Categoría: Previous Issues Articles

As everybody is getting excited about a new climate deal, let’s not forget that we still need to ratify Kyoto’s second commitment period. Negotiations on these KP issues are technical and few people have been paying attention to them.

So dear old Australia, proud winner of multiple Fossil of the Day awards here, we are watching you! And we have noticed that you would like to redefine what “emission” means to help determine your baseline under the (in)famous Doha paragraph 3.7ter. And that you are trying to convince other Parties to agree to this little accounting trick.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s do the numbers: This “little” accounting trick would get Australia an additional 80 million tonnes which it could emit. Add these to the more than 100 million tonnes Australia has left over from the first Kyoto period – and a whole bunch of LULUCF credits – and hey presto! Australia can significantly increase its emissions and still meet its Kyoto target.

May we remind Australia and everybody else once again that the atmosphere does not see
accounting tricks, only real emissions.

This is getting bizarre . . . Australia wins the Fossil of the Day Award . . .again!

  Is it lack of sleep? Is it the heat? They are making some very telling statements at this COP, statements that slip into the realm of willful ignorance.

  Here in Lima, Australia says that they don’t understand the concept of a ‘long-term
temperature limit’.

  Continuing their slapstick approach, Australia has also stated it doesn’t really understand the idea of ‘global solidarity’ either. 
  Here’s a newsflash: we live in a single biosphere and we are all in this together when it comes to climate impacts.

  We all do silly things, but not all the time. Now is the time for Australia to shape up and take these negotiations seriously – perhaps a refresher on the Cancun agreement on the global temperature threshold. Then their Prime Minister could visit some of the vulnerable islands off the coast of Australia and the drought and wildfire-stricken districts in their very own country.

The Christmas stores are open all over Lima and the trees and decorations are going up. Early yesterday morning, ECO got a taste of the Noche Buena feeling when the co-chairs delivered not one but two new texts.

So here we are, ready to check out the highlights on display and note some missing ornaments. While there is both candy and coal in ECO’s stocking, overall the new texts provide for cautious optimism.

The draft COP decision text zooms in on the INDCs and pre-2020 ambition (a more evocative phrase than “WS2”). On the latter point, the sentence urging developed countries to scale up their commitments to 2020 seems to have got lost. ECO thinks it rolled under the couch and can easily be retrieved and put back on the tree.

The text is also rather quiet on spelling out how to deliver the funds that we need to move pre-2020 ambition to action – the roadmap to scale up finance to $100 billion. That one may be stuck under an armchair cushion, but it’s within easy reach. Something nice on the tree, though, is that finance being included as part of the INDCs.

On the matter of countries doing their fair share, that is referenced but it’s not detailed enough.
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Unnoticed by most, a precedent was set this Saturday and Monday in Lima. Over the course of two days, the first sessions of the Cancun MRV workshops – the multilateral assessment of the first Biennial Review reports by Annex I Parties – unfolded in Plenary Cusco.

Sixteen countries and the EU bloc participated in this new transparency process, reporting progress on policies and measures in fulfilment of their Cancun pledges, and responding to questions raised by fellow negotiators.

But ECO felt a bit let down. These workshops promised to deepen the understanding of the situation of each presenting country whilst demonstrating that they are acting in good faith and working hard towards meeting their commitments.

But despite the fact that MRV primarily aims at promoting transparency and trust, the workshops were designed in something of an exclusive manner – with representatives from civil society sitting in the back of the plenary with no opportunity to contribute to the discussions.

ECO wonders who would be better placed than civil society organizations and national research institutions with relevant experience to contribute to a better collective understanding of the respective domestic circumstances and policy developments in each developed country? Yet instead of taking part in a lively dialogue over these two days, the delegates put themselves through long and technical discussions, sidelining other vital inputs.
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Yesterday morning, ECO was hardly awake when the much anticipated new ADP texts popped up. With glacial melting in Peru and yet another catastrophic typhoon in the Philippines, it was imperative to look at the adaptation and loss and damage section carefully. A number of good elements are still in there but also a few new ones are evident – for example, that loss and damage seems to be on equal footing with adaptation, and a separate section speaks to the reality that it goes beyond adaptation.

ECO likes the proposal to have new and additional finance for the loss and damage mechanism independent of adaptation budgets. Also good is the proposal for a clear adaptation finance figure, though the link to INDCs and adaptation needs is missing. It’s also good to see the the inclusion of adaptation in the 
INDCs in conjunction with National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), but on a different legal footing than mitigation. The decision text should speak clearly on the need of finance for the preparation and implementation of INDCs.

