Category: Previous Issues Articles

Dear Chief Speech Writer,

Being a speech writer for one of the busiest people on earth is stressful, isn’t it? Don’t worry, ECO is here to help with some advice that you may want to consider in your draft speech for the Chinese leader in the upcoming Climate Summit.

ECO recommends having “coal” as the key word in your writing. We’re aware of the recent regional coal caps introduced in China, intended to tackle air pollution. Your country is making impressive progress in deviating from the coal dependent path. Why not write about it? Even better, how about expanding existing coal caps to the entire country and announcing this decision in the speech? Not only would this help alleviate air pollution in China, it would also bring down emissions significantly. You recently wrote your Premier an impressive speech to declare “war on pollution”. We’re pacifists at ECO, but could definitely get behind those efforts.

You should consider reaffirming the intention to communicate China’s “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDC) for the 2015 climate deal by the first quarter of next year. Speech elements that touch on the scope and ambition level of the Chinese offer will certainly be welcomed.
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We all agree that we need an ambitious agreement in Paris that can avert the worst of climate change. But how will we know that we’ve got an ambitious agreement when we march through the Arc de Triomphe with the final text in hand? How will we know that the INDCs put forward by Parties will collectively be sufficient to rise to the challenge and that each Party’s INDC will individually represent its fair share?

Easy – we assess them! And worry not, assess them we will!

ECO believes that, by Lima, Parties should agree both on the information to be included in the INDCs as well as on the assessment process before finalising them for the Paris deal.

In this light, ECO is surprised and confused to hear that the Like-Minded Group yesterday insist that Parties shouldn’t agree on anything more than the elements of information for INDCs in Lima. In other words, that there would be no agreement on assessing or reviewing of the targets.

ECO is also equally surprised by Russia, who said there is no need for assessing the contributions, Australia who had already voiced the same sentiment during Sunday’s ADP session, as well as Brazil who sees an assessment of targets before Paris as counter-productive.
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ECO thinks that we might have witnessed the potential beginnings of a copyright infringement dispute yesterday in the ADP when Saudi Arabia appeared to be freely utilising the current Canadian government’s talking points on climate change. The Saudi delegate insisted that being responsible for only 1% of global emissions is an excuse for inaction on mitigation; a line of reasoning with which Canada’s Prime Minister Harper and his ministers have long tried to justify how their expansion of dirty tar sands isn’t reckless nor is Canada’s general failure to deliver on Kyoto or Copenhagen commitments: Canada isn’t excused from acting on climate change just because its fraction of the global emissions total is small.

In case you, Dear Reader, missed it, Saudi Arabia suggested that its “minuscule” contribution of a mere 1% to global GHG emissions justifies that it can limit its INDC to adaptation action while only the top 20 of the world’s emitters should focus on mitigation. To suggest that countries with “only” 1% of global emissions should get a free pass on mitigation doesn’t make sense on two fronts. It doesn’t fit with a long term need to completely phase-out fossil fuel emissions by 2050 and phase-in renewable energy access for all, and it also contradicts the very purpose of the ADP, tasked with “ensuring the highest possible mitigation efforts by all Parties”.
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Further and greater emissions reductions between now and up until 2020 are needed if we want to keep the possibility of limiting global warming to below 1.5°C. That’s why ECO is looking forward to the discussions in Workstream 2, and on renewable energies (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) today. In order to achieve a 100% renewable energy future with sustainable energy access for all by 2050, at the latest, we need to act now. Here are a few suggestions from ECO

Let’s continue the technical expert meetings in 2014 and beyond until we have closed the gap. We need to also structure them so that they can lead to concrete outcomes though. These meetings should focus on identifying best practice policies, existing barriers and needs. Results from the meetings should be summarised in policy menus that countries can use to indicate what they’re already implementing, and which additional ones they could implement if the necessary support is provided by developed countries.

Existing institutions, like the TEC, CTCN, GCF, GEF and NAMA Registry, all need to be put to work, to scale up RE and EE. It is clear that Workstream 2 needs to prepare the COP decisions that will provide the necessary guidance, for example ensuring that the Green Climate Fund’s mitigation window prioritises investments in RE and EE solutions in the pre-2020 period.
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Full points for the moderators of the Long Term Climate Finance discussions yesterday for trying to inject some energy into the rather stale discussions of scaling up finance to meet the commitment of US$100 billion by 2020. Their chosen format of “world café discussions” with participants encouraged people to circulate between the four small group discussions in Salon Beethoven.

ECO picked up some encouraging snippets from the conversation like “need for quantitative and qualitative aspects of pathways to $100 billion”,  “develop innovative sources like bunker finance and financial transaction taxes”, and “50% for adaptation is important.” Clearly something has to change to get something concrete and useful out of this process. Perhaps changing the frame of reference might be helpful.

