Category: Previous Issues Articles

Even as CO2 concentrations are about to break the 400ppm threshold, fresh climate disasters are announced all over the planet, and carbon prices are collapsing because of lax targets on par with BAU, countries have apparently come to the UNFCCC ADP meeting in Bonn with nothing to offer. Developed countries seem to be looking off in the distance beyond 2020, with images of universal participation and bottom-up national pledges dancing in their heads. Mundane issues like what has to change in the next 6 years and 8 months to stay below 2 degrees are apparently the farthest thing from their minds.

Parties are in Bonn to get down to work on two tasks – raise pre-2020 ambition and craft the next legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas pollution – potentially the most significant global treaty that will ever be negotiated. Delegates should be mindful of the fact that that your work this week and over the next few years will secure you a place in the history books. Whether the legacy you leave behind is positive or abysmal depends on your creativity, commitment, negotiating skills and sheer hard craft. In short, you will have to be prepared to pull out all the stops.
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The following are excerpts from a particularly incisive intervention in the ADP workshop yesterday afternoon. In case you missed it, ECO suggests you take a look. And if you didn’t miss it, ECO suggests you take a look anyway, since it’s a subject Parties need to work much more on:

“What is needed is a process that would allow for a proper equity review of the pledges, to be conducted in parallel with the equally-critical science review.

To that end, the Parties should launch an open, expert process to develop an equity reference framework that is suitable to the evaluation of national pledges. This framework would have to be designed to maximize both ambition and participation. Parties, when making pledges, would be guided by the knowledge that these would be evaluated within both the science and equity reviews.

How to think about such an equity review? The first point is that the demands of equity have already been agreed. This is true at the level of the Convention’s keystone text on CBDR & RC, and it’s true of the four fundamental equity principles – ambition, responsibility, capacity, and development need – that underlie the principle of CBDR & RC and, of course, our shared vision of ‘equitable access to sustainable development’ as well.
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It is well-trodden ground that there is a huge gap between what Parties say they want (staying below 2°C and keeping the door open to 1.5°C) and what Parties have pledged to contribute between now and 2020 to achieve that planetary necessity. In theory, Workstream 2 has already identified how to bridge the gap through: 1) improving developed countries’ woefully inadequate 2020 emission reduction targets; 2) identifying ways to enable and support developing countries in upping their own pre-2020 ambition; and 3) joint complementary action in addition to the first two areas on everything from phasing out HFCs to fossil fuel subsidies. The task now is to JUST DO IT.

ECO thought “doing it” would require no explanation, but some recent happenings in many developed countries are getting their positions all wrong. First and foremost – and we really thought this was obvious – the thing that needs to go up is the target, not the temperature. For the EU this means moving to 30% – a move which really shouldn’t be that difficult considering that it has already achieved its 20% target almost 8 years ahead of schedule and will actually achieve more than that (around 25-27%) by 2020. How can the EU host 2 COPs over the next 3 years and ask the rest of the world to do more while it decides to take a break?
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Plato observed in The Republic that necessity is the mother of invention. Parties, he was speaking about you. Humanity formed the State to enable the conditions for sufficient food, shelter and security. Today we face an unprecedented challenge – how will we respond?

At this early stage in developing the global climate agreement in 2015, “ambition” dominates the agenda – and for good reason. The IPCC’s forthcoming AR5 will shine a bright and unyielding light on the planetary emergency we now face.

It’s not just about the need to close the emissions gap. While those 11 gigatonnes will help the atmosphere, they won’t break the back of the politics to get us below 2°C. What is required is for collective agreement to dramatically change the course of human development with the climate clock ticking. So it’s simple: the 2015 deal must deliver ambition compatible with a below 2°C trajectory.

There is a sense in some quarters that a top-down method to achieve that kind of ambition is out of reach politically, so a bottom-up approach will have to suffice. But these underachievers are missing the point. Either they wilfully ignore the fact that climate change will ravage the globe and its inhabitants, or they think Plan B[ottom-up] can keep us out of harm’s reach of unavoidable climate change.
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Today is the day to press the reset button. The planet is shouting warning signs at us but the Conference is sleepwalking off the cliff of climate disaster. A political deal was struck in Durban and all need to stand by it.

Ministers, while you bemoan the impending doom in high sounding high-level speeches and promise to do everything within your power to stop it, your negotiators dig in ever deeper in the back rooms of the QNCC.

The Doha deal ECO believes is still within reach would take immediate steps to improve the short-term ambition we urgently need. Your political ambitions need to be matched by targets and pledges more ambitious than the ones currently on offer.

Speaking of pledges: whatever happened to the ambition of the Gulf countries to become climate leaders? What or who is holding them back? Was this the cause of the commotion at the Qatar Airways desk yesterday?

Clearly, much hard work lies ahead to close the growing gigatonne gap. This must start right away with an ambition ‘ratchet’ mechanism (KP) and plan of work with specific milestones (ADP).

