Category: Previous Issues Articles

Dear Ministers, we need to talk! And frankly, before we do so, you need to learn to listen.

500,000 people were out on the streets of Madrid, marching for an outcome from this COP25 that adequately responds to the climate emergency. When you arrive here, you do so after a year that witnessed the rise of a historic climate movement as well as further aggravation of climate impacts. ECO is quite stunned by how ministers from large emitters praised the young people fighting for their future in an almost effortlessly self-serving manner while failing to taking substantive action.

ECO will not let you leave Madrid without listening to the demands of the young people, front line communities, and Indigenous Peoples. Coming to Madrid, you must respond to the people and the science. So far you have failed; take Madrid as an opportunity to change that. For ECO, this entails urgently enhancing NDCs, prioritizing environmental integrity, and delivering new and additional finance for loss and damage.

Here are some starting points for our conversation:

ECO is quite excited that Denmark’s ambitious climate target of reducing emissions by 70% by 2030 was just made binding this week. There is no reason why, as ministers from high emitting countries, you cannot give some clear signals of commiting to something similar here in Madrid.
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ECO is excited to see Annex I Parties participating in the multilateral assessment for their biennial reports. ECO welcomes the participation and thinks the multilateral assessment can be a great place to share lessons learned and experiences with other Parties in a constructive environment. We look forward to hearing your presentations and Q&A sessions throughout the day. 

Since ECO can’t ask questions during these workshops, we figured we’d share our questions with you anyway:

• To all Parties:
  • Can you provide an update on any action taken to strengthen policy-making processes? In particular in relation to public access to information and public participation; so as to improve climate responses and promote policy coherence in the context of progress made towards meeting your commitments under the UNFCCC.
• Luxembourg:
  • What reductions in car use (and consequently, CO2 emission reductions) do you expect to achieve from your initiative to make public transport in Luxembourg cost free for users beginning in April 2020? Could you elaborate on the steps taken to secure the political support for the necessary investments in public transport? 
• New Zealand:
  • The 2019 Greenhouse Gas Inventory shows that New Zealand’s gross emissions increased by 2.2% between 2016 and 2017, continuing a trend of average annual growth in gross emissions of 0.8% per year since 1990.

Our Land – Our Breath – Our Oceans

By Johnny Issaluk, Arctic Ambassador, Explorer in Residence – Royal Canadian Geographical Society

         Growing up in Igluligaarjuk (Chesterfield Inlet), Nunavut, Canada, on the west coast of Hudson’s Bay, I was graced with the traditions and riches of my Inuit culture. With a population of 300 people, my community is very remote and the only way in or out is by airplane, boat, or snowmobile. With ice and snow seven months of the year, we are people of the land and ice. This is my favourite season for hunting and keeping our traditions strong and alive!

         Born in 1973, I was fortunate to see the lifestyle of my people, and how we live off the land and the ocean during the two-month summers, one-and-a-half-month fall, the seven months ice and snow, and one-and-a-half-month spring. My parents taught me to hunt respectfully, keep the land clean, and to enjoy the lakes’ and oceans’ freshness and gifts of life, such as oil from fat, food from animals, water, fresh air, and the distances traveled by dog teams or snowmobiles to see vast parts of our land which we also walked and swam.

         While walking, boating, and sledding I have always seen driftwood, which has floated to the Arctic since time immemorial and which has always been used because no trees grow in the permafrost.
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ECO has heard that finance ministers generally like talking about numbers and money. That is great, because the lack of money is something which hinders the necessary transformation in many countries. Greater financial support from rich countries can help shift political will towards more climate action in developing countries. So here is some inspiration for finance ministers, as well as finance negotiators, to tackle the climate finance gap:

GCF: time for the laggards to step up

ECO welcomes the pledges that were already made earlier this year to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) of close to US$9.7 billion, with some countries doubling their original pledges. While much more is needed, ECO’s eyes this week will be on ministers arriving from countries who have not stepped up to at least double their contribution, or have not pledged at all. Australia and the United States: shame on you for continuing to ignore the climate crisis and the needs of the most vulnerable communities. ECO was also disappointed that countries like Canada, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Finland, and Belgium did not double their pledges or provided their fair share at the replenishment conference in Paris. Ministers, make the best use of your time in Madrid: scale up your GCF contribution! 
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After many hours of waiting on Saturday, ECO was dismayed when it searched the new texts for human rights, safeguards, and clarity on an ITMO definition and found that nothing was there. Sure, there are fewer brackets, but fewer brackets do not magically translate to successful rules that ensure carbon markets won’t lead to harming people and the planet, undermining the Paris Agreement entirely. 

