Category: Previous Issues Articles

Over the past eight days, ECO was quite pleased to hear that all negotiators seem to agree on the added value of the Adaptation Fund (AF). Quick reminder: the AF is a successful institution with well-functioning governance which provides full-cost grant financing to small-scale concrete adaptation activities. It is focused on the most vulnerable populations, very often through direct access for developing country institutions. This is exactly the kind of adaptation funding we need — and we need much, much more of it!.

ECO was surprised that some developed country Parties are pushing to have additional seats on the Fund’s Board for contributors. Though strangely, these are the same Parties opposing a decision encouraging contributions. But contributors who are willing to engage in the Fund’s Board can easily do so through the seats assigned to their region or constituency. Why change something that works?

For ECO, one thing seems very obvious: there is a need to take a clear decision here in Katowice to secure the Fund’s future serving the Paris Agreement. And there is no need to change the AF’s well-functioning model.

The AF does not need changes to its operating model – but it will need sustainable, adequate and predictable resources to operate.

ECO has been searching the text of (former) APA agenda items and other PAWP agenda items (we’re looking at you, Article 6) for mentions of human rights and was dismayed to find these references few and far between. It seems that somewhere on the way to Katowice, Parties have forgotten entirely about their commitment to rights even though they have all signed on to at least one human rights agreement, not to mention the Paris Agreement. Is there an amnesia epidemic?

As ECO has pointed out, a respect for human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, gender equality, public participation, just transition, ecosystem integrity and protection of biodiversity, food security, and intergenerational equity should drive the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Efforts to address climate change shouldn’t violate people’s rights or destroy the environment. Respecting and protecting rights goes hand in hand with climate actions and will enhance it, not impede it. Market mechanisms are no exception. They should respect rights, protect the environment, serve people and create (co-)benefits, not the opposite.

In its word search, ECO was pleased to see human rights references in Article 6, but this joy was brief upon realizing that every mention was in brackets. Parties seem to be questioning what human rights have to do with carbon markets.

They thought they could hide behind the soot and smog of Katowice, but not today! Let’s welcome back Australia to the scoreboard – where have you been?

The Aussies are big on transparency and have a robust system of greenhouse gas accounting and reporting on emissions at home, which is why we know they have had four years of rising emissions after scrapping a successful emissions trading system. So how will they meet their target?

Through carbon credits, of course! While their neighbour New Zealand came out this week and announced they will not use Kyoto Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) to meet their Paris target, Australia has remained silent in transparency and accounting in anticipation of using its hundreds of millions of credits to meet its target in a canter.

Let’s be clear: Australia is not interested in reducing emissions. It saddled up to the Trump sideshow on coal to promote its fossil fuel exports as well as Carbon Capture and Storage technology. At home, its Energy Minister is fast tracking plans to use taxpayer dollars to build new coal-fired power stations!

So, welcome back, Australia – don’t you think it is finally time to wake up and smell the smog?

So far, it is safe to say that the Arab Group has not covered itself with climate ambition glory in Katowice. With Saudi Arabia at its helm, the Arab Group has been fighting fiercely to strip the impending COP decision of ambition, notably by refusing to recognize the importance of the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C.

However, against all odds, a little Arab country is standing up to its bigger and richer brothers by refusing to reject the science.

In a somewhat unnoticed intervention during the Talanoa Dialogue, the Lebanese delegation declared that it “strongly welcomes” the IPCC report and committed to both revise its NDCs and develop a long-term decarbonisation strategy by 2020.

The head of delegation concluded their story by stating that “ambition is contagious, so let’s spread it!” ECO hopes that some of this ambition will pollinate other Arab countries. It won’t have to travel far…

We’re nearing the end and we’re not quite sure how much progress you’ve made in advancing the transparency negotiations. So we won’t take so much of your time, we just want to provide a couple of comments on the important issues in the transparency discussions.

• ECO is quite concerned with the proliferation of “encouragement” in the transparency text instead of ‘should’ or ‘shall’ requirements. Having strong transparency rules is a way to increase ambition and that is something we all ‘shall’ do!
• Flexibility and providing support are key to facilitating improved reporting and transparency over time – and that’s the goal, right? Flexibility should be provided to those Parties that do not have the requisite capacity, but, once Parties have the capacity, they should no longer use flexibility. Improvement plans are a great tool to help Parties plan to build their capacity over time.
• It is important to transition to the Paris Agreement’s enhanced transparency framework as soon as possible. ECO suggests that the first biennial transparency reports should be submitted in 2022 in order to inform the first Global Stocktake and to show the rest of the world that you are moving forward and building momentum for the Paris system.

