Category: Previous Issues Articles

Yesterday morning, ECO started the day full of hope and energy, eager to join the class reunion. On its way to the World Conference Center in Bonn (WCCB), ECO enjoyed the bright sunshine and happily greeted old and new UNFCCC friends, while patiently waiting for its SB56 badge. After all, this was a special moment: the last in-person intersessional was 3 years ago!

The first day of the intersessional meetings started on a positive note as at the beginning of the SBSTA opening plenary, parties agreed to adopt a supplementary agenda item on the “Glasgow–Sharm el-Sheikh Work Programme on the Global Goal on Adaptation” (GlaSS).

However, the honeymoon feeling did not last very long. Immediately after, ECO sadly witnessed the 1-hour+ debate on whether there should be “two” or “at least two” meetings on the GlaSS at SB56. Now, who likes to discuss such logistics on their honeymoon?

 A vast majority of Parties took the floor to express the need to not restrict the time and number of sessions dedicated to discussions on adaptation, which clearly is a very high priority given the acceleration of climate impacts. The Africa Group called on Parties to scale up adaptation action and regretted having to request the addition of an agenda item on this while it was mandated in COP26 decisions.
... Read more ...

At the start of this year’s SBs, ECO would like to remind you of an important fact: while inside the conference center, arrangements for the funding to avert, minimize and address Loss and Damage (L&D) will be discussed from tomorrow on at the Glasgow Dialogue, outside people are already paying for L&D! It’s the most vulnerable people being least responsible for the causes of climate change. According to a study by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), rural Bangladesh households are spending almost US$ 2 billion a year to repair the damage caused by climate change and on preventative measures. This is twice the amount the government of Bangladesh spends, and 12 times more than international donors. This is the opposite of what we call climate justice!

ECO has noted that some countries in the Global North have recognized the problem. The communiqué by G7 ministers recently recognized  “the urgent need for scaling-up action and support, as appropriate, including finance, technology and capacity-building, for the implementation of relevant approaches to averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage in developing countries”. This is a good first step, but mere recognition does not help people rebuilding destroyed homes or dealing with non-economic damages such as loss of biodiversity, culture or language.
... Read more ...

Yesterday, IPCC lead authors gave a presentation to Parties on the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) , focusing on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. The scientists delivered a grim message: human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption affecting the lives of billions of people, with people and ecosystems least able to cope being hit the hardest.  They gave a dire warning about the consequences of inaction with the world facing unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next decades – even if we are able to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. And they also made clear that even temporarily exceeding this magnitude of warming will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible.

Tomorrow IPCC lead authors of the Working Group III report will tell Parties that it is still possible to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C and inform them about the pathways available to do this. Lest they spent the last 20 years living under a rock, Parties will not be surprised to hear these pathways require major transitions in all economic sectors, substantial reductions in the use of energy and natural resources, and the rapid phase-out of all fossil fuels.
... Read more ...

Today is the day to demand results from the most critical compromise of COP26: after G77+China demanded a Loss and Damage finance facility, they were fobbed off with the Glasgow Dialogue. Now ECO came across this great recipe for preparing a successful Glasgow Dialogue that can at least live up to its potential. A filling main dish that really supports those most impacted by the climate crisis,to prevent the bitter aftertaste of a talk-shop without results.

To avoid a bland taste and disappointing expectations, you need the following ingredients:
A good portion of: concrete outcomes that provide adequate, new and additional support for the most vulnerable people and countries in addressing L&D.
Avoid: duplication of previous dialogues – but focus on existing gaps and ways to increase finance including to address L&D and respective channels to provide it.
Add liberally: clear modalities of a L&D finance facility:
Its institutional arrangements, sources of predictable, sustainable, adequate and additional L&D finance
Equitable and direct access for vulnerable developing countries based on needs and priorities.
At COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheik countries must set-up a L&D finance facility. Subsequently, the Glasgow Dialogue should flesh out the operationalization of such a facility, including how L&D finance is delivered and how it can be made accessible for the most vulnerable.
... Read more ...

Article 6.8 fans, today is your day! And for those who aren’t fans yet, here are some reasons you should be and ideas to bring forward in today’s workshop:

Article 6.8 has often been left behind in the negotiations with Parties focusing on the market mechanisms contained in other parts of Article 6. But 6.8 has the potential to bring ambitious action immediately. In advance of the 6.8 workshop, ECO wants to share and support the idea of a matching facility.

Article 6.8 offers exciting opportunities for real ambitious action through a holistic, integrated approach focusing on joint mitigation and adaptation, resilience and rights. This is particularly true in the land sector, where there is critical potential for climate action, as well as major risks for land and food rights, if not done right. The 6.8 mechanism is a strong avenue for ambitious action on land and in the oceans.

A web-based registry along with a “matching facility” that connects possible contributions – from governments, private sector, philanthropies or elsewhere – with opportunities to increase ambition and action, including within NDCs, would be an exciting and empowering outcome from COP27. Concretely, some Parties could list their needs as part of their NDC, and other Parties would list their support capacities.
... Read more ...

