Category: Previous Issues Articles

Donald Trump’s election as the next U.S. president was a [unexpected][climatic][shocking] ending to a turbulent campaign that tapped into the anxiety felt by many American voters over globalisation, immigration, stagnating incomes and shrinking economic opportunities. The election revealed a deeply divided electorate: while Hillary Clinton received the most votes nationally, overwhelmingly won the youth, women and people of colour, Donald Trump won in enough states to prevail in the electoral college, thereby securing the presidency.

Understandably, delegates and reporters have questions about the implications of a Trump administration for domestic emissions reductions. ECO is confident that the rapidly expanding deployment of clean energy solutions by states, cities, and businesses across the country is enough to continue the drive to decarbonise the US energy economy, regardless of the actions that a President Trump takes—or doesn’t take. But a cut back on federal policy leadership, will no doubt impair the US meeting its 2025 emissions commitments.

President-elect Trump emphasised his campaign promise to create millions of new jobs for American workers. The most effective way to do this is by embracing the renewable energy revolution. While there are divisions between Democrats and Republicans on climate policy, there has been bipartisan support for investments in clean energy as well as in climate resilience. 
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Before negotiators convened, Panama sent a signal to the carbon market world on how essential robust stakeholder consultation is. Following years of protest and controversy, Panama withdrew its approval from the Barro Blanco Clean Development Mechanism hydroelectric power project, effectively preventing it from issuing offset credits.

Barro Blanco, not only had little environmental integrity, but also serious social, environmental, and human rights consequences. ECO applauds the Panamanian decision but remains concerned for communities still affected by the ongoing “test flooding” of the reservoir.

The constant roars of airplanes overhead must be reminding negotiators of ICAO’s enthusiasm for international offsets. It is urgent that any market mechanisms learn from the Barro Blanco experience and incorporate a rights based holistic market design that moves beyond offsetting, ensures environmental integrity, genuinely furthers ambition, and works towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

ECO longs to believe that emphasis in the Paris Agreement and Article 6 on the need to respect human rights in climate action really will mean something on the ground. Specifically, this means clear guidance for local stakeholder consultation, safeguards in line with best practice among multilateral finance institutions, and a grievance process for when implementation goes wrong.

ECO felt the sweet tinge of elation, like when you meet a good old friend, when several Parties made a strong case for common 5-year commitment periods in yesterday’s APA informal. It was probably no coincidence that it was some of the most climate vulnerable countries (AOSIS, CARICOM and the Africa Group) that led the charge.

As has been emphasised many times, the NDCs currently on the table will lead to 3°C of climate catastrophe. That would spell doom for many, and leaves us with little to no choice. We need to speed up the transition considerably, starting now. Including via new and stronger NDCs from Parties in the coming few years. Failing that will lock the world in to catastrophic warming before the ink on the Paris Agreement has even dried.

ECO is perplexed that many Parties still labour under the delusion that no increase in action is needed this side of 2030. So far, many parties have been reluctant to enhance their NDC. This is rather curious as Parties advocating for 10-year commitment periods last year kept assuring, and then reassuring, ECO that such lengthy commitment periods would not lock in low ambition. ECO had even, being such a helpful soul, suggested that maybe 5-year commitment periods would be a much more reasonable approach.
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It’s impossible not to notice that developed countries are very pleased with themselves for publishing their “Roadmap to the US$100 billion” this past October. This is even more apparent from yesterday’s joint statement on the roadmap.

ECO too is pleased to have the roadmap, don’t get us wrong. It enhances transparency on how developed countries plan to reach the collective target of US$100 billion per year by 2020. But ECO also expects further progress on patchy areas where more clarity is needed: mobilised private finance is one example that comes to mind.

The joint statement reiterates developed countries’ commitment to “significantly increase finance for adaptation”. ECO is not one to dismiss such a commitment, but by our calculations, the projected doubling of adaptation finance will leave public finance for adaptation at only 20% of the total $100 billion in 2020—not quite the agreed “balance” between mitigation and adaptation by anyone’s standards, surely.

Looking more closely, it seems a few developed countries are—how shall we put it?—dragging down the average. Some of these countries currently provide only around 10% of their climate finance for adaptation and have made insufficient or even no commitments on how this will change by 2020.
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Do delegates remember when the Adaptation Fund was created in Marrakech back in 2001? Do you know much about the Fund at all? ECO thinks perhaps not, at least if judged from what various Parties said at the informal APA meeting. They claimed they did not know enough about the Fund and thus would need much more time before taking a decision on whether the Fund should continue its work under the Paris Agreement.

