ECO Newsletter

Last year, Doha decided that institutional arrangements ‘such as an international mechanism’ would be established at COP 19. Fulfilling this mandate is the biggest expectation here in Warsaw.

The world has entered the era of devastating loss and damage from climate change. The collective failure to reduce emissions and support necessary adaptation actions means that vulnerable communities, ecosystems and countries increasingly face irreversible loss and damage. Typhoon Haiyan, which may have affected more than 9 million people in the Philippines alone, is a stark reminder of the damage brought by major storms.

In 1992, developed countries agreed to take the lead in addressing climate change under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and agreed on the precautionary principle. Yet they continue failing to take sufficient action in line with the latest science.

While the UNFCCC has existing mechanisms and instruments on mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and clean development, there is no specific mechanism to address loss and damage. However, loss and damage cannot simply be subsumed in existing frameworks; it requires a dedicated international mechanism.

The current draft text on institutional arrangements to address loss and damage that was discussed by Parties yesterday focused on areas of convergence.

There needs to be agreement on the mechanism that sets the foundation of a comprehensive response to loss and damage.
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Germany is in the middle of difficult coalition talks following the September elections. Climate policy is one of the areas where there still is no agreement.

The negotiations in Warsaw would really benefit from a bit of leadership from developed countries, and in particular the EU. But EU leadership is hard to mobilize without full engagement of the EU’s largest economy. That’s why this morning, around 80 NGOs from all over the world are sending an open letter to politicians involved in the coalition negotiations in Berlin, reminding them that Germany must show true climate leadership.

The letter reminds German political leaders of the devastating impacts of Super Typhoon Haiyan and other extreme weather events that should serve as a wake-up call for urgent climate action. It also acknowledges the success of Germany’s Energiewende, the country’s ambitious plan to increase renewable energy and energy efficiency. But the letter notes that ‘to ensure the Energiewende’s continued success and create a new dynamic at the international level’, Germany now needs to ‘set a strong and ambitious framework domestically and at the European Union (EU) level’.

The letter continues: ‘In March of next year, EU heads of state and government will decide on 2030 climate and energy targets.
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The climate system is a heritage held in trust and passed on from generation to generation. Although the ADP is currently deadlocked, the principle of intergenerational equity (‘Inteq’) could help find common ground. Not only could Inteq bridge generations, it could also heal the divide between developed and developing countries.

Inteq is the principle that the Earth should be handed on to future generations in a state that is no worse than it was received. This means that future generations should have the same access to resources and ecological services that we enjoy today. This has clear implications for the global temperature target and for the assessment of 1.5° and 2° degree pathways. Inteq reminds us of the common goal: our shared future.

Not only does that goal unify, but it is also the first-mentioned principle of the Convention in Article 3. But Parties appear to have some amnesia, as this principle has been missing from their dialogue on equity and targets in the ADP. So how can future generations be considered in 2015, both in words and action?

Parties need to recognize that future generations have the same rights to a healthy and sustainable environment as current ones, and the global temperature limit should reflect this.
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The COP host, Poland, earns today’s First Place Fossil for aggressively promoting coal.

The Polish government is endorsing the International Coal and Climate Summit. The Polish Ministry of Economy and the World Coal Association developed “The Warsaw Communiqué”, a statement claiming “there is a misconception that the use of coal is incompatible with meeting the challenge of climate change”, contrary to the fact that coal combustion is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere.

As the UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres said at the summit today, most of the known reserves of coal will have to stay in the ground if we are to secure a safe climate.

Also, today 27 scientists released a joint statement discrediting “high efficiency coal” promoted at the coal summit. The scientists confirm that the unabated burning of coal will make it impossible to secure a safe climate.

Poland could halve its coal demand, boost energy from renewable sources to over 25 per cent and create 100,000 jobs by 2030, but instead, the government plans to increase Poland’s emissions even after 2020 . . .

Read complete Fossil texts at www.climatenetwork.org/fossil-of-the-day

There is not much worse you can do as the presidency of the COP than hosting and blessing what’s advertised as the ‘coal industry’s most important event of the year’.

