Categoría: Previous Issues Articles

Setting up a first date is a nerve-racking process. ECO has been there: spending hours overanalysing the details of what your crush did or didn’t say, writing vague texts that don’t express what you really mean, trying to play it cool by acting non-committal…

Always keen to give out relationship advice, ECO couldn’t help noticing that Parties’ discussions on the first date of the global assessment (still called a “stocktake” for  the moment) are in dire need of a helping hand—not to mention their caginess around further developments for the ambition mechanism. Here are ECO’s top tips for Parties on setting a date with destiny for a long-lasting relationship based on mutual understanding and trust:

Don’t delay! It might seem scary, but someone has to initiate and suggest a clear date for your first get together. Why wait? You’re only delaying making your dreams of a fossil fuel-free future a reality! Don’t let all the intensity that’s been building up before Paris go to waste. ECO reckons the first date for an assessment to raise ambition should happen well ahead of 2020. Who’s going to seize the day and suggest 2018? Don’t forget, you need agreement on this in Paris to avoid being stood up!
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Observers are savouring more than just the chocolate muffins since their exclusion from negotiations. ECO’s inbox has overflowed with updates and inside scoops, suggesting they can learn more about the negotiations by not being in the room. More positively still, these reveal some remarkable breakthroughs that have occurred since they were banished.

Firstly, the US has performed an impressive backflip and both endorsed Loss and Damage as a stand alone section and committed an annual 0.7% of GDP to financing it. As one US negotiator explained, «This backflip is in our national interest. We are deeply concerned about our projected gymnastics medal count at the 2016 Olympics and really need to practice».

A breakthrough on human rights was also achieved. Apparently, after tasting the «Mango Heaven» smoothie (following ECO’s recommendation), negotiators from Saudi Arabia came to a newfound appreciation of human rights and are now supporting their comprehensive integration throughout the document.

Furthermore, Australia has convinced the Umbrella Group to accept major compromises on both mitigation and the long-term goal. This follows a bilateral with Marty McFly, who arrived yesterday from 1985, shocked to see that a comprehensive agreement to limit global warming had still not been signed. Strong language on decarbonisation and ratcheting up unconditional INDCs are now to be included.
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Delegates, you well know that ECO has lamented, time and time again, that the EU’s reduction targets for 2020 and 2030 are inadequate, below business as usual, and in general an embarrassment to the continent that once was the leader in global climate action.

This week’s news from the European Environment Agency has again proven our point: the latest EU numbers show that greenhouse gas emission fell 4% between 2013 and 2014. This brings the EU’s domestic emissions down to 23% below 1990 levels, and will most likely lead to below 30% by 2020. ECO reminds delegates that the EU’s current 2020 reduction commitment is 20% below 1990.

Done. Many years ahead of time.

“What should the EU do now?” you may ask. As far as ECO can see, the only action the EU is taking in response is to engage in self-praise and nothing more. We all know that there is more to be done, so, EU, listen up:

• Commit to implementing your conditional 30% by 2020 target (which will happen without any extra effort).

• Cancel the vast surplus of emission allowances weighing down your carbon market to ensure that the 2030 target will not be made meaningless with carry-over of old reductions.

Capacity building is generally perceived as a low priority. It’s an old-school component that all Parties want (including Annex 1 Parties) and is critical to other issues such as mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and finance. Accordingly, it suffers from being everybody’s darling—and thereby ultimately no one’s.

For this reason, ECO was surprised to learn that capacity building has becoming contentious within  the draft text. Developing countries have proposed a new mechanism and/or committee which can act as a focal point for capacity building under the SBI to ensure coherence and coordination with the other negotiating tracks. The rationale is similar to the squabble with adaptation some years ago when Parties accepted that there was a need for an Adaptation Committee.

The time has come to breathe new life into capacity building with a new mechanism that makes it meaningful to developing countries, that need it most, through increased coherence and coordination.

There is incredible global momentum on climate change. People, everywhere, are standing up and demanding that their governments take action and are having an impact. Such an impact that many of the biggest polluters have also taken notice and are scrambling to get on the right side of history—but only at first blush; let’s not forget that corporate lobbying and corporately funded climate denialism are all-too-familiar phenomena.

For example, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative released a report calling for a price on carbon and investment in carbon capture and sequestration. Then there’s Shell and BHP’s newly announced commission to advise governments on climate policy. The problem isn’t just outside the UNFCCC process.

Within the negotiations, major carbon polluters seek to institutionalise their participation and influence. COP21 will be sponsored by corporations that have contributed—and continue to contribute—significantly to the climate crisis. Case in point: Électricité de France and Engie’s current coal operations account for nearly half of France’s energy emissions.

The Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) raises serious questions regarding corporate conflicts of interest what with the inclusion of fossil fuel companies like Total, a corporation widely known to undermine climate policy in Europe.

Fortunately, numerous recent developments have exposed the truth behind the lies advanced by polluting industries like big coal and big oil.
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In recent years, ECO has observed, with concern, the negotiations on the future of the Adaptation Fund (AF) in the post-2020 agreement.

Among all of the financial mechanisms under the Convention, the AF has made unique progress. The AF plays an important role in the climate finance landscape by providing funding for small-scale adaptation projects. It now has a portfolio of 50 such projects, enabled especially through its direct access modality. Furthermore, the AF has successfully accredited 20 national implementing entities (NIEs) and helped build local capacity. The AF’s wings should not be clipped.

