Categoría: Previous Issues Articles

It is bloody late for deep emissions reductions to stay on a 1.5°C trajectory. Nevertheless, this is still needed and the IPCC had made an effort this summer to quantify how to do so. In its first report of the 6th assessment cycle, focusing on the physical facts of where we stand today, the results are really sobering.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the rate of ocean surface water acidification, resulting mainly from burning fossil fuels over the past two hundred years, are the highest they have been in at least two million years. Indeed, some indicate the highest in the last 10 million years. The last time CO2 concentrations were this high, global temperatures were at least 2.5°C warmer and sea levels several meters higher. Such data clearly indicates the dangerous carbon legacy humankind is injecting into the atmosphere day by day. But the full impacts of this legacy will only be revealed in the future, because of the delayed response of the global climate and earth systems.

The world must immediately start to phase out fossil fuels; and protect and restore carbon in natural ecosystems in this decade to limit the increase of atmospheric CO2, the key driver for global warming.
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In the final edition of COP25 in Madrid, ECO looked ahead to COP26, the Scottish COP, the Glasgow COP. Back then we anticipated that the story of Glasgow and Scotland could give a new lifeline to the UNFCCC and breathe some fire into the negotiations. We had hoped that the story of Glasgow, the furnace of the industrial revolution and a city famed for reinvention and resistance, might shape a COP that finally delivered the political ambition we know the world needs to see.

You could say that the UK has tried its hardest to prevent this. Distinct from Madrid, Katowice, Marrakesh or Paris, this COP has been branded by the UK very clearly as the UK COP rather than the Glasgow COP. Union Jacks rather than Scottish saltires are plastered across the venue. Pathetically, at short notice, the rooms for COP26 (originally all named after Scottish geographical features) were changed to geographical features from the whole of the UK. Since COP25, Johnson & his government have continually tried to ensure that Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, should be excluded from the talks.

Despite this, it seems like negotiators do really know they are in Scotland. On Monday of week 1, the First Minister broke the Loss & Damage taboo, becoming the first developed nation leader to commit to finance for people who have already suffered irrevocable impacts of climate change.
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With Emissions Reductions Minister Taylor back in Australia, the role of Head of Delegation was passed onto the coffee machine in the Australian Pavilion.

Australia has shown very high ambition with its coffee game at this COP, receiving net zero complaints from the hundreds of caffeine hungry delegates stopping by the Pavilion for their daily hit. However, not all have been impressed by this new tactic of coffee diplomacy.

“Clearly the Government hopes that the quality and volume of free coffee being dispensed will distract from Australia’s woeful lack of action on climate change,” said Skippy the Kangaroo.

“We set a national target for our coffee queue to be longer than the queue to enter COP26 at 8am, and I think we achieved that ambition without loss or damage,” said an Australian Government diplomat.

Speaking earlier, the coffee machine was also able to provide some insight into the details of the Government’s new climate finance pledge, confirming that Australia plans to count the millions of dollars in free coffee towards fulfilment of its contribution to the $100bn goal. The machine is yet to be informed of the escalating impacts of climate change upon coffee production.

A spokesperson for Minister Taylor said that Australia was proud it was meeting and beating its coffee target for this COP and has been dispensing coffee at a faster rate than any other country.
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Today in Glasgow, Denmark and Costa Rica will announce a new and exciting alliance of countries and jurisdictions committing to something long a ‘verboten’ topic at the UNFCCC — an end to oil and gas expansion, and a managed and equitable phase-out of existing extraction. 

ECO welcomes the groundbreaking announcement of the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance (BOGA). The science is clear that such an effort would have been even better a few decades earlier…but there’s no time like the present to commit to real climate leadership! 

The alliance is BIG news because BOGA represents the first diplomatic initiative to focus on the oil and gas production dimension of the climate equation, aligning with the strong scientific evidence from the International Energy Agency, UN Environment Programme, and others that a rapid and steep decline of fossil fuel production is essential to limit warming to 1.5ºC. Core members must have already ended new licensing, concessions or leasing rounds for oil and gas production — an essential and urgent first step to showing real leadership. 

