In preparation for the next international meeting on climate change in Glasgow in November 2021, it is important to begin thinking together, not only about outcomes, but ways of improving the process of meeting, discussing, and negotiating agreements on climate change.

Mediators, facilitators, ombudsmen, and other conflict resolution professionals have had considerable experience designing effective problem solving, communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution processes over several decades, and based on my experience as a mediator and observer at the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties, it is possible for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), without significant financial investment, to significantly improve the quality of its meetings and negotiations in Glasgow and beyond, in at least the following 20 ways: 

1. Conduct in-depth, broadly inclusive, collaborative evaluations of the process used in Copenhagen, Paris, and other climate change meetings to identify what worked and what can be improved
2. Consult widely with diverse public and private sector organizations and individuals who have experience designing negotiation/dispute resolution systems and can provide ways of improving the entire negotiation process
3. Develop a comprehensive set of process recommendations for future talks, secure agreement to implement them prior to the session, and brief delegates on them before they arrive
4. Create international negotiation and conflict resolution protocols, model mediation language, and annexes to existing agreements that encourage a broad range of collaborative interest-based dispute resolution processes, including mediation, ombudsmen, facilitated dialogue, and other methods
5. Ask each delegation to future talks to include among their members one or more trained mediators, collaborative negotiators, ombudsmen, or small group facilitators who can assist in bridging differences as they occur
6. Assign one or more UN mediators or ombudsmen to every delegation, and to each small group and problem solving meeting
7. Appoint facilitators, ombudsmen, and mediators in advance for every meeting and asking them to recommend ways of improving the next one
8. Send experienced negotiators, facilitators, ombudsmen, and mediators to meet with the parties in advance of conferences and negotiating sessions to help set targets and timetables, and encourage compromises that could lead to better and quicker agreements
9. Drastically simplify and reduce the rigidity and formality of protocols, rules and official processes, especially as they effect the negotiation and agreement writing process
10. Shorten large meetings and break participants up into small, diverse, informal teams to brainstorm alternatives, agree on common goals or shared values, and reach consensus recommendations on specific problems, led by facilitators and mediators
11. Offer free trainings throughout the process for individuals, delegations and teams in collaborative negotiation, facilitation, and conflict resolution
12. Reach agreement on a variety of next steps that can be taken when consensus is not reached, including dialogue, informal problem solving, collaborative negotiation, and mediation
13. Appoint fast-forming, diverse problem solving teams with experts from all nations, regions, groups, types of alternatives and ranges of opinion, with professional facilitators and recorders to aid them in their work
14. Periodically conduct process checks to make sure everything is on track and make improvements as needed
15. Facilitate meetings of climate change experts and scientists to develop consensus-based recommendations, include them on problem solving teams, and convene meetings of diverse specialists to advise delegates on specific topics
16. Conduct frequent open dialogue sessions on critical topics without at first attempting to reach agreement, provide multiple opportunities for free-ranging small group discussions, and repeatedly elicit recommendations for better ways of reaching consensus
17. Focus not only on reaching a single comprehensive agreement, but also on reaching smaller, specialized, limited, tentative, provisional, national, regional and bloc agreements, then work to accumulate and amalgamate them into a single comprehensive draft
18. Allow facilitators to stop the process if it isn’t working, discuss what isn’t working openly, invite suggestions, and propose ways of improving it
19. Consider the entire multi-year agreement drafting process as a conflict system, and use conflict resolution systems design principles to develop better ways of responding to obstacles, impasses and conflicts as they occur 
20. Continue to search for ongoing, diverse preventative measures that can be adopted by all parties and UN organizations, that will help reduce the severity of future problems