ECO Newsletter

ECO can’t seem to get this song out of its head – a catchy tune that hit the charts in 2015 titled “The Paris Preambular Paragraph on Human Rights” released by a collective of 195 geographically diverse singers. Ever since, it pops up at many parties! ECO danced to it at an ACE Work Programme gala in 2021, keeps hearing it at the carbon markets pub, and just two days ago, the DJ of the Loss and Damage Fund Fest threw it in the mix (an unfortunate failed attempt to get people dancing as he was not in the Governing Instrument Room). 

It’s a really good song with especially catchy lyrics: it’s about Parties committing to respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights when undertaking climate action. It goes on about all the different meanings that it can have: the rights of Indigenous Peoples, gender equality or intergenerational equity – it’s all there (and more!). Last year – at a big festival in Sharm el-Sheikh – a remix was released, adding a chorus on the Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment, making the song even better than it already was.

ECO can’t get enough of it but is starting to think the collective might be ready for a sequel called “Operationalizing the Human Rights Paragraph.”
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As the battle around the phasing out of fossil fuels shifts gears (hint, delegates: think phase out and all fossil fuels), ECO insists that there be a truly ambitious energy transformation package in the final decision text which includes tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. The pledge announced yesterday is not good enough.  

Yet not all ‘renewable’ energy is created equal. Whilst some (like wind and solar) offer genuine solutions to cutting emissions, air pollution and household costs, others are simply dangerous.  

One touted ‘solution’, hiding in plain sight, is particularly devious. This imposter is large-scale centralised bioenergy, often generated by cutting down huge swaths of forests. This is not the same industry as your friendly 19th century woodcutter. Under an invisibility cloak of flawed UNFCCC guidelines together with dodgy claims about carbon neutrality, bioenergy receives vast sums of subsidies.

But burning biomass, and especially biomass from forests and plantations for liquid biofuels, emits at least as much carbon as coal per unit of energy — carbon that can take decades to be reabsorbed from the atmosphere when (or if!) the biomass grows back. The result is further warming of the atmosphere. 

What’s more, the ability of forests to fight climate change is compromised by burning biomass, and, compared to wind and solar, many of its forms are land hungry and terrible for biodiversity.
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After four days of enjoying too many 25-dirham coffees, Finance Day couldn’t have come soon enough for ECO. 

The combination of low financial resources and serious coffee habits have left ECO wondering about how the same thing can have so many different prices in different parts of the world. 

Have no doubt, while ECO loves coffee, we’re not here for the coffee, but for urgently scaling up ambition so the world will not get hotter. At least this is the mandate of the Mitigation Work Programme.

We are here to agree to phase out fossil fuels equitably, and to both double energy efficiency and at least triple renewable energy before 2030. But also in this necessary endeavour, we need to face the reality that not only coffee but items necessary to make the energy transition happen, such as solar panels and wind turbines, have very different prices in different parts of the world. 

And even if the underlying price is the same, the value of the money needed to buy these items is very different in different parts of the world. For example: countries with cheap capital currently have interest rates of 3-5%. So, if a windmill costs 1 million dirham, it will have an annual cost of about 40,000 dirham in China, Europe or the US.
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ECO wonders if developed countries still remember their COP26 promise to double their annual adaptation finance by 2025 (compared to 2019.) The recently published OECD report shows that adaptation finance flows have declined in 2021 by 14%. Isn’t that alarming? The UNEP adaptation gap report confirms this drop in adaptation finance and reveals how drastically the adaptation finance gap is widening. Meanwhile, adaptation needs and costs far exceed previous estimates. One telling example is that Africa will need a five to ten fold increase in adaptation finance flows to over $100 billion per year by 2035. 

This widening gap has massive implications for enabling vulnerable countries, peoples, and communities to adapt to the changing climate and confronts them with ever-growing losses and damages. ECO is extremely worried about these recently revealed trends, and that developed countries have so far not produced any credible plans for achieving the doubling of adaptation finance they committed to in Glasgow.

Let ECO remind you that it is not only the numbers that matter, but also the quality of finance that’s being offered. The time of channeling the majority of adaptation finance, especially for Africa, as debt or loans is over. Adaptation finance must focus on the needs of those communities that are most vulnerable to climate change.
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Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are somewhat new to the spotlight at COP, but they hit the big time last year getting a call to reform and scale up their ambition on climate finance in the COP27 cover decision.

Not ones to shy away from big gestures –  the MDBs can certainly splash the cash: USD$17bn direct finance to fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement (and this is before indirect finance via financial intermediaries, technical assistance, trade finance and budget support has been calculated) — 68% of this was spent on fossil gas.

