Category: Previous Issues Articles

The latest IPCC Report made it unmistakably clear: far more and better financial support is needed to adopt and implement urgent, rapid and transformational policies to hold global temperature rise to 1.5oC. Climate finance takes a lot of space in this year’s COP agenda and ECO hopes negotiators will make good and constructive use of the space they are given.

New assessments from the UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance and the OECD indicate an increase in the overall level of international climate finance from 2013 to 2017 based on developed countries’ self-reporting. However, this increase continues to heavily favour the utilisation of loans and not grants, which, as we know, have to be paid back. According to the OECD data, the amount given as loans doubled, increasing from USD $20 to $40 billion between 2013 and 2017. In contrast, finance provided as grants only increased modestly from $10b to $13b. Reporting finance provided in nominal terms — and including flows through developed countries’ export credit agencies, as the OECD report does — does not reflect the actual support provided. A key piece of information missing in this report is the grant equivalent of all loan instruments. ECO wonders why this information is missing.
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ECO welcomes the call to enhanced action just issued by four former COP presidents (Laurent Fabius, President of COP21, Frank Bainimarama, President of COP23, Salaheddine Mezouar, President of COP22, and Manuel Pulgar Vidal, President of COP20).

They rightly note that “the world is at a crossroads and decisive action in the next two years will be crucial” and that “we require deep transformations of our economies and societies to build a better world for all.” They call for all of us in Katowice to “send an unequivocal message…for enhanced ambition by 2020 that puts the world on a trajectory compatible with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.”

ECO strongly hopes that delegates, ministers, heads of state — as well as the current Polish presidency –will heed this call over the next fourteen days, and give us the bold action the world so desperately needs.

Loss and damage is the smoking gun of climate change. When super heated wildfires leave whole regions in California a smouldering ruin, super charged hurricanes and cyclones decimate countries in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and when cities in Africa are left counting the days of their remaining water supply, there can be no doubt that irreversible impacts of climate change are clear and present.

It is therefore little wonder that loss and damage was agreed to as an integral part of the Paris Agreement. It was, of course, a part of the political calculation of getting the Paris package. In fact, it was deemed important enough to include as a stand-alone article.

Fast forward to today where there are attempts to bracket it out of existence. Surrounding loss and damage with brackets isn’t the way to make it go away. Getting in a time machine and taking enough mitigation action 10 or 20 years ago is the only way it could have been avoided (Yes, this is ECO saying: “I told you so!”). Sadly, a lack of mitigation action — and an equally sad lack of adaptation finance — means that loss and damage is here to stay.

An explicit reference to loss and damage in Article 9.5, 9.7 — and the modalities, procedures, and guidelines (MPGs) of the transparency framework — is essential.
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Dr. John Lanchberry, CAN’s outstanding and much loved go-to expert on all things LULUCF, AFOLU and related topics left us on October 18, 2018. John’s quiet humour, warm heart, typically British unflappability and extraordinary patience with activists needing tutoring on these issues was legendary. John was a skilled negotiator, talented orator, knew everyone in the UN secretariat, the delegations, the NGOs – and had a special link to fellow smokers, meeting regularly in the conference smoking areas – where much ‘business’ got done.

In John’s honour, ECO would like to share a poem composed by one of his colleagues. May he Rest In Peace.

When I went along to my first major COP
When the list of new acronyms just didn’t stop
When my brain was full to bursting, I was ready to drop John was there

When I needed help developing a new NGO line
When I needed someone to tell me I was doing fine
When I needed a friend with whom to drink white wine John was there

When I was very nervous talking to the press
When the negotiations seemed one big mess
When I was actually struggling with stress John was there

When secretly pregnant with my first child
When NGO submissions still needed to be filed
When I needed reassurance, comforting and mild John was there

Now I’m sitting near his empty desk, tears in my eyes
I think of all he taught me, my friend so wise
All those memories, that knowledge, I realise John’s still there

ECO is worried about all the risky business we’re seeing as this session comes to a close! And we’re not talking fun Tom Cruise- slipping-around-in-socks risky business – we’re talking “oh god my tuk- tukisheadingstraightforthatothertuk-tuk”riskybusiness.Whilesome delegates may subscribe to the high risk, high reward approach to staking out their negotiating positions, we’re not so enthusiastic about this game of chicken that you may think you’re playing with each other – but you’re actually playing with the planet. As it’s also our planet on the line, here are what ECO sees as the greatest risks, and what can be done to avoid these possible collision courses:

If the Co-Chairs are given the mandate (which ECO strongly recommends – don’t get us wrong) to prepare a joint reflection note proposing text and ways forward, they will have a huge responsibility to be bold, as well as fair, in reflecting all parties’ views. Anything less than an even-handed approach will go down like a dose of “Bangkok belly” on day 1 of Katowice, and would inevitably lead to disagreements on whether the text should be adopted as a basis for negotiations. To avoid that disaster, the Note must include all parties’ proposals as options on the table – while also putting forward bridging proposals for possible landing zones on crunch issues.
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In the run up to COP24 in the construction workers, farmers, is a guarantee for better policies Katowice there is a lot of talk about Just Transition. But what is it? Why is it good for the climate? Can you pronounce it without twisting your tongue?

