ECO was pleased to read the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new report on the renewable energy ambitions of 150 countries in light of the goal agreed at COP28 of tripling renewable electric capacity worldwide by 2030 from 2022 levels. Among the key findings:

Only 14 governments have quantified their domestic renewable power objectives for 2030 in their NDCs; if implemented, they would add up to a mere 12% of the tripling target, most of this from China.

Even after aggregating the data from all kinds of non-NDC domestic announcements and targets, the IEA finds we’re only on track to reach 8,000 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030 – 3,000 GW less than the over 11,000 GW we need to stay in line with 1.5°C.

But there is some good news: actual deployment of renewables has been growing much faster than the ambition of governments (though most of this is in the OECD countries, China and India).

Governments must urgently close this gap, by making accelerated renewables deployment goals part of their next round of NDCs, enabling some level of international scientific review on their adequacy. 

The IEA examination of both existing and likely new policies finds that China, Germany, the US, India, and Spain are delivering the bulk of the current action when it comes to renewables deployment; trailing behind particularly are Sub-Saharan Africa and the OPEC countries.
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At last week’s World Health Assembly, 194 World Health Organization (WHO) member states adopted the landmark Climate Change and Health resolution. The resolution highlights the increasing recognition of climate change as a major threat to global public health and elevates climate mitigation and adaptation to public health priorities. This outcome is a result of years of efforts by civil society and WHO leadership. Crucially, it enables WHO and the global health community to tackle the climate crisis more effectively, working closely with the UNFCCC and building on the COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate and Health.

The resolution calls out the many ways climate change affects health, including through increasing food insecurity, air pollution and infectious diseases. It also sets a framework for promoting health and building climate-resilient and sustainable health systems. The resolution tasks governments to take rapid action for a “health-in-all policies approach, without diverting resources meant for primary health care.” They must assess national vulnerabilities, develop adaptation plans, and integrate climate data into early warning systems.

However, the resolution has some glaring gaps. It fails to explicitly mention the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis or the need for a just transition to renewable energy. It also falls short of addressing gender-responsive climate action, health systems and health services, sexual and reproductive health and rights issues, and the needs of marginalised populations like children and youth, older people, LGBTQIA, and refugees.
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The eagerly anticipated first dialogue on the UAE Just Transition Work Program (JTWP) took place on the 2nd and 3rd of June. The topic was promising: “Lessons in incorporating Just Transition into NDCs, NAPs and LT-LEDS Breakout Discussions”. ECO couldn’t sleep due to our excitement on having meaningful exchanges about how we: secure justice for workers, communities and whole countries; and equitably phase out of fossil fuels, transform food systems, and phase in renewables. All this underpinned by the principles of CBDR and international cooperation.

However, to our disappointment, the discussion was a rehashing of old talking points. Countries seem to have forgotten they have agreed already on the social and economic transformation as part of a Just Transition! And that the national context have to shape just transition strategies. Restricted by a structure focused on NDCs and other national plans, countries presented their work in self-congratulatory “icebreaker” presentations. Truth be told, it was a very non-dialogue-y dialogue. You know that feeling when you go to a meeting thinking you are going to have a robust discussion about implementation gaps, challenges, and places of consensus for enabling a just transition, and leave thinking: this could have been an email?

Although ECO appreciated the various examples of stakeholder consultations mentioned, there is a stark difference between mere inclusivity and actual, meaningful participation.
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While the great finance cook-off gets underway here in Bonn (see yesterday’s ECO), ECO is also looking ahead to see which chefs in the UNFCCC kitchen will be selected to host COP in 2026. For today’s ECO, we’ll look at what Australia is baking.

Australia is emerging as a promising contender to host COP31, but to deserve the honour, ECO believes they must be able to show in the lead up that they can deliver both results that meets the competition’s standards, and amiability in the kitchen — that is, good collaboration with their intended team partners, the Pacific.

A huge number of civil society viewers penned an open letter last week to express their concerns about Australia’s ability to compile a balanced NCQG this year. While a course of mitigation and adaptation finance on their own might have been enough to win over audiences in 2009, it’s evident to anyone watching that the climate has changed and the stakes are now much higher. ECO has made it clear that a finance goal in 2024 must contain loss and damage not just as a nice garnish, but as a key ingredient. But to date, Australia has seemed determined to leave ECO with a bitter taste, promoting an NCQG that remains two dimensional.
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Welcome back to Bonn! Wasting no time, the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body kicked off the meeting yesterday with a session to engage with Parties and stakeholders. ECO appreciates the Supervisory Body’s attempts to have more consultations and to boost stakeholder participation. The bad news is, their attempt is largely failing. Deadlines for written inputs on critical documents are impossibly tight (sometimes only a week!), and interaction during the meetings is left until the very end, when minds have mostly been made up. This has meant that the long list of questions shared for the stakeholder consultation sadly could not be covered in detail during the consultation. So ECO will take this opportunity to outline once again what needs to be front and center in the future deliberations on Article 6.4.

