Category: Additional Content

CAN INTERVENTION: SBI CLOSING PLENARY, COP26

November 2021

Globally, We have entered the era of loss and damage and therefore feel we must repeat that COP26 must

  • Decide to provide sufficient and needs-based Loss and Damage finance, in addition to the 100bn dollars per year. Loss and Damage finance must also be included in the post-2025 climate finance target.
  • Establish a process to identify the scale of funding needed to address Loss and Damage as well as suitable mechanisms to deliver the finance to developing countries. The outcome must be presented at COP27.
  • Support developing countries in enabling national level systems to distribute Loss and Damage finance to ensure country ownership, gender responsiveness and self-determination. This could be facilitated by the fully operationalized Santiago Network for Loss and Damage.

In addition, COP26 needs to deliver on the 1.5-degree limit. To this end, the cover decision of COP26 must therefore

  • Recognize the importance to limit warming to 1.5C
  • Recognize relevant scientific reports assessing the emissions gap & the urgency of stronger action to limit global warming to 1.5C
  • Commit to raising mitigation ambition for 2030 emissions reductions
  • Commit to phase out fossil fuels
  • And mandate the UNFCCC Secretariat to produce an updated annual NDC synthesis report, to be released prior to COP27 and COP28

CAN is extremely disappointed that human rights language was deleted from the final text of the decision on the Glasgow Work Programme on Article 12 of the Paris Agreement.
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CAN INTERVENTION: SBSTA CLOSING PLENARY, COP26

November 2021

Globally, We have entered the era of loss and damage and therefore feel we must repeat that COP26 must

  • Decide to provide sufficient and needs-based Loss and Damage finance, in addition to the 100bn dollars per year. Loss and Damage finance must also be included in the post-2025 climate finance target.
  • Establish a process to identify the scale of funding needed to address Loss and Damage as well as suitable mechanisms to deliver the finance to developing countries. The outcome must be presented at COP27.
  • Support developing countries in enabling national level systems to distribute Loss and Damage finance to ensure country ownership, gender responsiveness and self-determination. This could be facilitated by the fully operationalized Santiago Network for Loss and Damage.

In addition, COP26 needs to deliver on the 1.5-degree limit. To this end, the cover decision of COP26 must therefore

  • Recognize the importance to limit warming to 1.5C
  • Recognize relevant scientific reports assessing the emissions gap & the urgency of stronger action to limit global warming to 1.5C
  • Commit to raising mitigation ambition for 2030 emissions reductions
  • Commit to phase out fossil fuels
  • And mandate the UNFCCC Secretariat to produce an updated annual NDC synthesis report, to be released prior to COP27 and COP28

With regard to Article 6, the same troubling loopholes remain and would mean double counting and hot air carried over from the pre-Paris period.
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CAN INTERVENTION: COP/CMA/CMP CLOSING PLENARY, COP26

November 2021

COP26 was supposed to be a ‘crisis COP’, a lifeline for the millions of people living in a permanent state of crisis– losing their lives, livelihoods and homes as a result of climate impacts caused by rich polluting countries and corporations. 

We came to this COP with the hope that world leaders will respond to the needs of vulnerable peoples and communities.  The science is clear.  We are now in the era of Climate Impacts. Loss and Damage caused by climate change is happening already. Climate change is destroying lives and communities now, but yet you political leaders failed to respond to their plight. We came to Glasgow with a litmus test for you.  Provide finance on loss and damage – and you failed! We are disappointed by the betrayal of the rich nations and you, the COP Presidency, for being complicit in blocking the proposal by the G77 + China on the creation of the Glasgow Loss and Damage Finance Facility. We are also disappointed with developing countries for not standing strong in the face of this pressure and acting in the interests of their citizens.  

Incremental progress is not good enough. What we need is concrete commitments to fight the climate emergency.
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Fossil of the Day

The UK ranks first place in today ́s Fossil of the Day

Fossil of the Day goes to the UK for sticking their heads in the sand on loss and damage finance.

You know that feeling when you’ve had an absolute age to study for that crucial exam and you leave it to the very last minute to get stuck into the revision – all nighters/lots of coffee with extra sugar.

Such an ostrich-like approach to exam preparation is what we’ve seen from Boris and chums over loss and damage finance in the run up to the delayed COP26.

Not only did they have an extra year to get their house in order after the postponement, but wasn’t it blindingly obvious to everyone that there was quite a bit of groundwork to put in or did they just not get the memo?

The many calls from vulnerable countries and civil society for loss and damage finance to be a top COP priority fell on deaf ears. It was so far down the list that it didn’t even make it into the list of presidency goals.

Such inadequacy leaves us facing a frantic and dramatic conclusion to this COP (coffee with three sugars please?).
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Fossil of the Day

And it’s GOLD for Australia at last at COP26 here in Glasgow!!

Australia wins the first Fossil of the Day award this time.

