Category: Previous Issues Articles

It has come to the attention of ECO that, during the SBI contact group on Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings yesterday, many Parties and their lawyers were unclear about the definition of a fairly basic legal concept: “conflict of interest”. ECO knows that many negotiators (and certainly their legal experts) are lawyers. Imagine our surprise when several delegations feigned ignorance of the concept. As a public service to them (and all of us), here are the legal basics:

A conflict of interest may arise when activities, relationships or situations place a public institution, and/or an individual that represents it, in a real, potential or perceived conflict between its duties or responsibilities to the public, and personal, institutional or other interests. These others interests include, but are not limited to, business, commercial or financial interests pertaining to the institution and/or the individual. A conflict of interest, therefore, could be financial in nature or could simply point to diverging interests that may undermine policy objectives or outcomes.

Because nearly every public, and many private, institutions (like law firms) have the potential for conflict of interest, it is the rule, not the exception, that they also have policies to manage them. Indeed, many Parties to the UNFCCC also belong to other intergovernmental institutions like the OECD, where they have endorsed Guidelines for Managing Conflict of Interest in the Public Service since 2003.
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The 2015 G7 saw Angela Merkel use it as an opportunity to emphasise the need for climate action, and as a way to keep G7 leaders engaged in the run up to Paris.

Now it is time for Japan to take the lead and galvanise the other G7 countries. However, it seems that they don’t have the same fervour as the previous hosts. The Japanese seem to have been fairly lacklustre in their attempts to make climate change a core component of the agenda. But never fear, ECO is here with some helpful suggestions about how our dear leaders can help the Japanese deliver.

We need the G7 to up the ante on the mid-century plans. It’s great that the US and Canada have promised to get going this year with Germany to follow suit. There are promising signs from France and China. Whilst this enthusiasm bodes well, the proof is in the pudding. We need major emitters to develop their low-carbon plans before the 2018 stocktake to inform the upgrading of (I)NDCs. The G7 should move first, and ensure these plans are finalised well before 2018. They need to lay out clear pathways to deliver both their climate and development objectives to drive and guide investment.
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Japan started on the right path when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. It has since gone downhill. Paris delivered on the main negotiating demand that Japan proposed: action from all Parties and a framework for transparency and accountability. Ahead of the Japan G7, ECO believes Japan needs to do more.

1) Japan has all the national ingredients to advance a prosperous and thriving zero-carbon economy. Along with the US and Germany, Japan is one of the leaders in innovation of energy technologies, including wind, solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power.

2) Japan is running out of friends. At one time, Japan was sheltered by a wide group of laggards it could hide behind—not so any more. A new government in Canada has now joined the Obama administration in pushing for a low-GHG agenda.

3) Japan is being outflanked by its neighbour, China. In 2015, total renewable energy investment in China rose 17% to US$102 billion–more than double that of Japan, where investment has remained flat over the past two years.

4) Japan is one of last remaining major donors for coal financing worldwide. Between 2007 and 2015, Japan financed more coal projects compared to any other G7 country, totalling approximately $22 billion.
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Hundreds of miles from Bonn, climate impacts are capturing the attention of the World Humanitarian Summit, another meeting in Istanbul of decision makers and stakeholders deciding the future of our people and planet. It is tasked with the mammoth challenge of reforming the humanitarian system so it is fit for purpose in our changing world—more interconnected, urban, politically tense and rife with numerous emergencies.

Climate and conflict are topping the bill there. ECO is pleased to see the world outside of the UNFCCC taking climate seriously. But it’s also a sad reality that climate impacts are now on par with conflict.

All is not lost, with communities, countries and stakeholders across the humanitarian spectrum putting forward actions to further build resilience. Multilateral agencies such as the FAO and World Food Programme (WFP) are working to increase the resilience of food security to climate change, for example. Or the array of organisations that now recognise climate action as a prerequisite to peace, or have committed to integrating climate risk into their programming.

Initiatives to build resilience also extend out to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals and, of course, the Paris Agreement. It is clear that the UNFCCC is not the only place where climate is being addressed.
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As people celebrated Bob Dylan’s birthday yesterday, negotiations in Bonn were ‘tangled up in blue’. ECO would like to inspire negotiators in answering the questions posed by the APA Co-Chairs.

Should the features and information on Nationally Determined Contributions be tailored to the type of NDCs or should they be tailored on some other basis? If so what? What lessons can be drawn in this respect from the INDCs already submitted?

‘ The times they are a-changin’ 

Yes, features of NDCs and supplementary information should be tailored but in a manner that facilitates comparability and provides further clarity in relation to what the countries intends to do nationally.

• Explain Fairness: the Lima guidance on information requirement should be enhanced. Parties ought to explain why they consider their contribution to be “fair and ambitious”. Parties should be clear and specific about which baseline, indicators, global mitigation pathways and/or temperature limits they used and how they utilised them to make their determination of fairness and ambition.
• Respect the preamble of the Paris Agreement: new guidance should call on Parties to clarify how they will protect human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, gender equity, food security, ecosystem integrity and just transition when taking climate action.

With it rich history of dancing the tango, Argentina knows that, for a knockout show, leadership and collaboration are essential.