Firstly, REDD+ projects pose such inherent risks in terms of permanence, additionality, quantification and human rights infringements as to make them incompatible with Article 6.4, whether at the project level or jurisdictional level. To prejudge their eligibility with any specific guidance is a mind-bogglingly bad idea indeed.

Secondly, ECO remains concerned about the ongoing revisions to draft recommendations on removal activities and methodological requirements (which ECO hasn’t seen any work on).
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The cooks are all making their way back to the climate kitchen. The piping hot Global Stocktake (GST) decision served up at COP28 has cooled and been absorbed in all its essence – the sweet, the sour and the distinct unmissable hints of bitter. 

As we approach the mid-way point in this critical decade, the kitchen has a new dish to cook: The New Collective Quantitative Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG). It’s due to be served up this year, and is essential to bring substance to the perpetually sticky subject of climate finance. The nutrition from this dish will also be a key determinant of how the GST outcomes are turned into action in the next iteration of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which countries are due to submit in 2025.

Finance is a necessary dimension that determines the scope and depth of climate action, so ECO would like to suggest the elements needed for a satisfying outcome this year.

The central dish in this year’s meal will be the NCQG. ECO would like to stress that a simplistic, linear approach would be insufficient to handle the heat of worsening climate impacts and the ever-increasing urgency for real, effective, and sustained action.
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ECO is delighted to have secured a precious badge for SB60, and is ready to bring you the unadorned straight talk that you won’t get from Parties.

 
From this position of privilege, ECO takes the opportunity to remind its dear readers that there is still no climate justice without human rights. Climate impacts are worsening by the day. Since we last met in Dubai, floods in Kenya and Brazil, record-breaking heat waves in India and other parts of South Asia, as well as an early wildfire season in North America have all affected a wide range of human rights – the rights to health, livelihoods and decent work, adequate housing and, most devastatingly, the right to life itself.

 
While the urgency of equitable and fair solutions to the climate crisis can no longer be ignored, countries keep fuelling the climate crisis by burning fossil fuels and engaging in activities leading to deforestation and forest or land degradation, and critical public finance remains all too scarce. ECO wonders why… Could it be because polluting industries are still in the room, but civil society – and that means people everywhere – have less and less space for speaking up, protesting and joining others to demand climate justice?
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CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK (CAN) STATEMENT ON GAZA

There is no climate justice without human rights.

Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Rafah is now under attack despite all of the warnings to Israel to not invade, from the UN, its agencies, governments and civil society across the world.  

Since the Israeli invasion of Rafah, hundreds more civilians have been killed, mainly women and children. This brings the total number of Palestinian deaths to over 35,000 so far, while the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have had to flee their homes.
Palestinians are facing a complete blockade, famine, disease, forced evacuations and destruction of all infrastructure. 

We will not be silent in the face of an unfolding genocide. 

The Climate Action Network (CAN) unequivocally condemns the invasion by Israel and demands an immediate and permanent ceasefire. 

CAN demands that Israel be held accountable for the war crimes it is committing. 
We call on the international community to take urgent and decisive action to ensure that Israel complies with all of the precautionary measures required by the International Court of Justice. 

CAN urges those countries supporting Israel through the supply of arms to comply with international law to prevent genocide. 

CAN therefore insists on an immediate international arms embargo against Israel and we will exert pressure for this. 
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FOSSIL FUEL PHASE OUT

FAST, FAIR, FULL AND FUNDED

Dear COP28 President,
 
When you graciously invited the world to come to Dubai to attend COP28, you repeatedly assured us that your North Star would be science and the absolute necessity of limiting warming to 1.5°C. You told us you were committed to deliver the “most ambitious response” to the climate crisis.
 
ECO is sorry to let you know that the new GST text published yesterday makes a mockery of these claims. ECO was expecting to see the mitigation section of the new draft reflect the clear call from science and more than 100 countries calling for a full and fair phase out of fossil fuels. Instead, we had an incoherent, weak and vague menu of energy options that parties “could” implement and that are so far removed from what is needed to limit warming to 1.5°C that AOSIS has already called it its “death certificate”. 
 
ECO would like to repeat a clear message: your COP will be a complete failure unless it secures an agreement for a full, fast, fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels. The operationalization of the Loss and Damage fund was a major achievement of COP28, with some more work remaining to strengthen it. But the only way to deliver a truly historic COP  is through a clear, strong, 1.5°C aligned deal on fossil fuel phase out that is rooted in justice and equity.
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