CAN News Blog

ECO letter to COP28 President

Dear COP28 President,
 
When you graciously invited the world to come to Dubai to attend COP28, you repeatedly assured us that your North Star would be science and the absolute necessity of limiting warming to 1.5°C. You told us you were committed to deliver the “most ambitious response” to the climate crisis.
 
ECO is sorry to let you know that the new GST text published yesterday makes a mockery of these claims. ECO was expecting to see the mitigation section of the new draft reflect the clear call from science and more than 100 countries calling for a full and fair phase out of fossil fuels. Instead, we had an incoherent, weak and vague menu of energy options that parties “could” implement and that are so far removed from what is needed to limit warming to 1.5°C that AOSIS has already called it its “death certificate”. 
 
ECO would like to repeat a clear message: your COP will be a complete failure unless it secures an agreement for a full, fast, fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels. The operationalization of the Loss and Damage fund was a major achievement of COP28, with some more work remaining to strengthen it. But the only way to deliver a truly historic COP  is through a clear, strong, 1.5°C aligned deal on fossil fuel phase out that is rooted in justice and equity.
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Keeping the balls up: Juggling the GGA

People who run circuses tell ECO that it’s only after the show, when the real work starts. As tents are dismantled, the planning, training and checking the details start straight away for the next show to be perfect for its audience.

We all knew that COP28 was when the framework should have been ready. But there was no proper effort at actually working on the product until the middle of this year. And the decision makers were still less involved. So when they came to take a look here, it was as if they were back to the start. Let ECO remind you, that for the people engulfed by floods, parched by droughts, swept by hurricanes, and especially those with the least resources to respond, the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) means the difference between life and death.

We cannot leave COP28 without any outcome on GGA. The GGA framework must have ambitious quantitative and qualitative targets with timelines and backed with finance and aligned with the NCQG and a clear roadmap on delivering the finace. 

Adaptation funding that does not increase the debt burden must be defined and more than doubled from the putative levels of 2019. The Adaptation Gap report reminded us that the funding scale must be increased by 10 to 18 times from the current levels.
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Let the JTWP Rock!

Few amongst you may know that ECO is a music composer in our free time. One day, while marching for a just and equitable phase out of fossil fuels, and for making the Paris Agreement real in every sector of the economy, ECO came up with the idea of creating a rock band. Our songs would be inspired by the struggles and power of all the people – workers and communities – who have been fighting for their rights and for a just transition that puts them front and centre. Our band’s name will be JTWP (Work Programme on Just Transition Pathways).

Parties gave us some musical instruments to start with (a scope that covers workers and decent work, social dimensions, international cooperation, participation) and we have the right tempo (dialogues, high level ministerial, annual decisions). 

But we can’t start yet. There is still noise around us. Bracketed text on unilateral measures and labour rights has not been solved, and we hear our song if we’re not all in tune. 

The risk for our band to break up before even playing a song is very real, so ECO is worried. 

Does the Presidency hear the urgent need to have JTWP up and playing and singing strong over the noise?
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What choice will you make? Will you reject this menu of dead rats?

Attention! Ministers, Heads of Delegation, and diplomats. 

ECO has a message for you: Today you have the chance to make history. Or perhaps tomorrow. Or even the day after. If possible ahead of 2030, and well ahead of 2050.

This could be the week that governments make history in the Dubai Expo City. The next days could be an inflection point that helps put the world on track for a future beyond fossil fuels, powered by renewable energy, and with global heating limited to below 1.5ºC. That’s entirely in your hands.

But there is another possibility. We are already seeing the previews of that possibility now, as cyclones rage and wildfires burn. That is the path we risk if you accept the menu full of dead rats, that is last night’s paragraph 39 of the GST draft text, and so fail to agree to a rapid, equitable and funded phase out of fossil fuels. It might serve incumbent interests and billionaires for now, but it won’t serve your country’s people – and it won’t serve you for very long.

ECO would like to remind Ministers that the science is clear: the objectives of the Paris Agreement can only be achieved through a complete phase out of oil, coal and gas production and use.
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The South Starts to Shine in Belém 

It is the end of the year and for many, Christmas is in the air. ECO wished for this COP28 to deliver substance, to dive deep into what is needed and urgent in every aspect of the Dubai Agenda: from an effective and trustable Loss and Damage Fund to an adequate finance and adaptation framework and a clear and unambiguous signal to end the fossil fuel era. 

After 200 years of immeasurable damage and bogus gains of the fossil fuel industry, all this seems right to have. But it looks like the Grinch (or is it just a fossil fuel lobbyist in disguise?) is whispering more closely and loudly into the negotiator’s ears. Again the cream is taken out of the cake. Empty shelves. Bare house. The substance is taken out of the Gender Action Plan, the NCQG, and might not be found at the GGA. 

But there is a ray of light (…and I feeeeeel like I just got home…And I feeeeel…) when we open the window, and it is about the insistence of the Environment Minister of Colombia to put the hard issue of transforming our economy and shifting away from our addiction to fossil fuels into every conversation.
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