ECO Newsletter

Everyone, please give the Australian delegation a big hug – they just tripled their emissions reduction target! And they didn’t even know it.

Thanks to the Clean Energy Act (2011) that is still law, and the wonderful impact of the carbon price over the past year, Australia’s total emissions default target has just kicked into auto-pilot and sent them on a new trajectory that will cut their emissions in 2020 by 18.8% below 2000 levels.

The Aussies are a bit “shy”about this new rise in ambition, but at ECO, we think they deserve a thank you. Spread the word and shout it loud, Australia’s heading for some big emissions reductions. Well, at least for the time being.

Last week at the KP ministerial meeting, ECO again heard that commitment period two (CP2) ratifications were not advancing as we had hoped. So far, among industrialised countries, only Norway has managed to finalise the process. ECO understands that the EU environment ministers are discussing this issue at their council meeting on Thursday. But now, we hear rumours that there’s a problem. Yes, Dear Reader, you guessed right: the problem is Poland.

Poland is actually trying to use the CP2 ratification process to open and re-negotiate the whole of the European Union’s 2020 climate law. You know, the one adopted back in 2008.

“It’s too mad, it can’t be true,”you say, and ECO agrees. Seriously, Poland. Stop —we’re not amused.

A 2015 deal will fail in the eyes of the world public if it does not contribute to significantly scaling up adaptation action for developing countries. Join us today for CAN’s side event to learn more about the role of loss and damage, an orphan issue in the 2015 agreement.

When: 13:15-14:45

Where: Room Solar

Developed countries: do you often wonder how you can help vulnerable countries meet the mounting costs of climate change through loss and damage, given the fiscal challenges you’re facing at home?

Vulnerable countries: do you despair that the costs of loss and damage will never be met by anyone other than those suffering the impacts?

ECO understands that the answer to both of these questions could be addressed with the one proposal. Carbon Majors, or Carbon Criminals as some like to call them, the companies most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, ought to pay a levy on their fossil fuel extraction into the Warsaw international loss and damage mechanism.

The ground breaking report released last November by Rick Heede of Climate Accountability Institute attributed 3.5% of global fossil fuel emissions, since the industrial revolution began, to Chevron’s products, 3.2% to ExxonMobil, 3.1% to Saudi Aramco, 2.5% to BP, 2.2% to Gazprom and 2.1% to Shell.  Altogether, an astounding 63% of global emissions are attributable to the coal, oil and gas extracted, and cement manufactured, by just 90 Carbon Majors.

These mammoth fossil fuel entities have made trillions in profits (Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP each made more than US$20 billion last year) whilst their products caused climate change. 
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Even though the Secretariat and Parties keep saying that civil society plays a critical role in the negotiations, there’s very little they’re doing to help us participate effectively. The proposed cost recovery policy for side events and exhibits is a case in point. The following is the collective response on behalf of all non-governmental observer constituencies, which offers to work with the Secretariat and Parties to find a real and sustainable solution. Why not give us more than four days and an open and participatory process to do so?

STATEMENT REGARDING COST RECOVERY POLICY ON BEHALF OF ALL OBSERVER CONSTITUENCIES

7 June 2014

On behalf of the constituencies representing business and industry, research groups, indigenous peoples organisations, environmental groups, women and gender, trade unions, local government and municipal authorities, farmers and youth, we would like to express our concern regarding the policy on cost recovery announced in the Secretariat’s information note dated June 4th. This policy threatens to undermine the quality of observer participation in the UNFCCC process. 

From its beginning, the UNFCCC has recognised the value of observer participation, most recently during Thursday’s Article 6 dialogue on public participation. Within the SBI negotiations and workshops, numerous ministerial statements and today’s discussion, the Secretariat and Parties have repeatedly acknowledged the “crucial and integral” role of observers in and the value of our contributions to this process. 
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ECO realised, with much dismay, that yesterday’s article on “The Visionary Few” missed the important statement by Uganda’s minister on behalf of the LDCs. We are sorry for this oversight, but were excited to hear that the LDCs are taking IPCC science as seriously as environmental NGOs when talking about their long term mitigation goal where: “Total emissions need to reach zero between 2060 and 2080. This means we need urgent actions by all countries to reduce emissions.” Thank you minister, thank you LDCs, and welcome in the club of The Visionary Few.

ECO was jumping for joy during the ADP ministerial when some of the Parties and groups echoed CAN’s call for phasing out all fossil fuel emissions and phasing in a 100% renewable energy future, as early as possible, but no later than 2050.

Phasing-out fossil fuel emissions is of fundamental importance to secure the right to zero-carbon development for all – especially for those whose lives, homes and cultures will be at existential risk even at 1.5°C warming.

ECO is sure that you, Dear Reader, agree that this goal must be met in a way that secures the rights of the world’s poorest people to water, food, health and sustainable energy access, as well as the right of countries to fulfil those. Protecting these universal sustainable development human rights is the key challenge in a world that is desperately striving to drive carbon pollution down to zero in its bid to stave off the worst climate change impacts.

ECO suggests – and we know our friends agree – that full decarbonisation must include achieving 100% renewable and affordable Energy Access for All.

Replacing current energy systems everywhere with renewables by mid-century will be ambitious and challenging. But, quite frankly, the escalating costs of runaway climate impacts mean that not doing it would be even harder, particularly for the most vulnerable.
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Parties might be wondering about those empty seats in the recent ADP contact-group meetings and noted the absence of NGO observers.

ECO doesn’t want you to worry, NGOs were there…well, two of them, representing Climate Justice Now! and Climate Action Network. Both have been allotted a grand total of 2 (yes, that’s two) seats for the ADP contact-group meetings, on behalf of more than a thousand member organisations. Two (luckily very committed) note-takers have been there to observe, what will shape the future of everyone, what’s going on inside and reporting back to the rest of the world locked out of negotiations.

In order for you to identify the CAN observer in the room, ECO has this handy photo for you, although, it probably wouldn’t have been hard to spot amongst all of the empty seats anyway…

ECO finds this to be extremely unfortunate, to say the least. Space constraints have been cited as the reason, and civil society participation has been downsized to fit within the designated space. ECO believes it should work the other way round: the space should be sized according to the overall need, which includes civil society participants just as much electricity, bathrooms, the stale sandwiches and over-priced coffee required for talks to function effectively.
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On the eve of the finance discussion in the ADP today, ECO has been hearing a common refrain in the hallways of the Maritim: “What could countries possibly put in the INDCs on finance (and isn’t it better to just drop the whole idea)?”.

Of course, the INDCs are not the only place in the 2015 agreement to discuss finance commitments. Parties can express collective commitments, aggregate levels and burden-sharing approaches in the agreement itself too. History has shown that aggregate targets aren’t enough, especially when they’re vague and full of loopholes. Individual countries have to commit to concrete actions that reflect their share of global efforts to stay below 2°C.

ECO will count some of the ways this can be done:

1. Developed countries and others with high capability and responsibilities could come right out and commit themselves to a concrete level of climate finance for the period in question. Most countries routinely deal with all sorts of long-term commitments as part of their budgeting process, so why not do this in the context of responding to a planetary emergency?
2. They could make commitments to the Green Climate Fund, either absolute levels, or a commitment to continue scaling up beyond a certain level in 2020.