ECO Newsletter

As recently reported by the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel subsidies in 2012 came in at US $544 billion – five times greater than those for renewable energy at US $101 billion. The IMF puts the estimate at an astounding US $2 trillion when indirect subsidies are taken into account.

Taxpayers around the world are, effectively, paying to destabilize the climate. Subsidies are granted in rich countries to their coal, oil and gas industries, and also in poor countries to make fuel for middle class car owners cheaper while worsening air pollution and taking desperately needed funds from health care, education and housing.

In Latin America, fossil fuels are cheapest in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. There are some  sad ironies here – Venezuela has a Ministry which has among its mandates the implementation of “eco-socialism”; the other two have codified respect for Pacha Mama and Rights of Nature in their constitutions. Other countries in Latin America, such as Mexico, also provide billions in subsidies for the production and consumption of fossil fuels.

Subsidies generally benefit those who use the most fuel – not the poor. If the substantial resources currently devoted to these subsidies were spent on improving public services or directly transferred to the poor, the social impact would be positive.
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Catholic Bishops from around the world came together yesterday to issue a statement calling for an end to the fossil fuel era and for global temperature increase to be kept below 1.5 °C.

While Church leaders have spoken out previously on the subject of climate change, yesterday’s statement is significant as it represents the first time a global group of Bishops have shared their thoughts on the subject in one document.

The statement calls for a ‘deepening of the discourse at COP20’ to ensure concrete decisions are taken in Paris next year, highlighting that a clear roadmap must be adopted and set out how countries will meet predictable and additional finance requirements.

The Bishops “call on all Catholics and people of good will to engage on the road to Paris as a starting point for a new life in harmony with Creation respecting planetary boundaries.”

With Pope Francis expected to release a Papal Encyclical next year on human ecology, the Bishops’ statement may signal the Catholic Church is going to become a more vocal advocate for climate justice.

On the heels of the historic U.S.-China climate announcement, youth from the United States and China have combined forces to build momentum in the youth climate movement.

Building on previous collaborative work, the China Youth Climate Action Network (CYCAN) and the Sierra Student Coalition partnered on a joint statement to their heads of state detailing the youth reaction to the recent U.S.-China climate announcement. The statement expresses appreciation for the bold steps taken by both countries while also pushing for more ambitious goals, in particular the need for strong and effective policies which are socially just and scientifically sound.

The statement goes on to detail the ambitious emissions targets and policies needed to avert an irreversible climate crisis, keeping global temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.

This statement is just the beginning.  The youth who are inheriting the critical problem of climate disruption are an ever stronger part of a global dialogue. The unified voices of the world’s youth promise to be there every step of the way from Lima to Paris, driving progress in their communities and pushing for a world with equitable access to clean, safe, renewable and socially just energy systems.

The US delegation might need an extra pair of spectacles because they seem to be chronically short-sighted. Despite Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, with the support of Japan, they are trying to remove adaptation and loss & damage from the ADP decision text. Our First-Place Fossil of the Day award is a dead heat between the United States and Japan.

Now, a second pair of spectacles for the
Polish officials who can’t see that the writing is on the wall for the coal industry. Poland win the Second-Place Fossil of the Day for ignoring the clean energy transition and proposing a range of new coal-related projects as part of a new EU 300 billion Euro stimulus package.

Spectacles won’t help with our Third-Place Fossil of the Day winner, Venezuela. This morning Venezuela’s Minister of Foreign Affairs clearly stated that “the problem of climate change is not because of the production of petrol, but for the irrational use of it”.

Our three Ray of the Day award winners are Germany, Peru and Colombia who all pledged vital climate finance. Germany pledged around $60 million to the Adaptation Fund, Peru then pledged $6 million to the Green Climate Fund, and they were then matched by Colombia who pledged an additional $6 million.

Today, on Human Rights Day, nearly 250 civil society organizations and 76 independent experts of the UN Human Rights Council are calling for human rights to be reflected in the UNFCCC process.

With human beings increasingly impacted by both the causes and the consequences of climate change, it’s obvious that human rights are critical to an effective global solution for the current climate crisis. Yet Parties refuse to grasp what’s needed to effectively protect
human rights and achieve climate justice.