Delegates, it has been three years since we met in Bonn! ECO knows you have been looking forward to a beautiful, picturesque walk by the Rhein and some beer garden visits at what might feel a little like a class reunion.

Yet, ECO is worried: If we want to keep 1.5°C within reach, the world has just about as much time as since your last gathering in Bonn – 3 years! – to return global emissions to below 2020 levels. At the same time, millions of people around the world are already suffering from the impacts of the climate crisis at 1.1°C of global warming. This happens even as all countries promised to strengthen their 2030 targets and agreed to phase-down unabated coal and phase-out fossil fuel subsidies. Yet they keep expanding their dependence on fossil fuels, further worsening climate impacts.

Six months after Glasgow COP26, hardly any country is coming forward with increased targets or new climate finance commitments. COP27 is meant to be the implementation COP. For ECO, this means that ministers MUST fulfill their promises and, frankly, to stop lying. ECO looked for a more diplomatic word but if leaders tell a story of action at COPs and a story of excuses at home we could not come up with one.
... Read more ...

Celebrating 50 years since the first UN conference on the environment, Kenya and Sweden, supported by UNEP, co-hosted last week Stockholm+50 – a UN conference on how to accelerate the 2030 agenda and the SDGs.

The Stockholm+50 key recommendations should guide negotiators in Bonn. Particularly Recommendation 3, which reads: “Adopt system wide change in the way our current economic system works to contribute to a healthy planet…  phase out of fossil fuels …and recognizing the need for financial and technical support towards a just transition.”

This is a significant step forward on the COP26 outcome, recognizing all fossil fuels and the need to phase-out and not just phase-down the leading cause of the climate crisis. Parties to the UNFCCC must redouble their efforts and ensure the need to phase-out fossil fuels and phase-up just transition action is included in the decision texts, embedding the conclusions of Stockholm+50 into the UNFCCC process.

In addition, the recommendations include the need to recognize and implement the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment – shining a light on the importance of rights-based thinking.

Colleagues in Stockholm were acutely aware of the implementation gap. They were clear that we must “strengthen national implementation of existing commitments for a healthy planet … including by … scaling-up capacity support and development, access to and financing for environmentally sound technologies.”
... Read more ...

If someone wanted to paint a picture of the disfunctions and failure of multilateralism in preventing a climatic disaster, they would find a target-rich environment in the global efforts to control emissions for international shipping and aviation.

Contrary to popular misconception, these emissions were not left out of the Paris Agreement. In fact, emissions from international transport are an integral part of Paris climate and emissions goals. So they must be fully included in the Global Stocktake, Article 6, and all other relevant provisions of the Paris Agreement.

What makes international shipping and aviation emissions distinctive is that they occur on trips between countries and often outside national boundaries, and for this reason have not, in most cases, been included in national targets or NDCs.

Such emissions are the focus of processes under other UN bodies –  International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for aviation and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for shipping. But until now, these bodies have failed to align emissions with the Paris goals – especially to their fair share of global efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.

Rather than setting an example for other sectors and putting in place measures to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve full decarbonization before mid-century, ICAO and the IMO have produced disappointing results.
... Read more ...

‘Transformation refers to a change in the fundamental attributes of natural and human systems’ (Source: IPCC AR6)

Everybody agrees that to deal with and respond to the climate crisis, there needs to be transformation in the systems that have led us to where we are now.

And that includes the UNFCCC. Twenty-eight years of business as usual has not gotten us very far.  The world faces warming of 2.4°C at the present trajectory. Addressing Loss & Damage has hardly got to the starting line and funding isn’t anywhere to be seen. Only now, after the strong intervention of the countries most affected, are we beginning to talk about a Global Goal for Adaptation.

But talk so far has produced little. To be serious about increasing resilience, building capacity and reducing vulnerability we must step away from the careful plodding language of diplomacy and start talking action. 

There are some good signs. COP26 set off the work programme for the Global Goal on Adaptation. At this weeks SBs the first workshop will be held. The time for a Global Stocktake is at hand and roundtables for that are also being held this week. That’s good. But there are no solid rules for workshops and roundtables.
... Read more ...

For the Paris Agreement’s implementation, mutual trust is a key ingredient. This holds true also with regard to commitments made by developed countries to provide climate finance to developing countries.

Now, ECO remembers well, that time last year when developed countries finally acknowledged that they had not kept their promise to ramp up climate finance to $100bn a year by 2020. A string of new pledges was to save the day for COP26, although developed countries estimated that, with those new pledges, they would reach the $100bn level three years late – in 2023.

Or will they? Among the pledges was Germany’s promise to increase climate finance budget allocations to six billion Euros a year by 2025 at the latest. Yet, federal budget negotiations for 2022 that just concluded, provide for almost no increases over 2021 planned levels of slightly above four billion Euros, and internal drafts for the 2023 budget would, as of now, even lead to a slight decrease. So, rather than gradually increasing climate finance towards the promised level for 2025, Germany, for now, looks at stagnating climate finance levels. 

 To be sure, ECO would perhaps not pick on Germany, one of the larger climate finance providers, if it were not for the SB56 taking place in Germany, and, more importantly, for Germany holding this year’s G7 presidency, putting the country under special scrutiny.
... Read more ...