Just Transition is about providing better and decent jobs, social protection, more training opportunities and greater job security for workers who are affected by climate change or the policies aimed at addressing it, their families and their communities. It’s about bus drivers, and others who have to work in soaring heat regardless of whether they live in Africa, Asia, the Americas or Europe. It’s about the women and men losing their jobs in fossil fuel industries, and it’s about providing decent and quality jobs in the renewable energy industry.

Just Transition happens when there is social dialogue between workers and their unions, employers, governments and other stakeholders. Social justice and broad civil support. Both are urgently needed to step up climate ambition. Recognising the importance of a Just Transition would send a very strong signal out of Katowice that Parties are ready to embrace this challenge. After all, it is actually easier to integrate the concept of a Just Transition in the guidelines – just as you did in the Paris Agreement – than to pronounce it in Polish: “consprawiedliwa transformacja”…

Well, you started out so strong with a lot, but now you’re wondering what it is you should do… NDCs are a central pillar to of the Paris Agreement and it is of the utmost importance that we get comprehensive guidance for NDCs on APA agenda item 3. Features to the left of me, accounting to the right, here ECO is — stuck in the middle with ICTU. This guidance is essential to help countries understand each other’s commitments and will provide integrity as countries account for them.

We’re trying to make some sense of it all. But we can only come to one conclusion: progress under APA agenda item 3 has been bad this week. We were waiting for a breakthrough that would have allowed time for substantial discussions. But it never happened, and we’ve seen talks revert back to old dynamics. We now need Parties to pull together draft text reflecting the vision of the Paris Agreement, allowing its implementation and including all the elements of the preamble.

Time has been wasted and there is a clear lack of balance on progress of the Paris Agreement Work Programme. If we leave here with an impasse, we call on countries to come up with some bridging proposals to agree on the essential guidance that will inform them as they prepare to update and enhance their NDCs by 2020 and prepare to account for them in their reports.
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With two months between the adoption of the IPCC’s Special Report on 1.5°C in Korea and the COP in Poland, ECO has a couple of suggestions for Parties on how to best use this time, and beyond, to understand the implications and consequences of the report for the their domestic and international decision making.

ECO believes that the important results of the Special Report, published by the most authoritative scientific global body will inform Parties about cost- effective and sustainable options for necessary, possible, and enhanced decarbonisation actions to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Based on that new information, we expect that UNFCCC Parties will review and strengthen domestic and international climate policies to “avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

One key result from the report is expected to show the necessity for substantially enhancing 2030 ambition to comply with the 1.5°C limit. Until now, third party analysis suggests that only a very few developing countries have provided more or less Paris-compliant NDCs. However, the sum of all current NDCs will lead to an increase of global temperature in 3°C from preindustrial levels..

There are a couple of things governments need to do either in sequence or in parallel to support the crucial IPCC results after the meeting in Korea, if they want to maintain the spirit of the Paris Agreement.
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The Green Climate Fund is running out of funds. At the rate the Board has been approving projects in recent meetings, they will have allocated all of its remaining money sometime next year. Recent governance snafus notwithstanding, the GCF has come a long way on the path to fulfilling the high expectations placed on it as the centerpiece of the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. The pipeline of projects is expanding and quality is improving overall. More importantly, the world and vulnerable people are depending on the GCF to channel funds to meet urgent needs and achieve the transformation required to achieve low carbon development and help people deal with the growing consequences of climate change.

With climate impacts being felt throughout the world, and becoming more dire by the day, the fund cannot be allowed to run dry. On the contrary, meeting current needs, as well as funding scaled-up actions and more ambitious NDCs require confidence that financial support, too, will rapidly increase. ECO expects the October GCF Board meeting to kick off the formal replenishment process. This makes parties’ homework clear – prepare for a replenishment process that results in at least an overall doubling of contributions to the GCF for the next period.
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ECO commends the technology talks under SBSTA for progressing in a spirit of cooperation and collaboration. What confuses ECO however, is that some negotiators also appear keen to remove all traces of the very same collaboration and cooperation from the draft text, and to keep the technology framework as narrowly defined as possible. To deliver the monumental changes needed to reduce emissions, adapt to a changing climate, and respond to loss and damage, technology will be essential. It is therefore imperative to get a technology framework that is fit for purpose and equips Parties for meeting these global challenges. This requires a broad, inclusive, and participatory approach, one that facilitates innovation and transfer and ensures technology is targeted towards the critical transformations we need to achieve.

No framework or mechanism can function if it is not properly and sufficiently resourced. Developing countries need financial support to be able to build their capacity, successfully implement climate technologies as well as develop and maintain these technologies themselves. To facilitate a bottom-up, inclusive, and country-driven process it is therefore vital for the developed world to deliver on promised support. This requires dedicated and predictable funding – not just kind words and small injections of cash for technical consultants.
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