ECO Newsletter

Is there a new climate hero on the horizon? ECO was excited to read that the new Swedish Government is thinking of pledging SEK$4 billion (US$560 million) to the GCF for the 2015-18 period. That’s not all: the 2015 portion of this pledge will also, at the very least, be in addition to its already planned ODA (1% of GNI). If this continues for the entirety of the 2015-18 period, Sweden will become the first country to walk the talk on “new and additional” finance.

ECO hopes that the Swedish government sees their planned pledge as one of several finance pledges, given that the planned GCF pledge is still less than half of Sweden’s fair share of climate financing towards the $100 billion promise. Before we pop open the bubbly, the Swedish parliament is yet to approve these plans. ECO, optimistic as ever, thinks this already sets an example for others to follow though. ECO is now looking to Sweden’s oil-rich neighbour that promised to up its current, and rather modest, pledge at the upcoming pledging session in Berlin. Will they rise to the challenge?

Today will see EU leaders begin discussions on their post-2020 climate and energy energy policy framework underpinning their commitment to climate ambition.

The proposed EU 2030 renewable energy target, at least 27% of the EU’s energy consumption, will hold the EU back in the renewables race. This proposed target does not include binding national targets and would likely be met well before 2030, meaning that the EU would fail to deliver on its long-term climate commitment. EU leaders should endorse a target of 45% renewable energy by 2030, backed by legally binding national targets.

ECO doesn’t understand why the EU is not considering a level of ambition that will fulfill its short-term goal of increasing energy independence and simultaneously support creating new jobs and fostering economic growth. And tackling climate change along the way.

In yesterday’s contact group on Workstream 2, Co-Chair Runge-Metzger gave all delegates very specific homework: talk to each other and develop proposals on how to improve the draft decision text until this afternoon. Delegates, you might not get a grade, but ECO is expecting you to take that assignment very seriously – as seriously as the emissions gap needs to be taken. From now until 2020, greater emissions reductions are needed for us to entertain the “fanciful” idea of limiting warming to below 1.5°C. ECO wonders: did you do your homework last night? If you haven’t yet, ECO will happily help you cheat. Here are a few ideas that you can copy, and we won’t tell anyone:

Firstly, tell the Co-Chair which elements you really liked in his text. ECO’s favourites including continuing the Technical Expert Meetings (TEMs) beyond 2015, until the gap is closed. As a result of the technical work, identify a policy menu, and ask each Party to select from it the policies it intends to implement, with targeted support provided by the financial and technology mechanisms of the Convention. Keep the “placeholder for Lima outcome on long-term climate finance, including any potential roadmap” because developed countries need to fulfil their promises on finance, to facilitate the potential for even greater mitigation ambition in developing countries.
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In the UNFCCC circus, ECO rarely favours one Party and its views over another. But this week, ECO is tempted to make an exception on finance. ECO secretly hopes that the AILAC submission on INDCs has been every negotiators’ bed-time reading last night in preparation for this morning’s ADP session on finance and the INDCs. AILAC’s submission helpfully suggests that for developed countries, and for countries with comparable levels of responsibility and capability, providing international climate finance (e.g. to support mitigation in other countries) is part of their fair share in the global effort, as much as it is their commitment to cut their own emissions too. Providing climate finance is not charity, nor is there a choice to opt out.

Once this is more widely understood in these halls (and ECO stands ready to help that cause), the next logical step is ensuring that such information on supporting mitigation through finance or means of implementation appears somewhere. That way, it’s easier to assess the adequacy and equity of overall contributions. ECO notes the clever system AILAC has come up with: INDCs to include information on policies and measures taken by countries to contribute to a yet-to-be-defined global target for the means of implementation in the 2015 agreement.
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ECO sat through 4 long days and one very long night in Barbados last week, but it was worth it. The Green Climate Fund Board finally agreed upon arrangements to receive contributions this year, and further prepared the governance system to start disbursing funds next year.

Not all negotiators will know that the issue of whether contributors could include specific “targets” within their contributions was the one issue that kept board members up until 3:30 AM on Saturday. Developing countries firmly rejected this idea, despite the imminent threat that developed country treasuries were sure to contribute less if this extra grip on the GCF’s purse strings was relinquished.

ECO sees hope and feels that this step highlights the GCF as an entity that could herald a new era in international cooperation, where country ownership and direct access to funding replaces the old model of institutions and decisions dominated by developed countries. Developing countries could have an equal say in fund governance.

Some fights have yet to be fought, though, like whether the GCF will fully steer clear of fossil fuels. ECO has learnt that the idea to tie voting to contributions may rise again, but for now, things seem to be moving in the right direction, albeit slowly and unevenly.
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ECO is confident that delegates will remember President Obama’s famous address to the world just last month: “The climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it. The alarm bells keep ringing. Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them.” Despite this appeal to follow the people, industry choose to follow the money. So far, the money–both public and private–has continued to flow overwhelmingly to fossil fuels, entrenching dirty power, locking-in emissions, and inflating the incipient carbon bubble.

Lubricated by a US$1.9 trillion concoction of subsidies, tax breaks, government incentives and the externalisation of the true costs of dirty energy, the fossil fuel industry spent $674 billion in 2012 on exploration and development. With the current rate, fossil fuel companies are slated to spend over $6 trillion in the next decade on further industry developments. ECO can only encourage governments to stand up to the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to protect their profits. Industry spends half a million dollars a day lobbying in Washington and Brussels to prevent, delay or weaken climate regulation. In the US alone, investment in lobbying activities ($160 million a year) is equivalent to what’s needed for Nepal to adapt to climate change–an amount that remains unfunded.
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People’s Climate March: 400,000 marching for Climate Justice in New York City, September 21, 2014

Political and religious leaders, progressive businesses, and most importantly, people from all walks of life have spoken with one voice: calling for immediate and ambitious climate action. The Peoples’ Climate March in New York, and associated events across the world, sent a clear call to all governments that they need to step up, phase out fossil fuels and massively scale up renewable energy. It’s a huge task, but ECO thinks that negotiators here in Bonn can take concrete steps forward.

First of all, negotiators should start by strengthening their pre-2020 commitments on mitigation and finance. That is unless we want to renegotiate the terms of the 2015 agreement and make it 4°C-compatible? ECO thinks not.

Secondly, they need to create the space for ambitious INDCs in the post-2020 agreement by negotiating the backbone of UFIs, or ‘Upfront Information’, requirements. ECO has long been calling for these UFIs to set meaningful and concrete benchmarks for ambition and equity. It’s now crunch time. The key elements that need to be discussed in Bonn and agreed at the Lima COP are outlined below:

Soon, soon, soon!! While INDCs are going to be nationally determined, they are contributions towards a global effort.
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At the end of this week, EU leaders will decide on Europe’s climate and energy future. Agreement on the post-2020 Climate and Energy Package make the EU the first to announce an international offer.

Other countries will be intently looking at the ambition and quality of the key elements that form the Package: the emissions reductions target, the renewable energy target and efforts to increase energy efficiency. These elements are likely to be parts of many other countries’ INDCs, the EU should be wary of exposing itself to criticism as an unambitious first mover. Given that the EU is a major proponent of a global carbon market, other parties (including China) will also be looking at the impact of the package on the EU ETS.

Many EU leaders stood up at the New York Climate Summit and talked about the need to agree on an ambitious global climate deal in Paris. Yet, at the same time they announced they would be adopting a 40% emissions reduction target by 2030, which is way below the EU’s equitable share of effort for a below 2°C trajectory (much less a 1.5°C pathway), and not in line with the 2050 target agreed by EU leaders in 2009 of 80-95% emission reductions. 
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