Categoría: Previous Issues Articles

The US, Australia, Canada and the EU receive the Fossil of the Day for refusing to get serious about loss and damage finance.

For all the policy geeks out there, while decision 2/CP19 provides the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM) with a mandate to ‘enhance’, ‘facilitate’, ‘mobilize’ and ‘secure’ finance for loss and damage, in the negotiating room, our fossil recipients, consistently refer it to the Standing Committee on Finance or even higher levels, where it is also absent from the discussion. Basically, they were seeking to twist, water down, and delete references to finance from the loss and damage decision text.

We would have thought that the US Administration – with its own territory of Puerto Rico still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Maria – would, perhaps, have rediscovered at least one empathic bone in its body. But apparently, this was waaaaay too much to ask for; as it aggressively led the charge to delete references to finance in the loss and damage text. Some might think this level of intervention was a bit rich coming from a country that has talked about pulling out of the Paris Agreement, but it looks like they plan on taking others down with them.
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In an ironic twist, loss and damage finance seems to be suffering from displacement. ECO hears that developed country delegates keep trying to shunt the issue of loss and damage finance into some mythical ‘elsewhere’, claiming that discussions on the WIM were not the right place for it. ECO reminds delegates that 2/CP19 is a passport for the WIM into the world of loss and damage finance – with a clear mandate for the WIM to ‘enhance’, ‘facilitate’, ‘mobilise’ and ‘secure’ finance for loss and damage.

Is a taskforce the answer to the thorny issue of where loss and damage finance belongs? With the right mandate — clear outcomes and timeframes, instructions to consider innovative sources of finance that go  beyond insurance, a budget to be effective, and an invitation for civil society to engage, it may well be. One thing is for sure – after four years of the WIM not addressing its mandate to enhance finance for loss and damage, something has to change.

ECO likes to recall success stories and is eager to replicate them. A big success story was the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) under the 2013 – 2015 Review. The task of the SED was to consider new science (especially from the Fifth Assessment Report of IPCC) and send the new intelligence in a condensed way to the COP.

In October the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will adopt the Special Report on 1.5 degrees (SR1.5). COP 21 asked the IPCC to produce it in time for the Facilitative Dialogue at COP in 2018. The SR1.5 is a key instrument to start the implementation of the temperature targets agreed to in Paris.

ECO suggests two potential approaches on how to work with the SR1.5 in the Talanoa Dialogue and the COP — a workshop and a special event

The Talanoa Dialogue could include a workshop, very soon after the IPCC Special Report approval, so that in-depth exchanges could take place between the main authors of the IPCC SR1.5 and delegates from Parties and Observers. A report of the workshop could then be considered at SBSTA 49 (during COP24). To reduce costs and increase participation, the workshop and the additional intersession or the Pre-COP 24 meeting could happen back to back.
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Early Thursday morning, EU institutions reached a final agreement on the reform of the bloc’s carbon market for the period 2021 to 2030. Covering around 40% of EU’s greenhouse gas emissions from the energy, industry and aviation sectors, the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) is currently the largest cap and trade carbon market in the world. But with a notorious oversupply of pollution permits that has kept carbon prices hovering around 5-7 EUR/tCO2e for the past five years, the ETS has long been the region’s problem child. ECO remains disappointed at the new agreement.

A real reform of the system would have simultaneously slashed the enormous allowance glut, sent a strong decarbonisation signal to energy and industry, and made sure that auction revenues go to sustainable and clean technology. The success of the reform has to be judged on the delivery on all of these aspects.

It is now clear that the reform will not bring the scheme in line with the Paris Agreement climate goals or with mid-century decarbonization.  However, the EU did make some small improvements with regard to the permit surplus: For the first time, some unused allowances will not be released to the market and could be cancelled, potentially leading to a reduction of 2-3 billion allowances in the long term.
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ECO, with our usual nose-to-the-ground ability to stay up to date on the latest and greatest, has heard of an exciting new intervention in the loss and damage space. More than 50 civil society groups, and notable people, have just released a Climate Damages Declaration – calling on countries to agree on a two-year workplan to develop adequate and predictable sources of revenue for loss and damage finance, including a Climate Damages Tax.  What would a Climate Damages Tax be, we hear you ask?  It would be an equitable fossil fuel extraction fee – levied globally, but with developed countries paying the lion’s share for loss and damage. Countries on the frontline of climate impacts would use the Tax at home for climate purposes. Who would pay and who would receive the funds would be based on a sliding scale.

