Memo to all countries
In Warsaw, Parties agreed to kick-start their domestic preparations to develop post-2020 commitments. While a few brave countries will present on their progress (see corresponding box), what ECO would like to know from all countries is:
- Has your government started a process to prepare and submit ambitious targets by Lima and very latest by March 2015? Will your government meet that deadline? If not, then what needs to be done? Are you doing it? If not, start now!
- What is the science reference used to set your targets, Is it the IPCC’s 5th Assessment report? Do you aim to stay below 1,5 or 2 degrees Celsius? What likelihood are you using in your assessment of what is required by science? Do you want 90% certainty to be on the safe side, or is it 50/50 adequate? What indicators do you use when sharing (the) effort between countries?
- What about finance for adaptation and mitigation, technology, capacity building and loss and damage? Do you have a process for increasing the level of action, finance, and support for technology transfer?
- Are you planning to provide transparency on what your target is made of? Are you planning to include information that allows it to be quantified and compared as well as assessed against adequacy and equity?
Just to be clear ECO does not consider mitigation as the only element of Intended Nationally determined contributions, in fact the level of finance, technology, capacity, adaptation support and other supports required must be included in developed countries contributions.
Just to make this a bit simpler: for developed countries, the process is rather straightforward, as there can be NO backtracking from Kyoto-style commitments and the need to provide detailed information on quantified economy-wide emission reduction commitments, in addition to international support to provide finance, technology and capacity building and other support for developing country actions.
ALL countries must justify how their proposed commitments align with adequacy and equity principles.
All countries must agree on the ongoing process or review and on ratcheting up the process to scale up their contributions.
MEMO to Presenters for the In-Session Workshop on Domestic Preparations
Today some brave countries will report on how their domestic preparations for post-2020 commitments are going – also known as will update us all on how their Warsaw ‘homework’ is shaping up. ECO just wanted to take a moment to outline what it expects to hear for a few of these countries:
European Union: You get bonus points for starting your post-2020 target process early, but you are sorely lacking in ambition. Reducing emissions 40% below 1990 by 2030 domestically will simply not get us on track to a 1.5°C or 2C world; at least a 55% below 1990 levels by 2030 domestic target is necessary. ECO is also wondering about your finance contribution – details on that also seem to be lacking…
China: ECO has been so pleased to hear province after province announce a cap on coal (since last September). To prevent Chinese air quality from getting even worse, there is no other option than to peak and decline its coal consumption as early as possible. Today ECO is looking forward to hearing about the domestic preparations to ensure that all those actions being implemented today can snowball into an ambitious post-2020 commitment and how China can get international recognition for all the work it’s been doing.
United States: The USA has been excellent at telling others about the types of information that should be in post-2020 commitments (they even had a proposal on this pre-Warsaw), but they are rather far from leading when it comes to their own efforts to cut emissions. ECO is keen to hear how the USA proposes to develop a target that matters for the climate, because the current 17% one, well that’s just [removed by the Editor to respect diplomatic comity]. In coming up with this target and communicating it to the UNFCCC, ECO would like to remind the USA that there can be no backtracking from economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets using a common base year, accounting rules, and short multi-year commitment periods for developed countries. Perhaps ECO missed that in the USA’s submissions and would be please to hear the USA reaffirm that that will be the nature of its target today.
South Korea & Mexico: Being part of a group with ‘environmental integrity’ in its name, ECO looks forward to hearing about how your domestic preparations will produce post-2020 commitments that are both fair and adequate.
Saudi Arabia & United Arab Emirates: Doha was a missed opportunity to proposed concrete NAMAs, especially given all the work on renewable energy happening domestically in these countries. ECO hopes to hear that preparation for post-2020 commitments, including financial contributions to support climate action is going better.
Nepal on behalf of LDCs: ECO is excited to hear about LDC preparations for designing low-carbon development and climate resilience strategies. There is so much potential here – let’s ensure there is the climate finance available to make it happen!