Maarten van Aalst, Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, ended Day 1 with a reflection on D&C Days and events at COP: "The diversity of DCdays is only a little bit mirrored at COP. We're doing what COP needs to do.
"I'm not discounting the process here, but the negotiators need to be held to account, and the connection to the ground needs to happen so much more, like you're doing at DC days.
"We've had interesting discussions on resilience and adaptation, and loss and damage - those hard conversations to open up and let us find some solutions.
"We still need more pressure on the emissions and adaptations side at COP. There are ambitions from USA and I credit the D&C community for stressing locally-led adaptation - this is reflected in the US strategy and is something to be proud of."
Annette McGill