BOGA’s launch marks a departure from decades of international climate policy in which the need to align the production of fossil fuels with global carbon budgets was largely ignored — an omission which has cost us all dearly and made the path ahead very steep.
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ECO would like to offer some observations on the cover texts and suggestions for how they can better reflect the desperate urgency for action that is needed. The texts fail to reflect the urgency being called for by the people of the world, especially those already suffering the impacts of climate change.

The texts remain worryingly unbalanced between the issues. Whereas ECO is pleased to see many mitigation elements and details on operationalizing these elements – ECO wonders whether Parties misunderstood that we are in fact experiencing increasing climate impacts as we currently move on an uncertain temperature pathway. So then if climate mitigation is not the only solution to the climate emergency – Parties should also want to address Loss and Damage Finance and Adaptation in equally detailed ways as the mitigation section! 

There is a need for more clarity on how the solidarity elements around loss and damage finance, adaptation and finance more generally are to be mobilized in time and in sufficient quantity to address existing and future needs of developing countries.

Greater precision is needed so the world can hold Parties to account, including clear time bound processes and outcomes rather, than generalized calls for more action.
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It seems that COP26 Transport Day, is set to focus mainly on electric vehicles. Of course, a consensus on the pace of transition to zero emission vehicles is needed to meet climate targets. It is also clear that there is a need for a commitment to ensure all new car sales are restricted to zero emission vehicles. Or that countries should put in place policies to ensure that fleet-owning businesses commit to achieving fully zero emission fleets. Those needs are all depicted in the official description of the COP26 Transport Day and, despite being undeniably necessary measures, what is missing is the encouragement for truly green transportation. It seems that alternative means of transport, such as electric trains and active mobility modes, were left out of the agenda when in truth they represent the only sustainable option.

Don’t get us wrong: we undoubtedly want the electric transition in mobility, but it will take too long. On the contrary, walking, trains, bicycles, and other similar means are the only ones that can sharply reduce emissions by 2030. Transport represents around 25% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and, moreover, is the main cause of mortality in cities. Air pollution, closely linked to transport, causes annually millions of premature deaths and diseases, such as coronary or respiratory diseases, and is the most important environmental risk factor for human health.
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For decades ECO has watched in dismay as world governments came to COP after COP promising more climate action, only to go home and continue producing and burning more coal, oil and gas. 

The world has known for over a century that the combustion of these fossil fuels causes climate change. Yet try as you might to find a mention of the need to phase-out the use and production of fossil fuels in the Framework Convention on Climate Change – or even in the Paris Agreement itself – you’ll come up empty-handed. So far, ECO’s beloved COP process has had everything to say about the need to reduce emissions, and almost nothing to say about the need to reduce our reliance on the dominant source of those emissions: fossil fuels. 

ECO thinks COP26 has the chance to change this.

We have come to a breaking point in the implementation of the Paris Agreement where it is no longer possible for countries to ignore the necessary escalation of the energy transition and the need to phase-out fossil fuels. This has driven the series of major announcements last week focused on curbing the production and financing of fossil fuels. In Glasgow, Parties are finally saying the F-words. 
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You may have heard of a recent greenwashing trend whereby fossil fuel majors are marketing their polluting products as “carbon neutral”. In 2021 alone, companies have claimed 19 massive fossil fuel cargoes to be “carbon neutral” on the basis that the associated oil and gas companies have retired carbon credits to compensate for fossil emissions. What’s more, oil and gas companies are pushing the myth that carbon capture and storage can make fossil fuels “carbon-free”. 

There are SO many problems with such claims that ECO does not even know where to begin but suffice it to say that, no matter how much fossil fuel companies and countries try, they cannot offset their way to 1.5˙C. That’s why, despite the number of net zero emissions pledges trumpeted at COP26 and repeated promises that Article 6 is going to deliver on ambition, ECO remains dubious. 

Let’s be clear: the surest way to avoid truly catastrophic levels of warming is to cut emissions at the source, in line with science and equity, by immediately halting expansion of oil, gas, and coal, phasing out their production and consumption, reducing agricultural emissions and ending deforestation. Staying below 1.5°C requires bringing fossil fuel emissions and deforestation down to zero–real zero–not “balancing” them out with carbon credits or illusory technologies in the pursuit of a theoretical “net” zero. 
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