Just three kilometres away from the venue where discussions on how to avoid the worst impacts of global warming are ongoing, coal lobbyists will be repeating the lie that saving the climate and burning coal can go hand in hand. All of this is applauded and supported by the Polish government, the very same one that invited climate negotiators to Warsaw.
While the government of Poland is fixated on protecting the coal industry against effective climate policies, an overwhelming majority of the citizens of Poland are in favour of climate protection and would like to see more investments in renewable energy instead of the massive state subsidies going to coal.

Finding itself isolated in the EU and accused of misusing the COP Presidency for promoting its own agenda, the Polish government has turned to one of its last true friends, the World Coal Association. To demonstrate their shared love for coal, these soul mates together developed together the agitprop of the decade: the ‘Warsaw Communiqué’. This short screed advocates that you can tackle climate change with continued coal burning.
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The Siekierki coal power station is readily visible south of the National Stadium in Warsaw. First operational in 1961, it now generates 622 MW of electricity and provides district heat for a large part of the city. It is owned since 2012 by PGNiG, a large oil and natural gas company controlled by the Polish state. The station CO2 emissions are about 3.2 million tonnes/annum. Installing a proposed ‘clean coal’ power block would not reduce the impact in a major way. Instead, the Siekierki plant represents the last generation of coal if we are to have a planet worth living on.

Only two days apart, Warsaw is playing host to two major conferences in parallel with COP19. You all know about the first one — the International Coal and Climate Summit starting today. The second was a climate and health summit over the weekend organised by the Global Climate and Health Alliance. Both are seeing involvement from medical students and health professionals, but in dramatically different capacities.

The climate and health event dealt extensively with the health impacts of climate change. Keynote speaker Dr. Liz Hanna, president of the Australian Climate and Health Alliance, described the situation as ‘grim, grim and more grim’. Expert speakers from the World Health Organization and a wide range of public health entities around the world spoke to the ways climate action and clean energy can benefit health. The conference also dealt in depth with the negative effects of air pollution, including those of coal, the most polluting of all fossil fuels.

At the same time, there are determined members from the health community who are insisting that we hear the truth about the impacts of coal on parts of the body. The ‘People before Coal’ protest outside the Coal Summit will cite recent research conducted by the Health and Environment Alliance highlighting that the health cost of coal in Poland alone amounts to over 8 billion Euros, and causes around 3000 premature deaths every year.
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Now that Parties’ proposals for decision text came in late on Saturday, negotiations on long term finance can start in earnest as we start the second week in Warsaw.
But ECO wonders if some of the submissions were written in a rush on the way to the NGO non-party, considering how they drove past the crunch issues with only a passing glance. A case in point: the text by several Umbrella countries ticks the boxes for Noting, Recognizing, Welcoming and Reiterating, but somehow leaves out Committing.
As well, their text fails to accept that the 2020 US $100 billion goal requires actual scaling-up of finance. Fortunately, this important assurance can be found in the proposed text by the G77 and China, just a bit above a paragraph that deals with another crunch issue: the urgent need to fix the imbalance between funding for mitigation and adaptation – another topic skillfully avoided by the Umbrellas.

The need for predictability of finance is supported in South Korea’s proposal to craft a global climate finance roadmap. That could include intermediate finance levels towards 2020, set disbursement targets for key multilateral climate funds, plan collective action to mobilize additional finance, etc.

And the G77 and China suggest not only an intermediate finance level for 2016 but also a requirement for developed countries to prepare their pathways for scaling up from fast start finance towards 2020, outlining projections and scenarios for various sources and channels of finance countries aim to deploy.
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ECO is quite disappointed with Costa Rica. While the country holds an international reputation of being environmentally sound, peaceful and actively engaged in the protection of nature, the current government began developing a huge petrol megarefinery some time ago.

We appreciate that Costa Rica always pushes for good outcomes in these negotiations and says that it leads by example. For example, look at the confirmation for funding (US $10.7 million) for a NAMA with regard to coffee beans. That is great news, especially for those of us who like our morning cup. But while NAMAs promote low carbon development, the minister of environment is actively promoting the creation of dirty fossil fuel industries in a country that set up a target of carbon neutrality by 2021.

Concerns by the citzens and several academic and independent groups focus on the impacts of construction of the refinery and the lock-in to the fossil fuel economy this initiative promotes over the longer term.
So why insist on a refinery when the country’s national goal is carbon neutrality? Is a refinery really a necessary ‘necessary evil’?