Category: Previous Issues Articles

Everyone needs to take part in the battle against climate change, and we all agree that includes the private sector. Still, it was a shock to learn that the COP Presidency invited fossil industries to sponsor these climate talks, even while these very same companies do their utmost to fight against climate policies.

Corporate sponsorships to ‘brand’ stadiums have been around for a while.  All the same, ECO wasn’t quite ready for this new trend at the COP. Branding is all about visibility and alliances. And money. So what message are we seeing here in Warsaw?

Just look around you. Fossil industry logos are everywhere in the conference center – on the water dispensers, in the meeting hall and on the welcome bags for COP guests. And the USB stick – you guessed it!  It’s full of presentations about the “excellent” environmental performance of these companies! But somehow the most important facts are missing:

* Alstom and PGE (the Polish majority state-owned energy utility) plan to build a huge new 1,800 MW coal power plant in Poland – a monster which would emit about 350 million tonnes of CO2 in its lifetime.

* The car maker BMW made headlines recently because of its generous donations to Ms.
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Parties in Doha requested expert advice to ensure the scientific integrity of the 2013-2015 Review. Well, yesterday they got it, fresh from IPCC Working Group I. In the first of two dialogues in Warsaw, IPCC experts provided advice on the adequacy of the 2oC goal in light of the ‘ultimate objective’ of the Convention.

Working Group I confirms what we already knew: warming is unequivocal, human influence is clear, and limiting climate change and its impacts requires substantial and sustained emissions reduction – in fact, down to zero.

But there is good news as well.  The “peak and decline” trajectory of the lowest concentration pathway (RCP2.6) could limit the increase in global mean temperature to 1.5oC and would increase the likelihood of meeting the long term global goal of keeping below 2oC. That’s not easy, but it’s still within reach.

The findings show that even 2oC warming will increase the potential for dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, and delaying emissions reductions would speed the pace and severity of impacts such as sea level rise and storm intensity. The WG I report gives Parties one less excuse to delay or hedge their mitigation commitments and actions up to and beyond 2020.
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Global food production and food security are threatened by the greater variability of the climate and increasing occurrence of extreme weather events. Yet the agriculture negotiations are not moving with the urgency required to support the world’s poor, especially those engaged in agriculture and related activities, in adapting to these adverse impacts. A vast majority of the world’s population is dependent on small-scale food producers — climate change puts all of this at risk.

While underscoring the importance of mitigation in the agriculture sector, Parties should be working toward safeguards which protect biodiversity, provide equitable access to resources by rural peoples, ensure food security and the right to food, and build on indigenous and local knowledge.

Developed countries must recognise that for agriculture in developing countries, the priorities remain  food security, sustainability and climate resilience. Parties must provide financing for promoting biodiversity, ensuring resilient small-scale agriculture based on agro-ecological principles, and support for appropriate technology development and transfer that enhances the sustainability of food production systems.

At the ADP opening yesterday, ECO waited in vain for bold and innovative ideas to ensure each Party proposes its equitable share of the global effort.  We are all agreed that equity matters (the WHY) – so let’s figure out the HOW.

The COP and ADP opened with clarion calls for ambition – and the key to ambition is equity. Your mission this week, dear Parties, is to move beyond vague statements about fairness and map the all-important Convention principles onto a common list of equity indicators.

We hope you’ve been busy since Bonn doing your homework on this, but just to help out, here is some know-HOW.

ECO believes there are five indicators that really matter: Adequacy, Responsibility, Capacity, Development Need, and Adaptation Need. These are the minimum indicators required to operationalize the core equity principles enshrined in the Convention.

For a fair 2015 outcome, Warsaw must deliver a consensus on the indicators that should guide Parties in formulating their pledges, and against which their pledges will be reviewed and strengthened as necessary. And there is no time to lose!

Let’s count the ways the Government of Poland earned the Fossil of the Day, while the Polish people deserve only Rays.

Reason 1: Continuously opposing the European Union from taking more ambitious climate action

Reason 2: Co-hosting a Coal Summit coinciding with the COP but not organizing any debate on renewable energy opportunities

Reason 3: Inviting polluting companies that openly oppose an ambitious climate action to sponsor the COP

Reason 4: Allowing the dirty side of European industry, Business Europe, to represent the business voice at the pre-COP

Reason 5: Writing mad postings on the official COP19 website about the economic opportunities the melting Arctic will bring as well as chasing the “pirates, ecologists and terrorists” on the sea

Reason 6: Presenting delegates with standard climate denialist rhetoric through their mobile device app, repeating the old chestnut that “climate changes are natural phenomena, which occured (sic) many times on Earth”.

Ray of Hope for the renewable energy loving People of Poland

The Polish government is holding the world back and acting as the PR department of the coal industry. But the Polish people want to grasp a renewable future, not be stuck in a coal-based past.

