It was an all too familiar feeling when Parties started repeating their well-known positions and citing already agreed decisions here in Warsaw. But ECO does like the recent trend citing one key notion: urgency.
AOSIS has made significant efforts to establish a concrete technical process to accelerate action on renewables and energy efficiency – that’s a direct way to close the ambition gap.
Columbia (AILAC) and The Gambia (LDCs) have been trying to capture the discussion of ‘elements’ in the 2015 agreement in as concrete and formal a manner as possible.
And the LDCs and Trinidad and Tobago have stressed the need for a compliance mechanism item in the list of issues to discuss next year. Those are all elements of action that respond to urgency.
The Like-Minded Developing Countries stressed another very important issue. Finance, technology and capacity-building support are essential for developing countries to implement their NAMAs.
On the other hand, the proposal from various like-minded countries to delete paragraph 9 altogether is a disappointing development.
For a change, we can even commend some developed countries, in addition to Swaziland (African Group) and South Africa, for their efforts to specify the timeline and concrete steps toward Paris. Norway made a good proposal to have mitigation commitments presented within 2014.
And we especially welcome the African Group’s comments on the necessity to check the adequacy and equity of commitments, and South Africa’s support for an equity reference framework.
Furthermore, today in the High Level Segment presentations, the Chinese minister called for the adoption of a work plan towards agreement on the 2015 deal.
With all these good proposals on the table, ECO has to wonder why Parties still seem to be unable to find common ground to produce a clear work plan with milestones to address both closing the pre-2020 ambition gap and agreeing the 2015 deal.
We are coming to the final hours of this conference. The time for reiteration and recitation has ended. The co-chairs have made it clear: this is decision time. Parties now have to show they have come to Warsaw to make progress, not just to repeatedly repeat what they have already repeated.