ECO has heard some countries lamenting about how difficult it was to provide public finance at the scale of tens or a hundred billion dollars per year. Put in the context of the scale of investments and financial flows in the larger economy, the financing required to address climate change is indeed quite modest and would be entirely manageable, if climate change was given the importance it deserved.

Some examples of scale of financial flows and investments in the global economy:

$1.8 quadrillion: Amount of financial transactions in the UK in 2013.
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With one week to go in the June 2014 session, it’s time to see where we stand on some of the key issues. Here is ECO’s take.

Adaptation

There was rich discussion on how adaptation should be addressed in the Paris agreement, but no sense on what that a goal would look like or how it would actually fit into the 2015 agreement. There was no clarity on whether adaptation actions should feature in the INDCs for example. Developed countries need to ramp up financial support substantially for adaptation activities, but there is no agreement, yet, on exactly how to do that.

ECO reminds Parties that COP20 must also take decisions on the governance structure and two-year work plan for the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage, as well as the Nairobi Work Program’s activities in the areas of health, ecosystems, human settlements and water.

Equity

Equity is central to these negotiations. Without equity, there is no ambition, and without ambition, there is no equity. The good news is that there’s a placeholder for equity indicators in the co-chairs’ draft decision text which must be addressed by countries when they put forward their INDCs.

ECO calls for an agreed list of equity indicators to be included in the final information requirements decision, both to inform the preparation of countries’ INDCs and to be used in assessment of them next year.

ECO was excited by yesterday’s Cities forum where great ideas, such as a plan to phase out of emissions by 2055 from the global building sector, were discussed. Amazing! A number of cities also have plans to go carbon neutral by 2030. Incredible! With this level of ambition, it’s no wonder Parties want to include Cities in the ADP deliberations. Let’s hope yesterday was informative and inspiring for the Parties.

Cities drive national economies and account for the lions’ share of national consumption, 70% of global GHG emissions come from cities. While the plans outlined are encouraging, this needs to be further expanded. The unsustainable urbanisation we are presently seeing leads to phenomena such as urban sprawl and increased car use, which threaten ecosystems and livelihoods, putting a tremendous strain on the natural environment. It does nothing for quality of life either!

ECO would love to see all cities adopt a vision for the future which is free of fossil fuel emissions and try’s to meet the growing demand for energy through 100% renewable energy. Compact efficient cities can alleviate poverty, combat climate change, and increase accessibility and efficient use of  services and utilities like water, energy, and transport.

With cities on the right track, the next step will be to get their respective whole countries to do the same!

Australia is the lucky recipient of the first Fossil of the Day award here in Bonn in recognition of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s stupendously brazen denial of the catastrophic risks posed by climate change. And to commend him in his recent efforts to form a gang of of “like minded” countries opposed to climate change action. News reports say Abbott may have co-opted Canada into his new scheme, and is reaching out to other countries including the UK and India in an attempt to “dismantle global moves to introduce carbon pricing.” ECO salutes Abbott’s commitment and consistency in his wilful blindness to the crippling economic costs of climate change.

Abbott must have missed the memo from the IPCC, when he decided to keep climate change out of the G20 talks that it’s hosting later this year, which spells out how climate change is an economic problem. It’s already costing us but, it doesn’t cost the earth to save the world.

Abbott is clearly looking for recognition of his madcap scheme, and ECO is proud to be among the first to step out and congratulate him for his dedication to the fossilised past. And now, this isn’t a joke, Abbott is actually doing this – sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!
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According to the latest IPCC findings, forests and land use collectively account for 24% of global emissions – 10-12 GtCo2e annually. This is, by far, the largest sources of emissions in certain regions, notably Latin America, Central Africa and Southeast Asia. In 2012m in Brazil, more than 61% of GHG emissions came from forests and farming activities.

Addressing these emissions is crucial to bridge the annual emissions gap of 8-12 GtCO2e by 2020 that would lead to global temperature increases of more than 1.5°C. Targeted actions in key regions can deliver immediate emissions reductions for the 2015-2020 period while necessary reforms in other sectors are under way. This would be a massive help if we are to peak emissions before 2020.

ADP Workstream 2 provides an opportunity to cut emissions fast from high carbon landscapes like forests, peatlands, mangroves, and other wetlands. Once these ecosystems are severely degraded or lost, most of their emissions reductions potential are a thing of the past. Measures to conserve these ecosystems bring many other benefits such as: diverse biodiversity and securing the livelihoods of local communities and maintaining resilience. One way to achieve all of this is to prioritise REDD+ as an immediate action to fund before 2020.
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