Which brings us to the most uncooperative track of all, the LCA. With 53 (!) outstanding issues, this feels like the playroom after a toddler’s birthday party.
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To tell the truth, the last couple of days have not seen a lot of Progress, much less Ambition. But along comes something that makes you think there is hope and good will somewhere.

ECO is quietly cheering the rumours of developing countries putting pledges on the table. Today at the High Level Segment, the Dominican Republic pledged an unconditional 25% emission reduction below 2010 levels by 2030 in absolute terms, to be accomplished with domestic funds plus international community solidarity. This is in a national law and therefore mandatory for the government to deliver.

Congratulations to the Dominican Republic for taking serious action on climate change and recall that many other countries are also doing their job. This is the kind of attitude we need in these negotiations to move things forward.

The causes and effects of the global climate storm are dispersed; there is fragmentation and institutional inadequacy. This is true of most global problems, but the factor that really complicates climate action is the spatial and temporal dimensions. The effects of greenhouse gases are not ‘hot spots’ at the source. They are in fact global and the effects are most brutal in areas where emissions are low.

We need to converge our moral and ethical values to tackle this vast problem. The youth organization SustainUS conducted a social experiment on Thursday at the QNCC to test this premise.

Youth representatives asked individuals entering the Conference where they would place their money, were it completely up to them: the Green Climate Fund, Fast Start Finance, Midterm Finance (2013-2020), Military Spending and Fossil Fuel Subsidies.

Each respondent received fake money at the start of the moving walkways from the garage to the QNCC and had to choose along the way where their currency would best be spent. Many dismissed the youth holding the Military Spending and Fossil Fuel Subsidies jars and split their ethical urges between the three climate change finance options.

By the end of the event, the Green Climate Fund was the clear winner.
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UK: 1.5bn GBP over 3 years as FSF, to 1.8bn over 2 years, with 50% for adaptation.

Germany: 1.4bn Euros in 2012 to 1.8bn in 2013.

Denmark: 500m DKK for 2013, of which 20% tentatively for the GCF. Maintaining fast start levels of the year 2012.

[The Danish government gave 1.2 billion Danish Kroner in FSF over the years going 300 mil in 2010, 400 in 2011 and ending on 500 mil this year. So the 500 mil for 2013 is keeping the level of this year.]

NB that the UK, Germany, Denmark announcements were from before — it’s just a clarification of what is in their budgets — only new thing is that they have made them public under the COP.

These ones appear right, but are based on reports of what was said during negotiations (ie not exactly formal announcements of
pledges):

Sweden: 2.5bn SEK for 2013 (Swedish NGOs seem to say this is down not up, but we don’t have details)

Canada: Said in the KP that they will continue support for new global initiatives including agriculture and the Arctic (which is not even a developing country!)

Australia: Said would pledge but no numbers.

[The First Place Fossil goes to the European Union.] The EU receives a bracketed Fossil because we still have hope that the EU will stop being bullied by Poland and stand up for full cancellation of all hot air at the end of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Before Durban, the EU talked about the importance of closing the gap. On Kyoto it said it can commit to a second commitment period, on the condition that there’s a roadmap where the major emitters engage in a broader framework and where Kyoto rules are improved to ensure environmental integrity, specifically referring to the AAU surplus. However, the EU is still dilly-dallying. We need a strong EU position right now. If the EU fails to come to a sensible and joint position on the surplus, it will fail to be seen as serious in the ADP discussions to come. A political declaration is no option and a solution has to include a full cancellation of all surplus at the end of the second commitment period.

The Second Place Fossil of the Day goes to Poland for a fossilized position on the hot air issue. They stubbornly insist on full carry-over and generous use in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol while vehemently opposing cancellation of any hot air at the end of the that period.
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Dear Ministers:

With the rising impacts of severe climate change, now is the time for developed countries to scale up climate finance rather than pulling back from it.  Droughts, storms and heat waves all demand climate action — and action requires finance. Developing countries can’t survive without action.

Yet many developed countries seem to be failing in committing this. And now they’re hiding behind slippery words.

When you apply the word ‘continuation’ to climate finance, it might sound applicable at first hearing; but when you look more closely, you realize that continuing doesn’t tell you how much will continue:  $10?  $25?  $1,000?

Some European countries have pledged finance for the upcoming period, but where are the other developed countries — like the US, Japan, Canada or Australia? It would be appropriate for them and others to join in a common finance commitment. It’s not enough to rely on just a few countries to step up and pledge at the podium — we need everyone at the altar, committing together in a decision at Doha.

If you leave Doha without that collective decision, the commitment to reaching $100 billion dollars per annum by 2020 will be on the way to becoming an unreachable fantasy, with the future of a successful ADP hanging in the balance, and the survival of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable at far greater risk.