Over the past two days, world leader after world leader took to the podium to boast about their climate action.
Many spoke about the urgent need for greater action this decade to keep 1.5°C alive.
Yet few of them pointed to ambition’s twin sibling – accountability.
COP26 is a crucial moment to hold world leaders’ feet to the fire and start the process of scrutinising politicians’ commitments to climate action. In Glasgow, this begins with kickstarting the Global Stocktake (GST).
ECO doesn’t need to remind you that in Paris, governments agreed that the GST would monitor collective progress of countries over time. This provides a periodic check-in, and indication on whether, how, and where ambition needs to be adjusted in order to make sure we meet all three Paris Agreement goals.
In other words, it ensures that the Paris Agreement is fulfilling its mandate to protect people from the impacts of climate change and support them to mitigate, adapt, and address loss and damage. It is the only way to reduce the climate risks to people and nature around the world.
The GST is a key guarantor of the Paris Agreement. It will be the process where Parties, in front of the global community, have to explain their efforts, or lack thereof.
It should also be the moment to ensure transparency of non-state actor commitments under the UNFCCC, whose engagements could also be assessed at such an occasion.
ECO wants a strong, robust political moment in 2023, and today – the first day of GST informal consultations – is the start.
ECO is ready to talk about the sources of inputs, the collection of inputs from non-party stakeholders, the assessment of non-state climate action, the guiding questions that should be asked to Parties…. We have many recommendations and ideas on how to design a participatory and inclusive GST, enabling a higher ambition and climate justice – and crucially, one that turbocharges much-needed action and attention on loss and damage.
During the SBs sessions in June, the role and contributions of non-state actors were
recognised as highly important by the Parties. Now, at COP26, it is time to work together to bring this expertise into the process. We demand that civil society and Indigenous Peoples form part of these discussions, and be supported to engage fully in the Global Stocktake.