Patricia Espinosa, Welcome!

Ms. Espinosa—a hearty welcome back to the climate scene in your new role as UNFCCC Executive Secretary. Now is a crucial time for action, and we don’t want to waste it with formalities, so let’s just say—bienvenida y muchas felicidades.

We know that you have already rolled up your sleeves for the big tasks ahead. ECO will be a true companion in your new adventure—providing useful insights on the UNFCCC negotiations throughout your journey. We hope that you will be an advocate for climate issues on all fronts, to ensure the importance of the climate change is elevated to the level required for enabling true global action. Here are some pointers for the way ahead:

With the diplomatic success of the Paris Agreement behind us, we are now moving from ratification to implementation. ECO counts on you to play a central role in ensuring early entry into force and fostering increased ambition from countries to close the emission gap and get on track for 1.5ºC.

In the appointed high-level champions on the Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA), you have 2 powerful advocates to help strengthen the pre-2020 process and early action. The Technical Examination Processes for mitigation and adaptation need to be results-focused and identify concrete next steps to overcome barriers to scaling-up specific, credible and impactful initiatives. The success of the GCAA rests on the robustness of the criteria for the participation and accountability measures in place.

To increase ambition on climate action, a careful process will be required to ensure that the 2016 and 2018 facilitative dialogues and the 2023 Global Stocktake are successful. These are key institutional elements, and ECO strongly advises their careful design and planning, including the modalities of the Global Stocktake. These are moments to enhance political momentum and increase ambition.

Civil society plays a pivotal role in all aspects and levels of effective climate policies. ECO has constantly raised concerns about shrinking civil society space in the UNFCCC, with increased closed meetings in informal negotiation settings. ECO counts on you to take up this matter to ensure that the UNFCCC adheres to the principles enshrined in the Aarhus Convention. Civil society can play a key role in getting countries to revise their inadequate NDCs and to maintain momentum for increased political will.

Finally, the geopolitical and macroeconomic issues in leaving fossil fuels behind us are huge. They involve powerful multinationals transforming their business models and entire countries transforming their economies. But it must be done, and we need leaders who are willing to say this repeatedly and openly. ECO hopes that you are one of these many needed leaders.