ECO Newsletter

This is getting bizarre . . . Australia wins the Fossil of the Day Award . . .again!

  Is it lack of sleep? Is it the heat? They are making some very telling statements at this COP, statements that slip into the realm of willful ignorance.

  Here in Lima, Australia says that they don’t understand the concept of a ‘long-term
temperature limit’.

  Continuing their slapstick approach, Australia has also stated it doesn’t really understand the idea of ‘global solidarity’ either. 
  Here’s a newsflash: we live in a single biosphere and we are all in this together when it comes to climate impacts.

  We all do silly things, but not all the time. Now is the time for Australia to shape up and take these negotiations seriously – perhaps a refresher on the Cancun agreement on the global temperature threshold. Then their Prime Minister could visit some of the vulnerable islands off the coast of Australia and the drought and wildfire-stricken districts in their very own country.

The Christmas stores are open all over Lima and the trees and decorations are going up. Early yesterday morning, ECO got a taste of the Noche Buena feeling when the co-chairs delivered not one but two new texts.

So here we are, ready to check out the highlights on display and note some missing ornaments. While there is both candy and coal in ECO’s stocking, overall the new texts provide for cautious optimism.

The draft COP decision text zooms in on the INDCs and pre-2020 ambition (a more evocative phrase than “WS2”). On the latter point, the sentence urging developed countries to scale up their commitments to 2020 seems to have got lost. ECO thinks it rolled under the couch and can easily be retrieved and put back on the tree.

The text is also rather quiet on spelling out how to deliver the funds that we need to move pre-2020 ambition to action – the roadmap to scale up finance to $100 billion. That one may be stuck under an armchair cushion, but it’s within easy reach. Something nice on the tree, though, is that finance being included as part of the INDCs.

On the matter of countries doing their fair share, that is referenced but it’s not detailed enough.
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Unnoticed by most, a precedent was set this Saturday and Monday in Lima. Over the course of two days, the first sessions of the Cancun MRV workshops – the multilateral assessment of the first Biennial Review reports by Annex I Parties – unfolded in Plenary Cusco.

Sixteen countries and the EU bloc participated in this new transparency process, reporting progress on policies and measures in fulfilment of their Cancun pledges, and responding to questions raised by fellow negotiators.

But ECO felt a bit let down. These workshops promised to deepen the understanding of the situation of each presenting country whilst demonstrating that they are acting in good faith and working hard towards meeting their commitments.

But despite the fact that MRV primarily aims at promoting transparency and trust, the workshops were designed in something of an exclusive manner – with representatives from civil society sitting in the back of the plenary with no opportunity to contribute to the discussions.

ECO wonders who would be better placed than civil society organizations and national research institutions with relevant experience to contribute to a better collective understanding of the respective domestic circumstances and policy developments in each developed country? Yet instead of taking part in a lively dialogue over these two days, the delegates put themselves through long and technical discussions, sidelining other vital inputs.
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Yesterday morning, ECO was hardly awake when the much anticipated new ADP texts popped up. With glacial melting in Peru and yet another catastrophic typhoon in the Philippines, it was imperative to look at the adaptation and loss and damage section carefully. A number of good elements are still in there but also a few new ones are evident – for example, that loss and damage seems to be on equal footing with adaptation, and a separate section speaks to the reality that it goes beyond adaptation.

ECO likes the proposal to have new and additional finance for the loss and damage mechanism independent of adaptation budgets. Also good is the proposal for a clear adaptation finance figure, though the link to INDCs and adaptation needs is missing. It’s also good to see the the inclusion of adaptation in the 
INDCs in conjunction with National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), but on a different legal footing than mitigation. The decision text should speak clearly on the need of finance for the preparation and implementation of INDCs.

There are a few issues where concerns remain. For example, the mere mention of a global goal on adaptation is not enough. It needs to be 
defined as outlined here yesterday.
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What a drag! The Peruvian Ministry of Environment has done some impressive work as the President of COP 20.
But other elements in the government of Peru are undermining broad, national efforts to tackle climate change, and have pushed through the Ley Paquetazo which severely weakens environmental supervision –

which is why Peru gets the Fossil of the Day.

ECO observes that the critical missing piece of the technology transfer puzzle is technology assessment. And why? Because all kinds of technology, even those we generally like, carry some level of risk. But some are much riskier than others, and that’s the point.

Here’s a well known example. Decades ago, lead became a common additive to gasoline despite its known properties as a human toxin. Narrow commercial interests and inadequate assessment allowed the practice to become widespread. As a result a generation or more were exposed to airborne lead and experienced health effects because basic principles of technological assessment and precaution were ignored.

In pursuing technology deployment and innovation to address climate change, we should not sacrifice safety for expediency. While the exposure to lead impacted only those countries that allowed the lead additive, technologies that have global reach can impact us all.

Here’s what that means for innovative climate technologies. By mid-2013, 78 developing country Parties had prepared their Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) reports and action plans including the technologies they need to address climate risks, and more are in the process of developing their TNAs.

This is a situation that demands technology assessment.

The first question that arises is where this should happen.
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ECO became very dizzy from just flipping through the pages of the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report launched yesterday: even with emission cuts to keep the world below 2°C, climate change adaptation is likely to cost developing countries $150 billion a year during 2025-2030 and could climb as high as $500 billion by 2050.

Put this against the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) estimates of $22-25 billion dollars in public finance for adaptation, of which a (pathetic?) $8 billion came as support from rich countries. It’s not only that far too little gets invested in securing food production, fighting water scarcity and protecting citizens from climate-related disasters. It’s also that the longer this gap is left unattended, the bigger the losses and damages from climate change will get over time.

ECO wonders if the high-level dialogue ministerial might be a great time to reflect on this gap and what steps need to be taken to close it. Obviously, the emerging call by developing countries for a roadmap that shows how developed countries will meet their promise to ramp up support to $100 billion a year by 2020 is a very first step to closing the adaptation finance gap. Showing this pathway would create the much-needed predictability and forward-looking transparency needed, especially by the particularly vulnerable developing countries, to enhance urgent adaptation action.
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ECO is troubled by recent revelations about bilateral finance for coal-fired power plants being counted towards climate finance obligations under Fast Start Finance.

ECO is also concerned that the Green Climate Fund Board has not explicitly ruled out the possibility that the GCF might fund fossil fuel projects. It seems painfully obvious that something called the Green Climate Fund should not support coal-fired power plants, but the experience of Fast Start Finance clearly shows that strict rules are needed.

In May, over 250 movements and organisations from developing countries – representing people bearing the brunt of climate impacts – wrote a letter to the GCF Board. This letter was also supported by 80 northern NGOs. The letter urged the Board to make it an explicit policy that GCF funds will not be used, directly or indirectly, for financing fossil fuel projects or programs.

ECO urges the COP, in its guidance to the GCF, to require the GCF’s Board to adopt an exclusion list that would prevent any Green Climate Fund money from supporting fossil fuels. The GCF’s mandate for supporting a “paradigm shift” leaves no room for it to support a continued global fossil fuel addiction.