Good News from the United Nations Climate Talks in Bonn

The subsidiary bodies of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Bonn, Germany, this week and next to try to draft rules for implementing the Paris climate treaty. There is no end to the good news.
 
First, the United States has sent a low-level team of career State Department employees. This is from Inside Climate News: “‘People are trying to figure out how do you keep progress in the system without the U.S. as an active and positive contributor,’ said Alden Meyer, the director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists who has been attending these meetings for decades.”
 
Second, the developing countries just aren’t seeing the cash that they were promised in return for cooperating in the Paris charade. Here is a story by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian: “Finance for poor countries to help them reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and deal with climate change is lagging behind the promises of rich countries, an Oxfam report finds. While taxpayer-funded finance has increased, and the private sector has stepped up with some initiatives, the amount raised could still fall short of the goal of providing $100bn a year to the developing world by 2020.
 
Third, and perhaps most shocking of all, Climate Home News reports that: “Of the 39 side events with announced speakers at talks in Bonn, which started on Monday, just one third have an equal gender balance or majority of women on their panel. 65% of all listed speakers are male.” There is an asterisk: “These figures do not distinguish between people who may not identify as male or female, or either.” This conflicts with the UNFCCC’s executive secretary’s commitment to the International Gender Champions Initiative.