ECO was pleased last week when it heard more countries speaking about the need to include human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples in the rules for Article 6. So, imagine ECO’s dismay when it searched through the text and couldn’t find mention of human rights or social and environmental safeguards. Instead it found only a placeholder for elements of the Paris Agreement preamble. But it’s not about having elements from the preamble, it’s about ensuring that the carbon markets under the Paris Agreement don’t become a tool that allows for the harming of people and the planet. Human rights are not negotiable!

ECO also searched desperately for some clarity on what an Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcome (ITMO) is. Under article 6, countries will create ITMOs, buy ITMOs, use ITMOs… But does anyone understand what an ITMO actually is?
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It’s really a pretty straightforward question: What should the time frame of NDCs be?

ECO is dumbfounded at the approach Parties have taken to the negotiations on this issue during the COP. After failing to reach agreement on draft conclusions and how to capture the progress from this session in their supposed final session on Friday, the SBI chair gave negotiators an extra 30 minutes. However, 75 minutes later, Parties were still in the same place, despite the co-facilitator’s valiant efforts to keep the common time frames negotiations within the scheduled time frame. 

On Friday, Brazil introduced a provocative option, but by Saturday morning had worked diligently with Switzerland to replace the provocative option with fairly good alternative options (ECO applauds the efforts of Brazil, Switzerland, EIG, and others  who worked to advance suitable options). However, it seemed Parties were determined to load the informal note with nonsensical options, including China, who, on behalf of LMDC, proposed differentiated time frames for mitigation, adaptation, and finance components of NDCs and even proposed differentiated time frames for developing vs. developed country Parties. In addition, they seemed determined to spend a fair bit of time reading these lengthy new options into the record. All these theatrics, and a lengthy debate about bracketing a footnote, and we’re right back where we started: Nowhere!
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ECO is in shock after discovering yesterday that biodiversity and just transition are missing from the elements for decision 1/CP.25!

ECO has a difficult life making choices sometimes. We grapple with choosing which sandwich to eat for lunch or which pavilion has the best coffee. So we sympathise with Parties who have spent a lot of time struggling to decide on their preference for common NDC time frames, debating between 5 years, 10 years, or a 5+5 option.

But it was an insult that only two hours were allocated at COP25 to discuss and agree how to progress on such an important ambition-related issue. Yesterday, it all fell apart. Brazil was provocative with its new proposed option, including to consider the periodicity of the global stocktake (even though Brazil admitted this suggestion was all for show). China passionately reminded everyone in the room that this is a Party-driven process – whilst trying to remove text from another Party. Canada and Australia suggested the issue doesn’t need to be decided until 2023, and the US further suggested the issue needn’t be discussed again until 2022. The US was outdone though by, good friend of climate action, Saudi Arabia who suggested that the issue not even be discussed until 2023. Miraculously, the EU is no longer the ones kicking this can the furthest down the road. 
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With fists up, banners high, and hearts ablaze with conviction, over 500,000 people took to the streets of Madrid last night to strike for climate action. ECO was on the Paseo del Prado to join the marchers — led by the Fridays For Future youth movement — and judging by the emptiness of IFEMA yesterday afternoon, so was most of the COP. 

The massive march, hailed as one of the largest ever public mobilisations in Spain, was one of hundreds of climate strikes around the world this and last Friday to demand increased ambition to address the climate crisis. Ending with a rally at Nuevos Ministerios where civil society delegates collectively read through the People’s Summit 6D Manifesto, the march was a beautiful reminder of the growing diversity of the world’s climate movement. More and more people are demanding real action from their governments on mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage. 

ECO senses something very different in the air at COP during this year of striking for the climate. No longer is the ‘climate movement’ something to be merely nodded to in plenary speeches — it has taken over the conversation, and its fingerprints are everywhere at IFEMA. Governments are gathered in Madrid just two months after more than 8.7 million people took to the streets for this September’s global climate strikes, marking one of the largest mobilizations in world history. 
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We’re almost halfway through COP25 and carbon markets remain the talk of the day. The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which was co-founded by Shell, is going full speed ahead to keep markets high on the agenda. Yesterday, the IETA pavilion hosted six side events on the topic. This is no coincidence. 

Last year in Katowice, the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant Shell used the pavilion to boast about its role in getting carbon markets into the Paris Agreement. At an IETA side-event a Shell representative said: “We can take some credit for the fact that Article 6 is even there at all”.

This year, the oil and gas company is back. It is calling for a “simple but rigorous rulebook that … encourages large scale transactions”.But why exactly is Shell so eager to get its way with carbon markets? Maybe because markets could allow Shell to continue producing more oil and gas. On Thursday, the report “Oil, Gas and the Climate” showed that Shell has the second highest projected increase in oil and gas production in the next five years. On the same day, Shell was back at its favourite spot, speaking at an IETA side-event about “markets for natural solutions,” alongside bddies Chevron and BP.
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