If it is simply a lack of knowledge, ECO can help: the Adaptation Fund covers an important part of climate finance needs, often neglected by others: small scale adaptation projects focussing on the most vulnerable people and communities, often directly implemented by developing countries who can get direct access to the Fund’s resources without passing through intermediaries. Since its creation, the Adaptation Fund has proven that it can deliver results, increasing resilience in a concrete manner. As a well-functioning, fully operational fund the Adaptation Fund brings a clear benefit by helping developing countries enhance their adaptation efforts also contributing to the fulfilment of the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

If this is what you have been needing to know about the Adaptation Fund well, you’re welcome. ECO is always more than happy to help.
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The decision to limit global warming to 1.5°C is vital for small scale family agriculture, which is especially climate-vulnerable. However, as the UNEP emissions gap report highlights, there is still too much distance between the Paris Agreement targets and Parties’ NDC commitments. This gap reveals a clear imperative for countries to reaffirm and set an ambitious course towards attaining this goal during COP22, a sentiment echoed across platforms here this week.

Maintaining and increasing ambition is crucial, but ECO reminds Parties that they should also consider how these commitments will be met. In order to meet the long-term goal, IPCC scenarios estimate that up to a billion hectares of land need to be dedicated to negative emissions efforts such as bioenergy—a strategy that can threaten land rights, trapping farmers between a warming world and restricted land access. If done wrong, climate action in the land sector could have massive negative impacts on food security, adaptive capacities, development potential, gender equality and the livelihoods of communities dependent on small-scale agriculture, as well as on biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, with an increased risk of land-grabbing and rises in food prices.

To ensure the 1.5°C target is reached in the best way, Parties need to be proactive in reducing their emissions before looking at offsets.
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It’s great that today is Farmers’ Day! That way, ECO gets to celebrate and protect the 2 billion smallholder farmers who feed most of our fellow planet dwellers, using less than a quarter of the world’s farmland.

Large-scale industrial agriculture drives the majority of emissions from the agriculture sector. Synthetic fertilisers create high levels of emissions. They require large amounts of water, threatening water tables and wetlands and making crops more vulnerable to climate change. What’s more, intensive meat production generates high levels of methane emissions and deforestation to grow livestock feed.

In contrast, many smallholder farmers—especially women in developing countries—use agroecological techniques to strengthen adaptation, nurture biodiversity, soils and natural fertility, all while avoiding emissions.

Putting all that into consideration, it is time to freshen up the SBSTA agriculture talks, which have gone stale. With clear references to food security, sustainable consumption patterns and human rights in the Paris Agreement, negotiations on agriculture have a critical opportunity to make these a reality for the world’s farmers facing climate change.

A new SBSTA Work Programme on Agriculture and Food Security is critical to provide a sustained space for open dialogue, where countries can consider how to implement their own agriculture NDC pledges, whether on adaptation, mitigation or both.
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Don’t worry, ECO gets out of the (UNFCCC) house every now and then. Or at least enough to know that there’s something going on in America right now, and it could mean good or bad news for the climate.

The Paris Agreement was a watershed moment for the world: it signified a global commitment to climate action. With the US election (finally!) over, the new President will have an opportunity to catalyse further action on the climate, sending a clear signal to investors to stay on track transitioning to renewable-powered economy on track.

Climate is an important diplomatic area for the US, as seen during COP21. It is also an area where the next President should continue to build collaborative relationships to address climate change. All over the world, climate change action is gaining momentum. While ECO might be late to (or recovering from) the US election party, stay tuned for the reaction from Marrakech to the next American President tomorrow.

Every single assessment of the NDCs has indicated that Parties are not on track to meet the 2°C goal of the Paris agreement, let alone 1.5°C. Fortunately, some Parties have already put forward the seeds of a possible solution to this problem. Some have used their contributions to specifically indicate additional mitigation potential that could be unlocked with technology, finance and capacity-building support. These efforts, conditioned upon the delivery of support, represent an additional 2.4 GT of emissions reductions in 2030.

If we identified 2.4 GT of additional mitigation potential through contributions without any guidance, how many more GTs could be unlocked if developing country Parties indicated how much they can contribute to the international effort if a specified level of support was provided (in addition to what they could do with their own resources)? Developed countries should then honour their dual obligations to deliver mitigation efforts within their own borders as well as deliver support to unlock efforts in developing countries that are conditional on receiving support. More than any other space in the negotiations, partially conditional NDCs emphasise how critical the delivery of finance, technology and capacity building is to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. And they offer an opportunity for countries to work collaboratively to unlock additional emissions reductions.
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ECO heartily applauds the move by Parties negotiating loss and damage yesterday to deviate from the bad practice of closing informals to Observers after the first session. ECO was inside the second informal meeting (after being there for the first), and neither did the sky fall in nor did Observers disrupt any conversations. The work of the loss and damage mechanism itself already sets a good example of inclusiveness and interaction with civil society. This now sets another precedent which all other informals should follow. We hope this is the beginning of a long running love affair with openness and transparency.

With kisses, Civil Society