Category: Previous Issues Articles

2015 will be a trek. One summit followed by another, ending with a steep climb to Paris. The first peak will be reached next month with delegates meeting at the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendai, Japan to finalise a new framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). ECO has some thoughts about outcomes at Sendai:

1. A strong signal that climate change is already increasing the frequency, intensity and unpredictability of natural disasters. Reducing disaster risks will require emissions to be cut drastically.
2. Ramp up support for disaster risk reduction action. Disaster preparedness is not a solo undertaking. Often a practitioner gap exists between DRR institutions and those doing adaptation on the ground. This results in bad planning and loss of crucial resources. Sendai should bridge that gap and transform DRR into “strategic DRR”.
3. Initiate a framework that tracks countries’ progress in advancing DRR both qualitatively and in metrics. This framework could also provide valuable learning and bring coherence in implementation of adaptation actions.
4. Promote approaches to tackle ‘exceeding national capacities’, which is a gap in the international system. Sometimes countries are overwhelmed by disasters. For many countries, these disasters are a direct result of our changing climate. The DRR needs of affected countries should be matched by reliable support, recognising collective and differentiated responsibilities.

It’s Wednesday, and the spirit with which we began the week seems to be vanishing. And quickly at that. ECO wants Parties – facilitated by the ADP Co-Chairs – to continue negotiating with the same spirit they started off with, robustly and with purpose. It’s great that Parties feel ownership of the text, and this can be gauged by the inputs made to the text. Now is the time to begin identifying ways to streamline the text, while ensuring all inputs for an ambitious Paris agreement are retained.

The draft contains some promising ideas that must be nurtured and developed further in order for the text to remain ambitious. ECO knows Parties are busy this week, so we wanted to remind them of these core ideas so they don’t get lost in the streamlining. In the context of reminding Parties of the need to have a long-term goal within the text, ECO is particularly happy to see references ensuring we stay on a 1.5°C trajectory. This trajectory can only be achieved through a phase-out of fossil fuel emissions and phase- in of 100% renewable energy, enabling sustainable energy access for all, no later than 2050. This goal should be complemented with commitments by Parties to close the short-term mitigation gap, and to operationalise enablers like finance, technology and capacity building to fill in the foundation for achieving this goal.
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Workstream 2 is great: without it, no long term goal matters, however it’s expressed. 2020 is simply too late unless parties take bold actions in the next 5 years. ECO was thrilled to see all of yesterday devoted to the 2015 technical examination process.

It is high time to move beyond identifying promising options and admiring great examples to the question of how we can scale up, replicate and implement. We need an effective mechanism to harness opportunities for additional ambition in the 2015-20 period. Here are a few simple suggestions:

• Focus the next TEMs of the solutions that have garnered the most support so far and those offering the largest potential benefits (deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency at scale as well as on those that cut fossil fuel subsidies);
• Move beyond identifying options and examples, instead focus on implementation: how can existing barriers be overcome and and needs addressed?;
• Get specific about how existing institutions such as the TEC, the CTCN and the GCF should support best practices identified in Workstream 2;
• Create new partnerships and recognise existing initiatives that bring together pioneers and deliver significant additional mitigation results.

There also need to be criteria to distinguish meaningful initiatives from the greenwash.
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As negotiators discuss how and where to include human rights references in the negotiating text, Panama has set a real world example. ECO warmly welcomes the decision by Panama’s environmental authority to temporarily suspend the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam over noncompliance with its environmental impact assessment, including consultation requirements.

For the past several years, the indigenous Ngöbe communities have stood in firm opposition to the Barro Blanco dam, which would flood the homes of many indigenous families living at the Tabasará River. Where does the UNFCCC come in? Well, despite strong community resistance, the project developer applied for registration under the Clean Development Mechanism. When alerted about the danger indigenous families were facing, the CDM Board decided that the CDM’s consultation standards had been met and approved the project. There’s no question we need to fight climate change. But there’s no justification for violating human rights in the process.

Panama’s suspension of the project following the CDM Board’s decision to approve the Barro Blanco project is a game changer. Credible international climate policy needs to be consistent with existing obligations, and those obligations must be recognised and operationalised in the 2015 agreement. Dear delegates: don’t let projects like Barro Blanco undermine the integrity of international climate policy – our future climate deal should respect, protect, promote and help realise human rights.

Parties in the Workstream 2 Technical Expert Process yesterday coined a new acronym: MFN, “More, Faster, Now.” ECO is not a fan of acronyms for acronyms sake but this one could prove useful, particularly for those parties with a dirty coal habit.

It emerged that a number of OECD parties—Japan, South Korea, and Germany among them—have spent nearly US$15 billion over the past 10 years on exports of coal technologies abroad. This has made these fossil fuel projects cheaper than clean and renewable energy solutions.

Renewable energy solutions have innumerable benefits: the MFN mantra is more action on climate change at a faster pace, starting now. Spending billions on technology exports to advance the use of the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel does exactly the opposite.

ECO hopes this misunderstanding can be cleared up, ASAP, starting at the OECD Export Credit Group deliberations later this year.

ECO was very pleased to hear the excellent interventions from AOSIS, LDCs, AILAC (together with Mexico and the Dominican Republic), LMDCs and Africa Group yesterday, emphasising that Loss and Damage needs to be a separate item within the Paris agreement.

As explained by AOSIS, anchoring the Loss and Damage institutional arrangements in the agreement will ensure their durability and flexibility. This will allow for the adjustment of support to vulnerable countries depending upon their levels of ambition in mitigation and adaptation.

Meanwhile, the LDCs reminded Parties that dealing with losses and damages from slow-onset and extreme events is not a luxury — it is a necessity. The LDCs’ concrete proposals for elements of a Paris agreement, including a compensation regime and a displacement coordination facility, reflect the real circumstances of vulnerable people both now and in the future.

Developed country Parties really should do their remedial reading, and not be afraid to engage constructively on how to incorporate Loss and Damage as a separate and important element of the Paris agreement.

Finance for Loss and Damage is clearly a key issue in the negotiations, and must be separate from adaptation finance. ECO believes that France can make a difference here with its long history of championing innovative financing.
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The Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) finished up yesterday. The EU delegate surmised things aptly: “We are not on track.”

With over 19 presentations, the message was loud and clear. We are, unfortunately, on a path that sees warming going well above 2˚C. And there were 70 presentations many of which documenting that even 2˚C warming is intolerable. We need to limit warming to 1.5˚C.

ECO is confident that these findings will be among the prominent results of the SED report coming out on March 20. And ECO hopes that policymakers will recognise the unique value of a dialogue informed by science and act accordingly.

Some time ago, ECO was pleased to see the phrase “environmentally sound technologies” replaced with “economically, socially and environmentally sound technologies” in the context of technology transfer. The thinking was that the consideration of economic and social implications offered two crucial additional factors planners could use to predict the likely success of technology assimilation in a local setting.

It seemed that what would follow would be a process involving various stakeholders to clarify the meaning of these three terms in various local settings and circumstances — evaluate all three — and provide an opportunity to get real buy-in from intended users.

In the economic category, users might want assurance of a sustainable, long-term business model for the adoption and adaptation of technologies, and assurance that the introduction of new technologies would not result in massive economic displacement.

Likewise, in the social category, planners might want to understand the impacts of technology-induced change of social mores and culture on health, participation of women in the work force, and participation of the most vulnerable sectors of a community. In the environmental category, they might want to consider the risk that the adopted technology could cause unintended harm to complex and critical ecosystem services and biodiversity.
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