With this afternoon’s plenary, the Talanoa Dialogue will come to a close. After a year of listening to the stories, perspectives and solutions put forward by Parties and non- Parties alike, and absorbing the unsettling implications of the IPCC SR 1.5°C, ECO is convinced that the way forward is now clear.

To have any chance of staying below 1.5°C and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, Parties must significantly enhance their current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 2020. With its decision the COP should provide very clear direction for countries to raise ambition.

Fortunately, as many contributors to the Talanoa Dialogue noted, the necessary actions need not be costly for countries to adopt —and in fact they can provide substantial economic and development benefits. ECO was thrilled to hear about all the solutions, benefits, and actions that are taken by non-party stakeholders on domestic, regional and international levels.

Since the original NDCs were put on the table in 2015, advances in technology, policy and finance have meant that a significant and growing array of climate solutions are cheaper and more effective than higher-carbon alternatives. These solutions can increase the overall well-being, and advance a countries’ development goals, even before climate impacts are considered.

A lot is at stake at COP24 in the last days.

The IPCC special report on 1.5°C made clear how urgent climate action is, and that impacts already occurring today require immediate measures to, in particular, protect the poorest and most vulnerable.

It is abundantly clear that more finance is needed for loss and damage. We’ve seen developing countries face impacts to the tune of 200% of their GDP in one hurricane that has been amplified by climate change.

Listening to statements by ministers yesterday, ECO feels it is clear what needs to be done to give loss and damage an appropriate reflection in the overall outcomes of this conference. The Cook Islands, for example, highlighted that “Loss and damage must be given a far greater priority. It is fundamental in the context of the IPCC SR1.5.” The Minister of Vanuatu stated that it “pains me deeply to have watched the USA and others putting red lines through any mention of loss and damage.” Tuvalu outlined that “Loss and damage should therefore be fully integrated into the Rulebook, including on transparency, capacity building, and the global stocktake.” Vanuatu’s Minister also stressed that a climate damages tax would be “a win-win option for developed and developing countries alike.

ECO is old enough to remember the forest accounting rules negotiated in 2011 for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. At the time, ECO warned the EU and other developed countries against the dangers of building their baselines on hypothetical projections that envisioned massive increases in emissions from the forest sector. Sadly, the EU and others went ahead and did it anyway.

So at a side-event this week, when it was revealed that the EU was scrambling to correct an unearned windfall on the order of 100 Mt CO2-e per year, ECO felt the tiniest twinge of smugness. If memory serves, that was just about what ECO had predicted for the EU way back in 2011.

Under Kyoto, the EU used a technique called Projected Forest Reference Levels. This involved projecting a hypothetical expectation of forest carbon emissions. You might call it a “Working Theory of the Forest”, or WTF for short. Under the WTF approach, countries could base these projections on modeled expectations, political goals, or really anything they could justify. And they just couldn’t hold back from the temptation to inflate these projections, creating the opportunity for undeserved credits.

Lo and behold, this played out just as ECO expected for the EU.

Ministers, we need to talk. I know this might sound technical, but it’s not; this concerns you. There can be no ambition with so little support for adaptation.

The Paris Agreement seeks to achieve a balance between adaptation and mitigation finance, as well as attending to the particular needs of least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS).

We’re not there yet. Only 26% of the USD $55 billion in provided support went to adaptation projects in 2016, (the number from multilateral development banks’ is even lower: 21%, according to figures from the Standing Committee on Finance’s (SCF) third biennial assessment report). Around half the bilateral finance provided to the LDCs and SIDS was earmarked for adaptation. That’s far from the “balance” agreed between adaptation and mitigation support.

ECO is even more concerned with the flows to vulnerable countries with less financial capacity to address adaptation and resilience efforts. 21% of finance approved by multilateral climate funds went to the LDCs. Funding directed at the LDCs represented 24% of bilateral flows, and that directed at SIDS accounted for only 2%. When developing countries say they need more support for adaptation, ECO understands why!

What’s more, according to SCF, only 9% of adaptation finance flowing through multilateral development banks was grant-based.