No less than 89% of Polish citizens want more energy to come from renewable sources and more than two-thirds of Polish people (70%) want an energy policy that gives support to renewables.
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The Warsaw city bikes are a good choice to explore this place which we call home for the next two weeks. The main task of ADP workstream 1 is to chart the course of work needed to deliver a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement no later than COP 21 in Paris. So we should not spin our wheels in the same old direction with the same old interventions. Here are some of the key points for the ADP WS1 outputs that will set the right course:

* The deadline for tabling commitments: 2014 The Paris Protocol must signal the beginning of the end of fossil fuel use, with commitments inscribed that put the world on an emissions reduction pathway consistent with 1.5/2°C. To ensure this happens, Parties cannot wait until they show up in the City of Light to make their commitments but rather must table them much sooner so that a review for adequacy and equity can be done. This means Parties must begin working on their proposed commitments right away so they can be tabled in 2014. And the 2014 deadline applies equally to mitigation and financial commitments. These should not be viewed as ‘initial offers’ in some negotiating game, but real commitments that will add up to an ambitious deal from the beginning.
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Yesterday, we heard from the Philippines lead negotiator, Yeb Sano, who addressed the opening session of the UN climate negotiations, calling for an end to the madness and taking urgent action to prevent a repeat of the devastating storm that hit much of his country this past weekend. Super Typhoon Haiyan was nothing the world has ever experienced, taking thousands of lives in just two days.

Yeb Sano even declared that he will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this COP until a meaningful outcome is in sight. Very importantly, he put a lot of faith in civil society. The message is unmistakable: “These last two days, there are moments when I feel that I should rally behind the climate advocates who peacefully confront those historically responsible for the current state of our climate. These selfless people who fight coal, expose themselves to freezing temperatures, or block oil pipelines. In fact, we are seeing increasing frustration and, thus, more increased civil disobedience. The next two weeks, these people, and many around the world who serve as our conscience will again remind us of our enormous responsibility. To the youth here who will constantly remind us that their future is in peril, to the climate heroes who risk their lives, reputation, and personal liberties to stop drilling in the polar regions and to those communities standing up to unsustainable and climate-disrupting conventional sources of energy, we stand with them.“
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As Parties pave the road towards the 2015 agreement under ADP Workstream 1, a crucial brick seems to have gone missing. According to the UNEP Emission Gap report, pre-2020 mitigation efforts currently fall 8-12 GtCO2e short of what is needed to keep global temperature increases below 1.5/2°C.

ECO would love to hear how Parties intend to reach a global deal in Paris if they don’t increase their pre-2020 ambition significantly. If global emissions do not peak by 2015, the entire basis for Paris negotiation will have to be revised to address increased adaptation and finance needs and more loss and damage. How many more lives will be put at threat because of inaction?

How many more climate activists will have to risk their lives to show the lack of political will and the world’s unrelenting dependency on fossil fuels?

ECO is tired of repeating that 2020 is too late to start acting. Without stronger mitigation action by 2020, typhoons like Haiyan will become ordinary climate events. Experts tell us that a 2°C pathway implies an immediate peaking of global emissions and a much faster rate of fossil CO2 decline – at least 3% by 2019 and 4% by 2036 (Stockholm Environment Institute, 2013).
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Twelve years ago the deficit of women’s participation at the UNFCCC was raised as a matter urgently needing attention, and Parties decided to improve the participation of women in UNFCCC bodies in decision 36/CP.7.

A year ago, with a view to the continuing and significant deficit of women’s participation, and with increased recognition of the importance of women’s effective participation and gender equality to all aspects of climate change, a new and more powerful decision was adopted requesting Parties to work toward a goal of gender balance, gender-sensitive climate policy and capacity building on the issue.

This decision also established gender and climate change as a standing agenda item of the COP, and Parties and Observers were requested to submit their views. Today from 15:00 to 18:00 in meeting room 1, the UNFCCC will convene the first in-session gender and climate change workshop to discuss Party submissions as well as the major themes of the gender decision.

This is an opportune time to engage on this critical issue and map out concrete next steps on gender in the climate change debate.

The First Place Fossil goes to Australia. Many would have thought that Australia’s position at COP19 couldn’t have got much worse after the dismantling of its climate change department, ridding itself of the burden of a climate change minister and intending to remove its carbon price during COP. But we thought wrong.

Yesterday, the Australian media revealed that Australia will not be putting forward any new finance commitments in Warsaw. This is despite the crushing losses suffered by the Philippines this week, illustrating Australia’s lack of understanding as to the purpose of climate finance. To top it off, Australian cabinet ministers characterize climate finance as ‘socialism masquerading as environmentalism’ – we have news for you, it’s not socialism, its equity and it’s your responsibility.

Ray of Solidarity Special recognition

The Ray of the Solidarity, goes to the Philippines. The lead negotiator called for urgent action to prevent a repeat of the devastating storm that hit parts of his country this past weekend. Super Typhoon Haiyan was nothing the world has ever experienced.