Some MDBs are leading and some are lagging. The European Investment Bank has signed the Clean Energy Transition Partnership to shift public finance to a renewable just transition. Meanwhile, the World Bank leads the MDBs in financing fossil fuels. Why yes, that’s the same World Bank that is the new host for the Loss and Damage Fund. And yes, that does mean they’ll be funding gas projects with one hand while dishing out cash for the damage caused by fossil fuels with the other.

As MDB heads meet with the COP president today, will they only chat about how private finance can save the planet? Or will they discuss meaningful agreements that recognize the need for public finance to shift out of fossil fuels and support a just transition that is transparent and upholds the rights of all?
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The COP’s first ever health day started with a clarion call from the WHO Director-General echoing the call of 46 million health professionals for a just transition away from fossil fuels, and ended with the announcement of 127 countries endorsing the COP28 Declaration on Climate and Health, with China among the four newest signatories – a packed day and certainly a cause for celebration with a healthy beverage. It’s clear there is support for health to have a home at the COP even if it took 29 long years! Health can be an accelerator for climate action, putting the reality of human lives at the heart of ambition. 

The Declaration makes clear that healthy climate action must include and go beyond the health sector. It describes the importance of health finance and partnering with communities, but doesn’t go quite as far as naming the ultimate addiction and greatest threat to human health – fossil fuels. Human rights are a glaring omission, despite the right to health already being recognised in the Paris Agreement and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment embedded in the COP27 cover decision. 

A total of 1 billion USD for climate and health was pledged during yesterday’s WCAS Health Segment, with the potential to propel much needed action.
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Did New Zealand not read the road signs to COP28??? No u-turns on the way to a healthy planet. 

New Zealand had been saying all the right things, listening to Indigenous voices, and championing a global phase-out of fossil fuels. But with a new government in the driver’s seat, they seem to have swerved off course and are undermining the Indigenous People-led struggle by announcing plans to reopen Aotearoa waters to oil and gas exploration. In doing so, they have the dishonour of winning the first ‘Fossil of the Day’ award at COP28. 

Does Climate Change Minister Simon Watts not hear the climate alarm bells ringing? He may underestimate the devastating climate consequences of this decision but we, and their Pacific island neighbours in Palau, who slammed his intentions as ‘TRAGIC’, certainly do not.

Minister Watts may be new to his role but we remember the decade-long campaign led by Indigenous Māori communities who succeeded in achieving a ban on oil and gas exploration in New Zealand’s oceans. Not only does Watts and the rest of the New Zealand government want to remove the country’s legacy of climate leadership but they also seek to redefine legislative interpretation of the country’s founding Treaty with Māori communities, to reassess Treaty-based policies, and to roll back official use of Māori language – undoing the progress made between Māori and government relationships. 
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ECO has a nasty stomach ache after eating a weird sandwich called Global Decarbonization Accelerator. The cucumber variety known as the Renewable Energy pledge was all right, but would be so much tastier if properly seasoned!

ECO checked its temperature with the Renewable Energy Tracker and found that all countries are not on track with achieving 100% renewable energy across all sectors, nor are there any real renewable energy champions. Even developed countries are not living up to their responsibilities.  
So how can the chef make a better sandwich? ECO suggests that on top of the “tripled-renewable-electricity-capacity” lettuce variety, the chef triples the tomatoes across all sectors not just electricity. ECO also suggests that the chef checks that the expiry date of the ranch dressing goes beyond the year 2030, and until we globally achieve 100% renewable-energy systems.  

ECO also suggests that the sandwich is grilled in a manner that is efficient, just, equitable, democratic, inclusive and respectful of people and ecosystems. Local, decentralized and community-owned solutions will be key and will not only make the sandwich tastier, but healthier as well: from energy access to reduced air pollutants and jobs, the benefits of a perfect grill are endless!

ECO also knows that everyone has different tastes, so it suggests the addition of a special sauce for developed countries called ‘Equity’.
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The GST has been an intense two-year marathon, with hours spent in technical dialogues and thousands of submissions. Finally we are in the home stretch of the race here at COP28.

Halfway through the marathon, at the intersessionals in Bonn, huge divergences emerged that required time to be discussed, time that is needed to win the race and get an ambitious outcome. But the presidency did not see it this way and organised only a single workshop on the way to Dubai. The price is now being paid by delegates who spend hours in informal meetings, repeating positions and lacking crucial time for bilateral discussions to overcome divergences. That increases pressure on the presidency to bring Parties to a consensus in the second week – a consensus that takes into account the urgency in this critical decade. The GST has to conclude with a strong assessment of the existing gaps in climate ambition and with clear guidance for how to correct the current trajectory.

ECO is concerned that instead of sprinting towards the finish line to win the prize of a strong and ambitious GST decision for enhanced climate action, Parties are getting bogged down in deep divergences. These divergences, ranging from the relationship between the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC to the implications of equity and the need to scale up finance to developing countries are hurdles that are hindering Parties from sprinting to the finish line of the GST marathon. ECO is
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