Categoría: Previous Issues Articles

ECO is confident that delegates will remember President Obama’s famous address to the world just last month: “The climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it. The alarm bells keep ringing. Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them.” Despite this appeal to follow the people, industry choose to follow the money. So far, the money–both public and private–has continued to flow overwhelmingly to fossil fuels, entrenching dirty power, locking-in emissions, and inflating the incipient carbon bubble.

Lubricated by a US$1.9 trillion concoction of subsidies, tax breaks, government incentives and the externalisation of the true costs of dirty energy, the fossil fuel industry spent $674 billion in 2012 on exploration and development. With the current rate, fossil fuel companies are slated to spend over $6 trillion in the next decade on further industry developments. ECO can only encourage governments to stand up to the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to protect their profits. Industry spends half a million dollars a day lobbying in Washington and Brussels to prevent, delay or weaken climate regulation. In the US alone, investment in lobbying activities ($160 million a year) is equivalent to what’s needed for Nepal to adapt to climate change–an amount that remains unfunded.
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People’s Climate March: 400,000 marching for Climate Justice in New York City, September 21, 2014

Political and religious leaders, progressive businesses, and most importantly, people from all walks of life have spoken with one voice: calling for immediate and ambitious climate action. The Peoples’ Climate March in New York, and associated events across the world, sent a clear call to all governments that they need to step up, phase out fossil fuels and massively scale up renewable energy. It’s a huge task, but ECO thinks that negotiators here in Bonn can take concrete steps forward.

First of all, negotiators should start by strengthening their pre-2020 commitments on mitigation and finance. That is unless we want to renegotiate the terms of the 2015 agreement and make it 4°C-compatible? ECO thinks not.

Secondly, they need to create the space for ambitious INDCs in the post-2020 agreement by negotiating the backbone of UFIs, or ‘Upfront Information’, requirements. ECO has long been calling for these UFIs to set meaningful and concrete benchmarks for ambition and equity. It’s now crunch time. The key elements that need to be discussed in Bonn and agreed at the Lima COP are outlined below:

Soon, soon, soon!! While INDCs are going to be nationally determined, they are contributions towards a global effort.
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At the end of this week, EU leaders will decide on Europe’s climate and energy future. Agreement on the post-2020 Climate and Energy Package make the EU the first to announce an international offer.

Other countries will be intently looking at the ambition and quality of the key elements that form the Package: the emissions reductions target, the renewable energy target and efforts to increase energy efficiency. These elements are likely to be parts of many other countries’ INDCs, the EU should be wary of exposing itself to criticism as an unambitious first mover. Given that the EU is a major proponent of a global carbon market, other parties (including China) will also be looking at the impact of the package on the EU ETS.

Many EU leaders stood up at the New York Climate Summit and talked about the need to agree on an ambitious global climate deal in Paris. Yet, at the same time they announced they would be adopting a 40% emissions reduction target by 2030, which is way below the EU’s equitable share of effort for a below 2°C trajectory (much less a 1.5°C pathway), and not in line with the 2050 target agreed by EU leaders in 2009 of 80-95% emission reductions. 
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ECO wants all negotiators to understand that what they are doing here really does matter to the lives and futures of billions of people and ecosystems around the world. In a little over a years time, the world needs to see an ambitious and equitable agreement which does not condemn the poorest and most vulnerable to a future of disasters and permanent state of emergency. Negotiators need to make progress this week on four items related to adaptation and loss and damage in the 2015 agreement.

First, the 2015 agreement must highlight the requirement for all climate action to be guided by certain principles; in particular recognising the  needs of vulnerable people, communities and  ecosystems as well as  rights-based approaches, gender-equity and broad participation. Though the 2010 Cancun Adaptation Framework contains some ‘guiding principles’, these aren’t even referenced in the current draft ADP text. This puts the UNFCCC 2015 agreement at risk of being the least people-centred and rights-based of the three international frameworks currently under discussion. Drafts for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the post-2015 Disaster Risk Reduction Framework contain much stronger wording on people’s needs and human rights.

Second, it is clear that emission reduction efforts must be at the core of INDCs.
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A decision in Lima that commitment periods will operate in 5-year cycles is vital to the integrity of the Paris agreement. ECO wants to remind all delegates in Bonn that a 5-year commitment period:

Avoids lock in: current pledges are far from being consistent with the below 2°C goal, much less the 1.5°C required by the most vulnerable countries. Five-year commitment periods allow for greater dynamism and ratcheting up of global ambition.

Incentivises early action: setting a target that has to be met 10 years from now, rather than 15, compels government to reduce emissions quickly, rather than delaying action.

Maintains better synchronicity with the cycles of IPCC reports: a more dynamic system is more responsive to the best and latest available science.

Creates stronger national political accountability: many governments operate on 5-year electoral or planning cycles. A 5-year commitment period requires a government to act within its elected or planning term rather than leaving action to its successors.

ECO welcomes the support for 2025 targets from the United States, AOSIS and the Africa Group. We hope to see others joining them this week. We believe that the 5-year national planning cycles in countries such as China and Saudi Arabia synchronise naturally with an international 5-year cycle.
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Dear ECO,

I’m a 6,000-year-old woman (but a lady never reveals her true age) looking for suitors who are prepared to send me ambitious INDCs. I enjoy slow change, spinning around, long orbits around the sun, regular seasons, and cute and fluffy animals. My dislikes include comets, mass extinctions, ice ages, solar flares and fossil fuels. I’ve had a rough relationship history and my sudden break up with the dinosaurs wasn’t easy either. Currently, I’m in an extremely abusive relationship with Homo Sapiens, they’re keeping me sweating.

