaijan, nor the UNFCCC Secretariat who pays for and runs the Audio Visual Infrastructure in the IBC informed anyone about what is happening. And nor has any explanation of this been provided to the media in the media center yet.

Post Script 1: Around an hour ago there was an incident outside one of the press conference rooms – the one that is closest to the Media Center. It was a technical staff member who was complaining about pay and employment issues. The UN police were called to the incident. It seems possible that this may be related financially to what is happening to the IBC, i.e. that the UNFCCC and Presidency are dismissing some of the local staff hired to help with the Audio Visual work. (note however that this is speculative.)

Postscript 2: The apparent explanation for the issues with the IBC all relate to cost. For many years the UNFCCC itself has been short of funds and these issues have become worse in recent years as nation states have been withholding payment of their contributions.

In 2016-2020 the US withdrew entirely from the UNFCCC and Donald Trump says he will do so again. And these factors may well be part of the reason that this is happening.

… CONTINUING STORY.

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

Contact Alastair Thompson

• Linkedin
• Twitter - @althecat
• Facebook
• Email - alastair@scoop.co.nz