Tagged: Technology

14 Mar, 2014

Post-2020 contributions — information needed!

ECO appreciates the efforts made by several countries in their submissions this month to address the issue of the types of information Parties should submit with their initial post-2020 nationally determined mitigation contributions. A paper launched this week by the World Resources Institute outlines how this information could vary for countries whose contributions are in the form of economy-wide GHG mitigation goals, versus for those countries putting forward intensity-based or sectoral contributions, policy-based contributions, or contributions consisting of discrete projects or NAMAs.

Clarity and transparency of contributions is important to:

Build confidence in the robustness of the economic, technological, and policy assumptions underlying the proposed national contributions;
Enable comparison with other Parties;
Improve the assessments of individual country and collective global emissions reductions resulting from the proposed contributions; and
Foster a constructive dialogue amongst Parties on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and how they translate into the level of ambition and effort undertaken by each Party.

ECO underlines the need for Parties to make substantial progress on this issue at the next Bonn session in June, as many countries are already starting to prepare their national contributions. The earlier that Parties have clarity on what information is going to be expected of them, the better.
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10 Mar, 2014

ECO’s 1-2-3 for Parties at this ADP

Has the extreme winter weather that’s gripped North America, the devastating flooding in the UK or the [insert your own top-of-mind climate-related disaster here] made a case for more ambitious action with you and your Party yet? If not, the release of Working Group II’s 5th assessment report on climate impacts at the end of this month surely will. ECO has long said 2014 must be the year of ambition, so let’s start off on the right foot and make the most of our five days together in Bonn.

There are 3 tasks this ADP session must deliver on to ensure that a draft text is developed by Lima and that countries come to the Ban Ki-moon Summit with ambitious pledges for Paris to close the gap in the near-term.

EIN: Agree on the structure and process for developing a draft negotiating text for this year. We all know what building blocks will form the basis of the deal in Paris — mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building — but now it’s time to get into the specifics. It’s imperative that critical elements, like the legal architecture for the 2015 agreement including the compliance regime; an MRV framework that will ensure transparency and environmental integrity; a review mechanism to ratchet up ambition over time; and progress on fleshing out the loss and damage mechanism agreed in Warsaw, not fall off the table.
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10 Mar, 2014

Cheers to the Technology Executive Committee!

ECO has noticed with great appreciation that the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) is continuing to move towards greater transparency. Ever since its inception 2 years ago, the TEC has laid the foundation for transparency with their adoption of webcasting and inclusion of observers in thematic dialogues. In the meeting that just ended last week, the TEC outshone its own record of inclusiveness by inviting BINGO; RINGO; ENGO; and IGO observers to take part in many of the thematic task forces. To boot, the secretariat will begin to post notes of the meetings on the TT: Clear website.
ECO toasts the TEC members and secretariat, especially Chair Gabriel Blanco and Vice-Chair Kuni Shimada, for their insightful leadership. Congratulations TEC – cheers to you!
Other thematic bodies, you’re invited to follow suit.

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5 Sep, 2012

Get Technology’s “Boots On the Ground” Grounded

We stand at the precipice of what could be the final stroke of the LCA at COP18 in Doha, and the conversation is turning ever more to the question of how political decisions for various elements of the LCA that have not been fully resolved will be handled post-COP18. ECO sees that the discussion on technology transfer, which cuts across mitigation and adaptation, provides a stark view of what’s at stake if the LCA’s closing is not properly done, in the light of the sometimes yawning gap between the understandings of developed and the developing countries.

If you mark the IPCC Assessment Report 1 (1990) as the starting point, the discussion on technology transfer has been ongoing for more than two decades. That’s a lot of work to sit idle if the Technology Mechanism suddenly faced a lack of support, and a staggering missed opportunity to close the mitigation gap and address the growing need for climate adaptation.

As it now stands, the Technology Mechanism lacks full funding even on a short-term basis, its governance and reporting structure are incomplete, its linkages with other bodies inside the Convention are hampered by the chicken/egg dilemma, its cross-cutting support for NAMAs and NAPAs/NAPs is uncertain and ill-defined, and the conversation on what is likely the most political decision of all – how priorities are to be set within the TEC and CTCN – has barely been broached, if at all.
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