ECO Newsletter

ECO Newsletter Blog

Previous Issues Articles

27 Nov, 2012

Climat et sécurité alimentaire : attention aux fausses solutions !

Garantir le droit à l’alimentation dans un monde de contraintes climatiques ? Face à ce défi, le lancement d’un nouveau programme de travail sur l’agriculture, en débat depuis Durban, pourrait ouvrir la porte à plusieurs
« fausses solutions » :

→ La « climate-smart agriculture » : ce concept, qui mise prioritairement sur l’augmentation « durable » des rendements, néglige l’impact différencié des agricultures industrielles et familiales sur la sécurité alimentaire locale et l’environnement. Or il est crucial de rappeler que «les systèmes de production diversifiés, à petite échelle, des pays en développement offrent les meilleures perspectives d’amélioration des moyens de subsistance » ; Alors que l’agriculture industrielle à grande échelle, avec un fort apport d’intrants externes, génère d’importants niveaux d’émissions de GES.

→ L’intégration de l’agriculture aux marchés carbone, portée par certains comme solution pour garantir l’atténuation de l’agriculture tout en mobilisant des ressources financières pour l’adaptation, est discutable tout d’abord d’un point de vue environnemental. En effet, il est très difficile de mesurer le carbone contenu dans les sols agricoles, et il est impossible de garantir que le carbone y soit stocké durablement. De plus, les grandes exploitations agricoles seront les plus susceptibles d’attirer les investissements du fait de la complexité et des coûts de développement des projets de compensation carbone.
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Current Issue Lead Article

26 Nov, 2012

Construyendo Puentes en el Golfo

Desde un centro de conferencias con mucho aire acondicionado a otro …Hace sólo tres meses, ECO reflexionaba sobre los resultados de la COP18 en la tropical Bangkok y ahora estamos, nada más ni nada menos, que al borde del desierto.  Muchas cosas pueden cambiar en tres meses.  Así, hay un nuevo líder chino, el presidente Obama iniciará un segundo mandato, hubieron elecciones en Ucrania, Georgia, Lituania y Venezuela, y ocurrieron muchos eventos climáticos extremos que generaron daños severos y grandes pérdidas.  Pero, ¿afectarán estos cambios monumentales en la política global los resultados de Doha?
A pesar de las grandes esperanzas, está previsto que Doha no va a ser la final de la copa. Durban dio a los negociadores nuevas instrucciones. Doha debe preparar la hoja de ruta para el 2015.  ECO le recuerda a los delegados que esto no significa que pueden descansar y dormitar hasta entonces. Recuerden – el que para, ¡pierde! Hay demasiado en juego. El despliegue de la saga final del Protocolo de Kyoto; el cierre exitoso del Grupo de Trabajo Especial sobre cooperación a largo plazo (LCA); un plan de trabajo para la nueva Plataforma Durban, tanto para el establecimiento de un acuerdo para el 2015 como para una meta a corto plazo; así como los progresos de los órganos subsidiarios.


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Current Issue Features

26 Nov, 2012

El Camino a la Ambición

¿Realmente es la equidad la vía a la ambición? ECO está aquí para decir que es mejor que lo sea. Sin equidad, nada va a funcionar.  Lo que equivale a decir que nada más va a funcionar bastante bien. Sin equidad la historia de la baja emisión de carbono, la transición resistente al cambio climático será una historia de «demasiado poco y demasiado tarde.» Y como los científicos ansiosamente nos dicen – véase, recientemente, el Reporte Bajar el Calor, del  Banco Mundial Turn Down the Heat (ver nota al final) – se trata de una historia sin final feliz.

Admitamos el secreto a voces por todos conocido – o bien la equidad tomará la forma de un camino a la ambición, o la falta de equidad seguramente se cernirá sobre nosotros como un muro por completo infranqueable. Podemos ver cómo esto iba a pasar. Los EE.UU. – aunque insistió en que está empujando con valentía más allá de las políticas estériles de un obsoleto firewall Norte/Sur – ha logrado depurar Responsabilidades Comunes Pero Diferenciadas (y RC) de todos los textos oficiales. Pero ¿con qué efecto? Para la gran mayoría de las Partes, la ausencia de un nuevo lengueaje de equidad afirma lo obvio.
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Previous Issues Articles

5 Sep, 2012

Keep up your end of the bargain, Parties

In Durban, Parties agreed to a package – the adoption of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, a successful conclusion of the LCA, urgent action to close the pre-2020 mitigation gap between the 2 degrees goal and the collective pledges now on the table, and collective movement toward a fair, ambitious and binding agreement in 2015. Parties must honour this political bargain.

Let’s start with the KP. Those trying to get another bite of the negotiation cherry by dragging out submitting their carbon budgets (QELROs) have to understand that this will be perceived as acting in bad faith. Australia – ECO remembers the brinkmanship with your QELRO last time. So for you, as well as New Zealand, Ukraine and others on the fence on the Kyoto second commitment period, ECO demands to see your QELROs up front. And, of course, just any old KP second commitment period won’t suffice. We must have a robust, ratifiable agreement that respects the original intention of the KP to raise ambition and create real environmental integrity. The AOSIS and Africa Group proposals will facilitate this endeavour. Effectively eliminating surplus AAUs and ensuring the environmental integrity of the CDM is also essential – you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
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Previous Issues Articles

5 Sep, 2012

Finally, Finance?

