LPAA: No Gate Crashers

Saturday was the Action Day—a big party to celebrate initiatives by non-state actors, subnational entities and national governments. While ECO would like to dance the night away with some guests that promote real solutions benefiting people and climate, like renewable energy and energy efficiency, ECO would hate to have gate crashers. That includes false solutions and greenwashing big polluters, such as Total and other members of the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership.

Companies and initiatives that are not serious about the transition to a world without fossil fuel emissions simply should not be part of the LPAA, and business as usual in any of the 12 sectors of the LPAA is not acceptable.

Initiatives should have to provide real and significant benefits, in terms of emissions reductions or enhanced resilience. They should set themselves specific and measurable commitments and be willing to follow up on them with regular reporting. ECO wants to stress that initiatives also need to respect principles such as human rights, environmental integrity, and food sovereignty. Such criteria should be enshrined not only in the LPAA, but also in the Workstream 2 decision to inform high-level events in the future. And without a bouncer (ombudsperson), it won’t be much of a party.