As you can likely imagine, we did not get to do all of that in two hours. We were instead reduced to discussing the two draft resolutions, the heads of each group vying for support and questioning both documents while vainly suggesting amendments while knowing they wouldn’t be coming due to time constraints. In the end, it would come down to Costa Rica, aided by the Netherlands, Germany, France, and other countries, versus Russia.
If it sounds kind of weird how I listed out only five names, of which four were on one side, that’s because when it came to discussing the topic, the second draft resolution was solely defended and championed by Russia, which led to a fun little time when, while Russia, Japan, China, and Saudi Arabia introduced their draft resolution, the Netherlands took away his speaking power by simply asking for someone else to respond to questions regarding the draft resolution.
At the end of the day, after the first draft resolution was questioned by Russia until he ran out of allowed questions, to which he simply passed notes to his allies to ask for him, and after Costa Rica, Netherlands, Germany, France, etc. questioned draft resolution two, a vote was called for each draft resolution to decide which one would be passed by the session.
The room was split in half, a tied vote in support and opposition for both draft resolutions, neither having a sufficient lead for the two-thirds majority needed to pass it. Perhaps we could have made amendments, canvased the delegates, and come together to make substantial progress in our efforts to combat desertification, but sadly the fifth session was over, and no one won.
Except Russia and any country that didn’t want to do anything about climate change, of course. Passing nothing worked pretty well for them, so making ours a hung-session was probably Russia’s plan, and obstructing progress seems to be easier than getting thirty-some people to work together.
And that was the JPHMUN model United Nations I attended. Three days of waking up early and going to bed late, of hours of sessions and meetings, caucuses and discussions for hours on end to try and get a resolution to solving Desertification and Land Degradation, and in the end? Nothing was actually done because of Russia. Probably a lesson there. I had a lovely time, though, and it gave me a chance to get some easy writings done to let me take a break and recover from late nights and a lot of work.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this! Or were bored and this let you pass the time a bit. Eh. Anyways, have a lovely day, and see you tomorrow at eight AM for something not to do with a model United Nations.