ECO is heartened to have heard that a group of developed countries is considering putting concrete numbers on the table for long-term finance in Doha. In the last year of Fast Start Finance, and with few firm commitments for finance from 2013 onwards currently on the table, this is none too soon. Substantial new and additional climate finance commitments could really help to give a boost to the negotiations going into Qatar.

As ECO has long argued, such commitments would give developing countries some needed reassurance that climate finance is not about to fall off a cliff, but rather start the steady climb towards the US$100 billion per year promise made in Copenhagen and Cancun. Rhetorical reassurances during the negotiations are no match for concrete numbers committed on paper.

Let’s hope that more developed countries reach this enlightened conclusion before Doha. There will be nowhere for them to hide if a group of countries makes a pledge, while they turn up empty handed.

But ECO would also hope that developed countries have learned some lessons from the Fast Start Finance experience, and apply them as they consider their pledge. Don´t forget that ECO has a beady eye for creative accounting tricks that may artificially inflate finance pledges that are actually not new and additional.
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Previous Issues Articles

5 Sep, 2012

Ace the AC

ECO congratulates the Adaptation Committee (AC) members for their selection and welcomes them to Bangkok, where the first AC meeting will take place. The AC has been mandated with the very important task of promoting the implementation of enhanced action on adaptation in a coherent manner, and supporting the COP in taking appropriate decisions on adaptation. ECO would like to encourage all members of the AC, both from developed and developing countries, to work as ONE TEAM and with a true spirit of collaboration and cooperation.

In its first meeting, the AC’s members will focus on developing its three year work plan and its modalities. ECO requests that the Adaptation Committee include the following priority issues. The AC should:

– consider the linkages and stimulate coherence among the various adaptation institutions within the UNFCCC, including the Standing Committee and Green Climate Fund

– develop an overview, identify gaps and establish/strengthen regional centres and networks to address those gaps

– facilitate discussion among Parties to explore ways to effectively address regional, cross-border and common sub-regional adaptation issues through promoting ecosystem- and community-based approaches.

Other issues to  be to reflected upon include the guidelines and modalities for the National Adaptation Planning (NAP) process for non-LDC countries and national institutional arrangements for adaptation.
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Previous Issues Articles

5 Sep, 2012

Get Technology’s «Boots On the Ground» Grounded

We stand at the precipice of what could be the final stroke of the LCA at COP18 in Doha, and the conversation is turning ever more to the question of how political decisions for various elements of the LCA that have not been fully resolved will be handled post-COP18. ECO sees that the discussion on technology transfer, which cuts across mitigation and adaptation, provides a stark view of what’s at stake if the LCA’s closing is not properly done, in the light of the sometimes yawning gap between the understandings of developed and the developing countries.

If you mark the IPCC Assessment Report 1 (1990) as the starting point, the discussion on technology transfer has been ongoing for more than two decades. That’s a lot of work to sit idle if the Technology Mechanism suddenly faced a lack of support, and a staggering missed opportunity to close the mitigation gap and address the growing need for climate adaptation.

As it now stands, the Technology Mechanism lacks full funding even on a short-term basis, its governance and reporting structure are incomplete, its linkages with other bodies inside the Convention are hampered by the chicken/egg dilemma, its cross-cutting support for NAMAs and NAPAs/NAPs is uncertain and ill-defined, and the conversation on what is likely the most political decision of all – how priorities are to be set within the TEC and CTCN – has barely been broached, if at all.
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Previous Issues Articles

5 Sep, 2012

Aren’t You Lowering Ambition, Japan?

Japan will soon make a decision on new energy and climate policy in light of the Fukushima nuclear accident. ECO supports the voices of the majority of Japanese people, who say, “No, thank you” to nuclear. Nuclear is not a solution.

However, we realized with surprise, Japan considered that mitigation is not possible without nuclear. Believe it or not, the projection of GHG pollution in 2020 for Japan is from 0% to -7% from 1990 levels when Japan chooses a nuclear-free future. This is nearly at the level of the first commitment period Kyoto target (-6%)! Is nuclear really a mitigation solution? ECO believes NOT. Japan could surely reduce CO2 while reducing its dependence on nuclear. Rather, it’s better and faster to realise a low-carbon society through shifting the tremendous nuclear investments to renewables and energy efficiency.

ECO is anxious to know whether Japan intends to discuss raising ambition as a matter of urgency. We have no time to delay. No room to lower efforts. In the last session in Bonn, ECO urged Japan to reaffirm its 25% reduction target by 2020 in Bangkok. Your silence is deafening. So, take the ambition discussion back home, identify any possible reduction potentials other than nuclear (here’s a preview – you will find a lot) and come back with an ambitious target.
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