There are a few issues where concerns remain. For example, the mere mention of a global goal on adaptation is not enough. It needs to be 
defined as outlined here yesterday.
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What a drag! The Peruvian Ministry of Environment has done some impressive work as the President of COP 20.
But other elements in the government of Peru are undermining broad, national efforts to tackle climate change, and have pushed through the Ley Paquetazo which severely weakens environmental supervision –

which is why Peru gets the Fossil of the Day.

Our Filipino colleague writes:

Before leaving for Peru, I hoped I’d see progress and unity at COP – especially given Lima’s key role on the road to Paris. So far I’ve been disappointed, and to add insult to injury another typhoon is lashing through my birth country.

As I write, a million people are living in evacuation centres praying their houses and sources of income are not affected as badly as last year.  While we don’t yet know the extent of the devastation, we do know we will be counting bodies once again.

Year after year, devastating typhoons have slammed the Philippines during these negotiations. And year after year, negotiators express their sympathy and condolences – while bringing us ever closer to an unjust deal that will guarantee more extreme weather events.

And there is another perverse theme at these climate negotiations: the continued presence and impact of the fossil fuel lobby. The WHO does not allow big tobacco to even attend their meetings, yet the UNFCCC is saturated with fossil fuel
involvement. As a Filipino, this is outrageous and insulting. We pay the price for their continued influence in this process.

But as we continue to pay, we refuse to act as a poster child for devastation any longer.
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Rolling into week two of COP20, ECO extends a warm welcome to Ministers and reminds that essential to success in Lima is concrete progress on climate finance. And what better time to do so than at Tuesday’s High-level Ministerial Dialogue on climate finance? The Secretariat frames the Dialogue as a unique opportunity for Ministers to highlight that public finance is flowing and confirm their intention to scale it up.

Ahead of the event, however, there is a strong sense of malaise. Ambition is diminishing and the importance of defining pathways to reach 100 billion USD by 2020 is being set aside. So right here and now, let’s get down to business.

Tip number 1:  Draw up a roadmap to 2020

A 2020 finance roadmap is clearly essential to scaling up to reach the 100 billion level. This first step will reassure that public financial flows will not only continue but will also increase.

Tip number 2: Clarity and predictability

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again: financial flows need to be predictable in order to engage climate action effectively. Not only that, countries need to be clear on what finance is public and what is not.

Tip number 3: Spell out the details

Further reassurance can be secured by clearly spelling out the sources of finance as well as the channels and instruments to be deployed.

There’s a lot of curiosity about the idea of a global goal on adaptation. As you know, ECO is all about clarity, so here’s our short guide to this important proposition.

The global goal on adaptation should build the resilience of people and ecosystems to the impacts of climate change. Actions towards the goal must also protect human rights and address inequality, both of which are key to achieving sustainable development.

The pathway for achieving the goal must be dynamic, taking into account rising temperature levels and impacts. The goal should contribute to minimising residual
impacts and loss and damage through scaled up adaptation and disaster risk reduction.

Here are key objectives for a global
adaptation goal:

1. Adequacy of financial and technical
resources. Adaptation is relevant to all countries, and all must develop adaptation strategies in order to deal with increasing climate impacts. However, it is the developing countries – and the most vulnerable countries in particular – that urgently need support through finance and appropriate technology. Developed nations must provide adequate and sustained support that complements the ongoing development and adaptation efforts of vulnerable developing countries. The scale of resources must be commensurate to the impacts of climate change.
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ECO observes that the critical missing piece of the technology transfer puzzle is technology assessment. And why? Because all kinds of technology, even those we generally like, carry some level of risk. But some are much riskier than others, and that’s the point.

Here’s a well known example. Decades ago, lead became a common additive to gasoline despite its known properties as a human toxin. Narrow commercial interests and inadequate assessment allowed the practice to become widespread. As a result a generation or more were exposed to airborne lead and experienced health effects because basic principles of technological assessment and precaution were ignored.

In pursuing technology deployment and innovation to address climate change, we should not sacrifice safety for expediency. While the exposure to lead impacted only those countries that allowed the lead additive, technologies that have global reach can impact us all.

Here’s what that means for innovative climate technologies. By mid-2013, 78 developing country Parties had prepared their Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) reports and action plans including the technologies they need to address climate risks, and more are in the process of developing their TNAs.

This is a situation that demands technology assessment.

The first question that arises is where this should happen.
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