ECO Newsletter

Maybe being awarded the Fossil last Wednesday helped because Germany has pulled itself together and ended the fight between the ministries of environment, economy, agriculture and transport. It also finally published its 2050 climate action plan yesterday.

Let’s give them a big hug! We know, it’ been painful. Germany is now the first country to present a detailed long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategy outlining how it intends to decarbonise its economy. What ECO likes about the plan is that it includes interim targets for 2030, broken down by individual sectors: power, industry, transport, buildings and agriculture. This gives citizens, companies and investors the clarity they need. Germany also recognises its international responsibility, placing the plan (which includes an explicit reference to international climate finance and support for developing countries to implement their NDCs) in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals.

This has to be a short hug, though: Germany has to get back to work. Fossil lobbyists were successful in stripping many good elements from the plan. There are quite a few gaps in the document that need to be strengthened:

• The headline targets—a range between 80 and 95% reduction by 2050—are still not enough to deliver Germany’s share of the global effort urgently needed to limit warming to 1.5°C.

ECO was thrilled to be able to participate in the informal session of the loss and damage discussion beyond the first contact group. But this excitement was watered down when a Party proposed to delete the paragraph that allowed relevant organisations to express their views and provide input on the possible activities in the work stream of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM), before the first meeting of the Executive Committee in 2017.

Input from observers helps to enrich the discussion, provide experiences and lessons learned from around the world and identify the possible activities that the WIM should take into account to fulfil its objectives.

Additionally, the concept of a “placeholder” on loss and damage finance, instead of more defined work activities, is disturbing. It almost seems like developed countries are procrastinating on the subject. ECO is confident you’ve got it in you to agree to write a submission on enhancing mobilisation of financial support before March.

Finally, the juicy discussion on long-term finance under COP agenda item 10a is getting off the ground. It’s not surprising that virtually every developed country that spoke yesterday celebrated their roadmap towards the $100-billion-a-year promise. And of course they highlighted their projection that public adaptation finance may double by 2020. Maybe developed countries even think they are off the hook when looking at those projections. Yet, with a closer look, a few additional things come to mind that may require COP action.

Let’s start with a key fact. Doubling adaptation finance by 2020 would mean only a fifth of the $100bn would be public finance for adaptation. While a welcome increase, a gross imbalance is still projected between mitigation and adaptation, and Parties may wish to address this in any COP22 decision on long-term finance. They could do so by urging developed countries to increase adaptation finance way beyond the roadmap’s projections. Quadrupling instead of doubling would be a fair start, in ECO’s view. After all, adaptation needs are set to soar dramatically in the near future, especially given the lack of ambition in countries’ NDCs.

ECO was delighted to hear Bangladesh questioning the inclusion of market-rate loans as climate finance.
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The question on everyone’s lips has been: where will the next COP be? Ladies and gentlemen, ECO is glad to inform you that Fiji will have the Presidency of COP23 in 2017. Before you get too excited and start packing your scuba gear though, you should read the fine print: the official bidding proposal requested that COP23 be hosted in Bonn, Germany. All that remains are procedural matters to officially adopt Fiji’s nomination at the COP plenary session. Worry not delegates, even though the COP itself will be in Bonn (think about German night markets!), the pre-COP may be in Fiji.

The period through 2020 is critical to increase ambition. The 2018 Facilitative Dialogue will play a key role. The IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C (expected September 2018) will provide important input. Before Paris, the scientific input of the First Periodical Review (FPR) and its Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) was critical.

The FPR concluded that the 2°C limit as a line of defence should be pushed lower. Additionally, the world is not on track to achieve this goal. In other words: meaningful mitigation measures must urgently be scaled up. In Paris, Parties used this input and took the important decision to strengthen the global goal to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels.

Periodic reviews and expert dialogues need to be repeated regularly under the Paris Agreement. We need to start with the Second Periodical Review (SPR) and its dialogue in 2017, or in May 2018 at the latest. A further session should be organised in October 2018 to summarise the content of IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C to inform the Facilitative Dialogue in 2018. Key questions here will be: What path do current NDCs put us on; and how far is that from achieving the Paris goals?
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Yesterday was a good day in that there was no official Fossil of the Day winner; though some would say Venezuela deserves at least an honourable mention for attempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

ECO completely gets that fossil fuel companies shouldn’t be influencing negotiations. Organisations making a business out of polling have no place here. That doesn’t mean that they should be lumped and grouped in with everyone else in civil society though!

We live in a world where the voice of the people counts—civil society can help governments truly understand the needs of the communities and support the development of effective, relevant climate solutions. Flush that dirty water down the drain but keep the baby safe, Venezuela.

ECO readers know that to keep warming to well below 1.5°C, we need to increase ambition before 2020. The good news is that there are countless opportunities for reducing emissions more quickly. Developed countries in particular have responsibility for increasing their ambition and providing the necessary support so these opportunities can be realised.

Marrakech needs to deliver an ambitious outcome on pre-2020 action—both on mitigation and means of implementation. The package should include progress on finance (particularly the roadmap to US$100 billion and outcomes from the High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Long-Term Finance), strengthening of capacity building, a new framework for Global Climate Action, and meaningful outcomes from the Facilitative Dialogue on ambition and support (which should be reflected in a COP22 decision). ECO would like to remind delegates that the Facilitative Dialogue is not about congratulating yourselves on existing activities. The technical part should focus on identifying concrete ways to do more, individually and in collaboration, so that Ministers can agree on and announce new actions to close the pre-2020 gap next week.

Here are a few ideas ECO would like to suggest:

– Parties who have not yet ratified the Doha Amendments should; can you believe we still have to say this.
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In preparation for the high-level part of the Facilitative Dialogue on enhancing ambition and support taking place next Wednesday, ECO would like to raise the profile of the helpful guiding questions proposed by the Presidency. In particular, we would like to ask, what immediate domestic steps should countries take to raise overall ambition?

ECO wouldn’t be ECO without proposing concrete ideas for immediate domestic action. Before convening for the 2016 Dialogue, Parties should consider policies that: improve energy efficiency, for example in buildings, remove fossil fuel subsidies, price carbon emissions, scale up renewable energy procurement procedures, divest national pension plans and other public funds from fossil fuel companies, require financial institutions to report on investment in fossil fuels, retain and restore natural forests, improve agricultural practices, reduce wasteful consumption, in particular food waste, or subsidise public transport—and that’s just to name a few!

Developed countries must take lead by scaling up their own actions and support. In this context, accelerated ambition must mean no new fossil fuel infrastructure. Even the potential carbon emissions from the oil, gas, and coal in the world’s currently operating fields and mines would take us beyond 2°C of warming.

Given the current lack of collective ambition, the Global Stocktake is a crucial tool to make a serious assessment of the Parties’ progress on meeting the objectives they all signed up to in Paris, and identify what still needs to be done. The Global Stocktake must gather momentum by ensuring broad ownership over its process and its conclusion.

ECO has identified one crucial feature of the stocktake: it must recognise not only information provided by Parties (through their reporting) and intergovernmental organisations such as the IPCC, but also information from other agencies and non-state actors, including research institutions and civil society. This inclusivity will build momentum by encouraging these institutions to close the knowledge gaps that currently exist in important stocktake areas, thus ensuring that the science that the Global Stocktake considers is really the best available.

Why would anyone want to exclude any useful information from this crucial process already so long before the first Stocktake in 2023? ECO has a hard time understanding why Parties would want to limit this scope, especially since they are deciding the modalities of a long-lasting regime.