COP18 (01/12/12) – Suzanna Anstine Norbeck from the MBB Ambassadors Programme and Gregg Walker, Co-director of Mediators Beyond Borders talk about needing to encourage mediation in the UN climate talks.

They want to see mediation and conciliation to be added to litigation, arbitration and negotiation in the text about dispute resolution under the convention.

They talk about the complexity of trying to reach consensus in such large discussions and say what is needed is good listeners, neutral parties and transparency. They say that having more than one mediator or facilitator could also help proceedings.

They use the example of how productively the discussions of the Durban Platform have been in Doha – where there are co-chairs – compared to the LCA track of negotiations where there is just one chair.