Why on earth do we need new sources for more money? Well, at some interesting side events yesterday, ECO saw a graph depicting current development/humanitarian/climate finance versus future needs.  And it turns out that tinkering at the edges, and a continued overemphasis on insurance, is not going to generate the scale of finance we need. We will instead need to think big with innovative sources of finance, such as a Climate Damages Tax.
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While countries are discussing how to implement the Paris Agreement to avert the worst impacts of climate change, the UN aviation body, The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is having their own conversation on climate. The 36 members of ICAO’s Council have preferred to do it in private so they can make their own rules on their carbon market and alternative fuel sustainability criteria without making too much fuss.

Who wants to complicate the discussions, anyway? When it comes to carbon offsets and biofuels, the aviation industry must be deciding that it is easier to just accept them all and deal with the environmental and social consequences later.

 ECO is pretty impressed with the speed at which ICAO is checking off rules for their climate measures. We are going to have to figure out how to adapt when airlines start buying offsets and biofuels from countries with Paris pledges. Parties are counting all their emission reductions towards their climate targets. If airlines are claiming those same reductions for themselves then two targets are claiming one emission reduction. Doesn’t that invalidate one of the targets? We haven’t come up with any rules for dealing with that here yet … slow down ICAO you’re making us look bad!
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WHEN: Saturday, 11 November 2017 from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am 

WHERE: La Redoute, Kurfürstenallee 1, 53177 Bonn – Bad Godesberg.

PROGRAM: Concert at 10:00 pm by Makeda and Steal a Taxi, then DANCE PARTY with a DJ. 

Please be sure to bring your badge, as it is required to enter the party.

Should you have accreditation for only week two, kindly show your accreditation letter upon arrival to the security check. 

Please, do not forget to bring enough cash for the drinks and finger food. 

REMINDER: This party does not allow minors (under 18); the security might request your ID to check your age. The CAN Party has a zero-tolerance policy against all forms of harassment.  

 We look forward to conquering the night with you all!

After yet another year of extreme weather events, which devastated many communities across the world, it is clear that urgency of action has become more than a slogan – it is a reality! Delivering on promises of action and support in the pre-2020 period is not only fundamental to maintain trust among Parties (though it does that as well); to limiting the severity of growing climate impacts (yep, it does that too); or making it easier to increase ambition post-2020 (are you getting that this makes sense on many levels yet?); but’ simply put pre-2020 action is crucial to reaching the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

Without ambitious action now (we all know what ‘now’ means, right?), we cannot keep global temperature rise to 1.5°C or well below 2°C. The best available science tells us that greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2020 and decline thereafter.

Need we say more? This is why ECO believes that there is great value in having a dedicated space for discussions on Pre-2020 – while also using all existing channels to consider relevant efforts for advancing pre-2020 action and the necessary support to enable this action in all countries.

The negotiations on the Global Stocktake (GST) represent a key opportunity to advance one of the most unfinished areas of the Paris Agreement — differentiation and equity in the new regime. It’s an opportunity that we better take seriously, because right now we’re in danger of sliding back into unhelpful old patterns; instead of exploring new ideas on how to take into account countries’ different stages of development, levels of capability and historical responsibility.

Equity, like science, is an overarching principle of the GST that needs to guide all of its workstreams. First though, ECO wants to remind everybody that equity in the context of Article 14 refers to equity between countries. Equity and differentiation allow us to consider how national actions contribute, at different scales and in different ways, to real collective progress.

Key inputs are already exist in the NDCs. Many Parties have already explained their views and perspectives of differentiation and equity in their NDCs and we suggest that one key task in the GST is to look at them. Likewise, civil society and research institutions are already developing approaches and methodologies for relevant analyses. The GST should allow them to be taken into account.
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With all the talk of “skeletons” in the APA informals, ECO knows that the enhanced transparency framework will be the true “backbone” of the implementation guidelines of the Paris Agreement, providing instructions for the reporting and reviewing of Parties’ commitments and actions. The transparency framework needs to have strong bones if it’s going to truly support the responsibility of building trust and confidence between Parties and promoting effective implementation.

Many aspects of the existing transparency system work well and should be built upon, but it’s still far from perfect. Delays and incomplete information not only impact understanding, but also hold up critical review efforts to identify capacity-building gaps and needs. ECO believes the Paris Agreement means moving to a world where “common modalities, procedures and guidelines” will both allow transparency and comparability of all Parties’ action and support; and deliver benefits for developing countries in enhanced capacity (with adequate support). ECO believes that it is possible to have a certain level of flexibility for countries that need it without jeopardizing transparency or a common approach that drives continuous improvement overtime.

With so much at stake, it seems worth pointing out the overarching benefits of an effective and robust transparency framework.
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