Unfortunately, the Co-Chairs’ earlier draft text did not recognise these achievements, and failed to paint a clear picture of the AF in the future finance architecture. Thanks to the last surgical insertions, the new version contains a good proposal featuring the AF as a key instrument of the Financial Mechanism.

ECO feels warm and fuzzy about the proposal by the African Group. Currently, adaptation finance is in crisis. Any enhanced action on adaptation requires contributions of all funds, particularly the AF. The AF can help recipient countries to implement their NAPs and their INDCs. Despite the scarcity of the resources, the Fund’s board received an unprecedented 15 proposals (including the first regional programmes) at its last meeting.
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Everyone knows that real climate negotiations cannot take place in public. ECO is therefore pleased to have spent Tuesday occupying the cafeteria seats instead of delaying the rapid progress being made in the spinoff groups. At last check, we were on track to warm the seats by 3°C, enough to ensure negotiators could later sit comfortably while celebrating their work with beer and pretzels.

Monday’s negotiations progressed at a snail’s pace as unruly observers interrupted the positive flow between the Co-Chairs and Parties. Thankfully, the unanimous frustration with observers was remedied today with a single objection in the plenary. The applause and high-fiving among developed countries following Japan’s statement signalled that they spoke for us all.  Similarly righteous, but under-appreciated, the Secretariat deserves similar praise for doing what the Co-Chairs could not—they took away meeting space that civil society had reserved. One can only hope that the hotels of Bonn follow this lead.

ECO would like to remind Parties of the continual stalling role played by observers. They are notorious filibusters, unwilling to compromise, vociferously opposed to long-term commitments, and they try to undermine the principles of the Convention more frequently than wi-fi in the plenary hall cuts out. After trying the “Mango Heaven” smoothie in the cafeteria for the umpteenth time, ECO suspects the observers may have developed secret plans to profit from tropical agriculture in Antarctica.
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Earlier this month contributors showed us what a US$100 billion commitment looks like. The OECD/CPI report revealed that the commitment consists mostly of loans and private finance. In 2013, the contributions consisted of more than $20b in loans, almost $20b in private finance, equity and guarantees, and a mere $13b in grants. These numbers don’t quite add up and ECO feels that the “$100 billion” is desperately lacking the spirit of the 2009 promise—to provide new and additional money to help meet the needs of developing countries.

ECO has heard donor Parties complaining about being haunted by the spirit of the $100b, but the effort to evade the original intentions with new accounting methodologies isn’t fooling anyone. So, here is an alternative approach, one that is more in keeping with the spirit of the commitment:

• Address the adaptation finance gap: According to the report, only 16% of climate finance was for adaptation. Parties should commit to allocating at least 50% of public finance for adaptation. ECO would also encourage Parties to take action to address the gap before 2020. A public adaptation finance target for 2020 would kill two birds with one stone.

• Use innovative sources for climate finance: Alternative sources, like financial transactions taxes on bunkers or redirecting fossil fuel subsidies, could allow donor countries to contribute to climate finance without raiding their aid budgets.

ECO believes it is high time to deal with the problem that, when it comes to finance, Parties speak about two separate issues: one is the shifting, attracting and mobilising of financial flows, public or private; the other is the provision of financial support by rich countries to poor countries. They are lumped together in Article 6 because the word finance appears in both of them, and because one can nicely be used to marginalise the other. The issues are linked, and both have their role in the Paris Agreement, but ECO needs to remind everyone that they are not the same. One cannot replace the other.

The Umbrella Group’s finance proposals are about mobilising financial flows but not about committing financial support, leaving a wide finance gap. Article 6 now contains both the Umbrella Group’s proposals, and the G77’s proposals—a dramatic improvement.

ECO suspects that the Umbrella Group would have preferred the earlier version of the Article, as their “surgical insertions” re-hashed the old version instead of making the key changes  needed to improve predictability and adequacy of financial support under the Paris Agreement. Smartly, when making their insertions, the G77 stood up for their needs.

The new Article 6 now includes much of what is needed for an article whose role will be to organise financial support for adaptation, loss and damage, enhance mitigation, and to achieve the long-term goal of full decarbonisation by 2050.
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There’s one particularly valuable piece of mitigation text that got lost in the co-chairs’ pressure cleaning of the text. Namely, the text that called for full decarbonisation by 2050.

ECO urges Parties to bring it back into the first paragraph of Article 3.

Why?

Because the Paris agreement needs to be a phase-out agreement, rather than another emissions management agreement.

In light of the latest IPCC findings and the carbon budget it outlines, fossil carbon emissions must simply be phased out. And that needs to happen fast, by mid-century at the latest, if we are to have a good chance of staying below 2°C, not to mention 1.5°C.

Those who believe we have more time for the phase out, even until the end of the century, are betting on  hypothetical and highly problematic ”negative emissions”.

That’s not a plan. That’s just reckless gambling with our future.

A goal of full decarbonisation by 2050 would reflect the true urgency of the situation. It would make it increasingly difficult for businesses to justify investing in high-carbon emitting infrastructure, because the energy systems we’ll need to have in place by 2050 are being built now.

On the other hand, a long-term goal of decarbonisation by end of the century would have the opposite effect.
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