The day has finally come. After bagging four fossil awards so far at COP26 Australia has now won its first GOLD (applause, please). All that hard work and effort has paid off after:

No new policies to reduce emissions or phase out fossil fuels;

Failing to deliver ambitious NDCs;

Approving three new coal projects in the last months;

Ruling out signing the Global Methane Pledge;

An ‘inaction plan’ for EVs in favour of gas guzzling cars;

Rolling out the red carpet for gas-giant Santos in their COP pavilion;

Inviting consultation on ten new areas for offshore petroleum exploration;

Not updating the 2030 target.

Now safely back in Oz, the PM has outdone himself by announcing another truly brilliant #ScottyFromMarketing plan. To keep the fossil fuel ball rolling he’s going to invest a whopping US$740 million in fossil fuel tech, such as Carbon Capture and Storage, which Australia’s public green bank is going to be forced to swallow.

All eyes are on Glasgow and draft texts at the moment but Scott John Morrison, you’re still catching our eye by flying the carbon emissions flag down under – whatever next.
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CAN INTERVENTION: HIGH-LEVEL SEGMENT, COP26

November 2021

The world is still in the midst of a pandemic exacerbated by the unequal access to vaccines. We are reminded everyday of the painful, unjust and unequally distributed losses and damages we all face, but in particular the most vulnerable countries and peoples. This is a matter of Climate Justice. It is a matter of Human Rights. People are angry, they are suffering, and you are still letting them down.

Your cover decision does not provide justice for the millions already facing loss and damage due to climate change nor does it keep 1.5C in sight to avert future worsening impacts. We need finance for loss and damage now. You must agree to establish a finance facility to do this.
This is the measure of success at this COP.

Developed countries must compensate for not keeping the $100bn promise so far. and commit to increase the share of finance going to adaptation to reach 50% by 2025. We want to see this in the cover decision.

Human Rights and Indigenous Rights have been deleted in this process. Almost all countries who pretend to champion Human Rights were willing to trade off these fundamental principles for crude opportunism. Parties have now rolled back historical victories won decades ago.
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Fossil of the Day

US ranks first in the Fossil of the Day Award for failing to take basic steps to halt fossil fuel production

Only last week in Glasgow, President Biden was talking sprints, marathons and finishing lines in the race to net zero. Seems like he’s had enough of those sporting analogies and is back to speaking the language of black gold and carbon as the U.S. is set to announce a new oil and gas drilling program off the Gulf Coast.

As fossil fuel enabler-in-chief his administration has even outdone Trump by approving over 3,000 new drilling permits on public lands. Joe has refused to stop the Line 3 pipeline, expected to transport 760,000 barrels per day, and is keeping the fossil fuel lobby happy with sweet whispers of carbon capture storage and hydrogen. And the cherry on this carbon cake – the US shunned a global pact to commit to a coal end date.

Now we know he’s ‘talked the talk’ about stopping deforestation, taken the methane pledge, agreed to boost climate finance and outlined a clean energy investment plan but until this hot air is converted into action we’re not convinced.

We may have more faith if he used his presidential powers to declare a climate emergency, stop Line 3 and, while he’s at it, end all new federal fossil fuel project permits and end oil exports.
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Fossil of the Day

First Fossil of the Day Award goes to the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of

Saudi Arabia

For the first Fossil of the Day in this second week of COP, we have a tie between Saudi Arabia and the UK for their sterling efforts in securing a weak new Work Programme on Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) which we’re now going to be lumbered with for the next decade!

First of all the UK Presidency appears to have been eager to finish work early on Friday. They dispensed with making the shaping of the text inclusive, instead pushing all parties to come to an agreement that evening, dashing the hopes of civil society organisations and youth groups, who had worked so hard, of having more time to help shape the text.

Not that it may have made any difference anyway – Saudi Arabia gets their first Fossil for manipulating the rushed and restrictive decision making process, to keep the words “human” and “rights” out of the final text. ACE!

As if by magic, or maybe by maintaining a hardline position, “Human rights-based approach” disappeared from the guiding principles. We think we can guess why those oil kings think the next generation doesn’t need a robust climate education….
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CAN INTERVENTION: INFORMAL STOCKTAKING PLENARY, COP26

November 2021

Today is Loss and Damage day.  It is a day of grief for all of us.  We are reminded of the painful, unjust and unequally distributed losses and damages we all face, but in particular the most vulnerable countries and peoples. This is a matter of Climate Justice. It is a matter of Human Rights. We are extremely outraged that the issue of Human Rights and Indigenous Rights continue to be attacked in this COP. The outrageous deletion of the references to these in the Glasgow Work Program on ACE is shocking. It must be redressed. As civil society, we have been locked out of this COP. It has proven to be the most exclusionary COP ever. If we were in the rooms we would not have allowed the deletion of Human Rights and Indigenous Rights and the pressure on Finance for Loss & Damage would be felt. 

We want to remind you that success or failure on loss and damage finance will be the litmus test for this COP. We need to leave Glasgow with an explicit decision that results in delivering Loss and Damage finance. The complete absence of support for Loss & Damage has a  direct impact on the millions of people already suffering the impacts of climate change. 
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