ECO is heartened by the Argentinean government’s decision to revise its INDC before 2018. They also appear to be betting on a clean energy future, as they just announced their first auction of 1GW of renewable energy capacity.

If we are to have any hope of  keeping warming below the 1.5^°C upper limit, all Parties must scale up the ambition of their INDCs. Yet, countries are too reluctant to take the floor and signal their intention of increasing national ambition.

ECO appreciates the way in which Parties embraced the complex steps and turns for their debut INDC dance performance. Limited time and resources to pull them together—and in some cases insufficient buy-in from powerful finance and planning ministries—hampered the process.

Bearing in mind the global ambition gap, ECO demands that Parties don’t lapse into a melancholic slump to the sounds of a bandoneon, but rather stand up and implement the INDCs already on offer. The next two years are available to identify additional areas of mitigation and adaptation opportunities, and means of implementation support, through participatory and inclusive NDC processes.
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The prospects for COP22 in Marrakech could have been muted after the historic Paris COP. The news that the Moroccan presidency will make pre-2020 climate action the focus of COP22 made us giddy with delight!

With the Global Climate Action Agenda now formally recognised under the Paris Agreement, it can be strengthened based on the lessons learned in the first year. It was with joy that we learned that the champions for pre-2020 climate action-Laurence Tubiana and Hakima El Haité-plan to start consultations on the way forward next month.

Anxiety hit when we started getting mixed messages about the Action Agenda’s future. Is it to be a platform where any and all actions are shown? Or a platform where the most impressive initiatives are to be given due credit?

ECO has some ideas that could help as guiding principles to select/exclude initiatives for the Global Climate Action Agenda. We are certain that strong criteria, combined with a clear, efficient governance structure, should be applied to cooperative initiatives which include non-state and subnational actors. Guiding principles could be based on:

1. Significance: It is important that the initiatives have significant adaptation or mitigation benefits.

2. Transformational: The Action Agenda and TEP should represent the gold standard of initiatives that contribute to the system changes required for a low- to zero-carbon economy.
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ECO is thrilled that the first ever Technical Expert Meeting on Adaptation (TEM-A) is taking place today. The COP21 decision establishing the TEM-A not only helps to create some balance between mitigation and adaptation, but also puts greater emphasis on the gaps, needs, challenges, options and opportunities for adaptation implementation on the ground. This incorporates means of implementation, including for the improvement of climate information services, and understanding of scientific information at the national level and good practices for reducing vulnerability. This is an occasion to discover and exchange experiences from adaptation efforts in both developed and developing countries, by both Parties and non-state actors to build the adaptation pipeline for action.

The TEM-A should lead to real and concrete action on the ground. It should unlock adaptation finance, build capacity, transfer adaptation technology and build the pipeline for funded adaptation action. It is great that today’s TEM-A is kicking off the discussion, but ECO thought that it might be worth getting into the details and sharing ideas for the future.

Future adaptation TEMs could explore how to unlock support, community and ecosystem based approaches, synergies between mitigation and adaptation, adaptation in urban area, adaptation related to the built environment, adaptation based on learning from communities and indigenous peoples’ knowledge, all of which would help to inform and accelerate adaptation actions.
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It’s great to see there is an official place to take up the issue of loss and damage at this Bonn session. Thanks to the Presidency for holding a special event on Tuesday afternoon! This is timely and urgent.

COP22 must deliver two outcomes related to the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM) – its review and a new 5-year work plan. The review provides an opportunity to gather perspectives from governments and observers on whether the WIM lives up to the challenge and how it can be improved. ECO would like to remind negotiators that, in Paris, they agreed on the need to enhance action and support for addressing loss and damage. While there are discussions related to the timing of the review, we hope Parties will find a solution that allows for a substantive review including civil society input at a quick pace.

The 5-year work plan will shape the future trajectory of the WIM. Yet the implementation of the current work plan is not sufficiently advanced to draft well-founded recommendations. Should Parties agree on a skeleton of the 5-year work plan and provide further guidance next year? Or should they extend the current work plan and initiate substantive discussions on the way forward to be approved by COP23?
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ECO is deeply concerned by the current developments in the Barro Blanco project in Panama, a hydroelectric dam registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and financially backed by the German and Dutch development banks.

In 2015, Panama recognised that the Barro Blanco project had been approved in violation of the Ngäbe’s social and cultural rights. The government temporarily suspended the construction of the project. Later in the year, the government fined the project developer $775,000 for failing to negotiate with, relocate and compensate those affected by the dam.

How can it be that the dam is fully constructed, and still no agreement has been reached with the affected Ngäbe communities?

Just two days ago, Panama announced that it will “initiate the filling of the dam reservoir” today on May 24. While the government claims that the measure is “temporary and will allow for the necessary testing,” it will flood homes, schools, and religious sites and threaten the cultural heritage of the indigenous Ngäbe communities. The flooding will severely affect the Ngäbe’s territorial lands and means of subsistence, and will result in the forced relocation of several families.

Barro Blanco is a clear example of why human rights protections must be included in the newly established Sustainable Development Mechanism.
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