I must admit that I have volatile tipping points and I have become icy cold and uncomfortably hot in the past. I’m afraid that if I have to deal with further weak promises and  empty “commitments”, I may do something rash and enter a state of anger that will make the hurricanes, droughts and storms that you’ve seen before look mild.

I’m hoping to retain my stability by receiving lots of INDCs from suitors who are:

• Interested in 5 year commitments periods (I need some long term security and not another decade in a destructive relationship)
• Transparent about the level of effort that they will invest in my wellbeing
• Willing to indicate how much money and other support they will provide to keep me happy
• Upfront about how much external support they will need to make the relationship work if the INDC is from someone with less capability
• Adaptable: I have some historical scarring that is likely to make any future relationships difficult and I will need all the INDCs to indicate adaptation plans as I blow off steam
• Passionate about equitable relationships and my long-term prosperity
• Willing to review, and if necessary improve, their contribution to making our relationship work
• Willing to submit to expert counselling to ensure that they are doing enough to make a long-term relationship work
• Willing to start work immediately to prevent any further damage to my person

Suitors that have caused harm in the past and that have lots of resources, send me your ambitious proposals by March 2015.
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Even though the Secretariat and Parties keep saying that civil society plays a critical role in the negotiations, there’s very little they’re doing to help us participate effectively. The proposed cost recovery policy for side events and exhibits is a case in point. The following is the collective response on behalf of all non-governmental observer constituencies, which offers to work with the Secretariat and Parties to find a real and sustainable solution. Why not give us more than four days and an open and participatory process to do so?

STATEMENT REGARDING COST RECOVERY POLICY ON BEHALF OF ALL OBSERVER CONSTITUENCIES

7 June 2014

On behalf of the constituencies representing business and industry, research groups, indigenous peoples organisations, environmental groups, women and gender, trade unions, local government and municipal authorities, farmers and youth, we would like to express our concern regarding the policy on cost recovery announced in the Secretariat’s information note dated June 4th. This policy threatens to undermine the quality of observer participation in the UNFCCC process. 

From its beginning, the UNFCCC has recognised the value of observer participation, most recently during Thursday’s Article 6 dialogue on public participation. Within the SBI negotiations and workshops, numerous ministerial statements and today’s discussion, the Secretariat and Parties have repeatedly acknowledged the “crucial and integral” role of observers in and the value of our contributions to this process. 
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ECO realised, with much dismay, that yesterday’s article on “The Visionary Few” missed the important statement by Uganda’s minister on behalf of the LDCs. We are sorry for this oversight, but were excited to hear that the LDCs are taking IPCC science as seriously as environmental NGOs when talking about their long term mitigation goal where: “Total emissions need to reach zero between 2060 and 2080. This means we need urgent actions by all countries to reduce emissions.” Thank you minister, thank you LDCs, and welcome in the club of The Visionary Few.

ECO was jumping for joy during the ADP ministerial when some of the Parties and groups echoed CAN’s call for phasing out all fossil fuel emissions and phasing in a 100% renewable energy future, as early as possible, but no later than 2050.

Phasing-out fossil fuel emissions is of fundamental importance to secure the right to zero-carbon development for all – especially for those whose lives, homes and cultures will be at existential risk even at 1.5°C warming.

ECO is sure that you, Dear Reader, agree that this goal must be met in a way that secures the rights of the world’s poorest people to water, food, health and sustainable energy access, as well as the right of countries to fulfil those. Protecting these universal sustainable development human rights is the key challenge in a world that is desperately striving to drive carbon pollution down to zero in its bid to stave off the worst climate change impacts.

ECO suggests – and we know our friends agree – that full decarbonisation must include achieving 100% renewable and affordable Energy Access for All.

Replacing current energy systems everywhere with renewables by mid-century will be ambitious and challenging. But, quite frankly, the escalating costs of runaway climate impacts mean that not doing it would be even harder, particularly for the most vulnerable.
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Parties might be wondering about those empty seats in the recent ADP contact-group meetings and noted the absence of NGO observers.

ECO doesn’t want you to worry, NGOs were there…well, two of them, representing Climate Justice Now! and Climate Action Network. Both have been allotted a grand total of 2 (yes, that’s two) seats for the ADP contact-group meetings, on behalf of more than a thousand member organisations. Two (luckily very committed) note-takers have been there to observe, what will shape the future of everyone, what’s going on inside and reporting back to the rest of the world locked out of negotiations.

In order for you to identify the CAN observer in the room, ECO has this handy photo for you, although, it probably wouldn’t have been hard to spot amongst all of the empty seats anyway…

ECO finds this to be extremely unfortunate, to say the least. Space constraints have been cited as the reason, and civil society participation has been downsized to fit within the designated space. ECO believes it should work the other way round: the space should be sized according to the overall need, which includes civil society participants just as much electricity, bathrooms, the stale sandwiches and over-priced coffee required for talks to function effectively.
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