All Parties have existing obligations to protect human rights in the context of climate change and thus have duties to prevent further harm from climate change. This can only be done by applying a rights-based approach which ensures that human rights are taken into account in the development and implementation of
climate policies, mechanisms and institutions.

Parties must also ensure civil society participation in the negotiating process, the development of national commitments and other national level policies, and the development and implementation of climate policies on the ground. Adequate access to information and effective participation increases support for climate policies and their public ownership, and will lead to effective and sustainable outcomes at all levels.

The international community’s failure to take necessary action to mitigate climate change threatens the rights – including the right to development – of vulnerable peoples and communities who are already experiencing the adverse impacts of climate change.
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Keeping global warming below 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels is critical for the survival of all Parties negotiating in Lima. That goes for the food and water security of all nations, as well as all our livelihoods. There can be no other conclusion from the new IPCC report.

To have a chance to stay under the 1.5 °C limit, we simply cannot delay action until 2020. Instead, we need to start the transition to a different and better energy future now.  And that means stopping the lock-in of high-carbon infrastructure so we can phase out all fossil fuel emissions and phase in 100% renewable energy by 2050 at the latest.

Parties established ADP Workstream 2 because they know that the pre-2020 mitigation gap needs to be closed. Now we need a strong decision in Lima that will enable and ramp up this work rapidly to deliver really significant additional emissions reductions.

In this pre-2020 period, developed countries must not only deliver on their past commitments but further increase them. They also need to provide the support needed for more ambitious mitigation action in developing countries.

But we seem to be slowly losing sight of these crucial parts of WS2. There used to be a reminder in the draft text that urged Parties not to forget about those elements.
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If ECO may be so bold, here’s a wonderful idea. The COP should take advantage of the opportunity to give guidance to the Green Climate Fund, as it aims to begin distributing money by the second half of 2015. The COP could play a most helpful role in providing the following guidance, requesting the GCF Board:

• Increase the transparency and accessibility of its proceedings by immediately implementing live webcasts of all future Board meetings.

• Adopt an exclusion list policy, as part of the Investment Framework, that clearly defines what the GCF will not finance, including any direct or indirect support for fossil fuels.

• Ensure a decision-making process in the absence of consensus that is one-person-one-vote, to maintain balanced governance of the GCF, thus rejecting any link between decision-making power and the size of contributions.

• Expedite the pilot program for enhanced direct access with an view to reaching local communities, including indigenous peoples.

• Reaffirm that contributors may not target their contributions to specific windows, in line with the Board’s discussion at its last meeting in Barbados.

• Request the Secretariat to reflect geographic and gender balance in its staffing.

It’s particularly welcome that the G77 and China are supporting webcasting of GCF Board meetings, while the US and Japan have inexplicably led a charge to block that from being included in the guidance.
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Yesterday in the Canadian Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called regulating the largest source of carbon emissions in the country, the oil and gas sector, “crazy” – twice!

What seems crazy to ECO is to expect that Parties would somehow not see the massive bait and switch the Canadian government is trying to pull.

In Warsaw a year ago, the environment minister promised during the High Level Segment that oil and gas emissions would be regulated in Canada.

During yesterday’s speech, this promise was forgotten and instead the main targets mentioned were HFCs. For the record, the oil and gas sector emits 25% of Canadian emissions, and growing quickly; HFCs contribute just 1%.

Canada’s independent environment watchdog has said that, without regulations on Canada’s oil and gas sector, the country’s Copenhagen target is officially out of reach.

Crazy indeed!

As everybody is getting excited about a new climate deal, let’s not forget that we still need to ratify Kyoto’s second commitment period. Negotiations on these KP issues are technical and few people have been paying attention to them.

So dear old Australia, proud winner of multiple Fossil of the Day awards here, we are watching you! And we have noticed that you would like to redefine what “emission” means to help determine your baseline under the (in)famous Doha paragraph 3.7ter. And that you are trying to convince other Parties to agree to this little accounting trick.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s do the numbers: This “little” accounting trick would get Australia an additional 80 million tonnes which it could emit. Add these to the more than 100 million tonnes Australia has left over from the first Kyoto period – and a whole bunch of LULUCF credits – and hey presto! Australia can significantly increase its emissions and still meet its Kyoto target.

May we remind Australia and everybody else once again that the atmosphere does not see
accounting tricks, only real emissions.