ECO Newsletter

Alright, Presidency. It’s showtime. The curtain has been raised on week 2 but there’s little indication yet about how the final act of this COP will play out. Will it include a vision, a political message to the world in the form of a cover decision that reflects urgency and solidarity? Will it demonstrate resolve to push back against climate inaction, greenwashing, and delay?  Your silence worries ECO! We – and many others in this venue – are ready and eager to engage, but you seem to be talking to yourself. We’ve seen virtually nothing of the cover decision so far.

Despite a growing number of statements from Parties, including India, the EU, AILAC, Tuvalu and other Pacific island states, calling for the phaseout of all fossil fuels to appear in the cover decision, rumors abound that it may instead contain language promoting gas as a bridge fuel.

Mark ECO’s words: a cover decision that promotes any fossil fuel – be it coal, oil, or gas – would be an utter failure. For the world’s preeminent climate summit to have remained silent on fossil fuels for so many years was scandalous enough. For it to now come out in support of fossil fuels –whether directly or through language that perpetuates the myth we can “fix” fossil fuels through risky and unproven technologies rather than ditch them –  would be a travesty.
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Dear Santa Claus,

Brazil made fun of you on Saturday, but our crucial 1.5°C guardrail is on life support; negotiators and the presidency have not been able to deliver a robust mitigation work programme during week one; and the draft conclusions that were adopted do not even have conclusions. So ECO needs your help for week two to respond to the climate emergency, both in the cover decision and in the Mitigation Work Programme.

During the pre-2030 ambition high level round table, we heard consensus regarding the cover decision firmly commiting to limiting warming to 1.5°C. But some countries should be on your naughty list: USA for using 1.5°C as a political pawn in a geopolitical chess game; Brazil for arguing for no cover decision; and some parties are reportedly even pushing for 1.5°C not to be in there at all! They should all be receiving lumps of coal. Or perhaps the problem is that they already have too much coal?

Speaking of coal, keeping 1.5°C alive means a fair phase-out of all fossil fuels. Even in the most conservative scenarios modeled in the latest IEA World Energy Outlook, total fossil fuel use peaks in just a few years, and gas demand plateaus by the end of the decade.
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After decades of shifting deadlines and refusing to say the ‘F’ word, the pledge 39 countries and institutions made at COP26 to stop funding fossils abroad by the end of 2022 was a much-needed breath of fresh air. Signatories to this “Glasgow Statement” included Global North and Global South governments alike. It was the first international political commitment focused on ending public finance not just for coal, but also for oil and gas. Governments promised to instead ‘fully prioritize’ support for the clean energy transition.

Today at 13h15 at the UK pavilion, we will hear an update on signatories’ progress. Tomorrow at 15h00 in the Memphis room civil society and others will highlight key next steps. If signatories make good on their pledge, this will directly shift at least USD 28 billion a year out of fossil fuels and into renewables. And as we have seen with coal finance agreements, this initial pact could create a domino effect — making finance free of oil and gas the norm rather than the exception.

But for more fossil dominoes to fall, we first need governments to keep this promise. Of the 16 signatories that have major international public finance for energy, six have published policies that are aligned or nearly aligned with the Glasgow Statement (UK, Denmark, European Investment Bank, France, Finland, Sweden).
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As the sun rises above Egypt on Energy Day at COP27, let’s consider our host country’s proud symbol: the mysterious Sphinx, who devoured all those who failed to solve its riddle.

Esteemed delegates, like the Sphinx, ECO has a riddle for you today. Get it right and unveil the secret to a clean and just energy transition. But answer wrong, and lose yet another chance to follow promises with real action.

Here’s the riddle: Which continent has the world’s highest solar energy potential, and yet is home to 600 million people living without access to electricity? Which continent is highly vulnerable to climate impacts, but is seeing more foreign money flowing into fossil fuels than supporting climate action?

Give up? ECO is here to help those confused (looking at you, esteemed rich countries’ delegates). The answer: Africa.

So far at COP27, ECO has heard two different versions of the story of Africa’s energy future. In one version, some African countries are turning to 100% renewable energy, as business and civil society promote real solutions to energy access and poverty. In another, European countries are frantically negotiating new deals for African oil and gas, and finding willing partners in some African governments, ready to drill in the name of economic development.
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Okay ECOsters! Let’s play tic-tac-toe! Three x’s terminates the fossil fuel era and wins the COP!! COP26 made history by getting fossil fuels in a UNFCCC conference cover decision for the first time (lobbyists say booo). But it did not go far enough. When ECO says phase out, ECO means phase out of ALL fossil fuels. x- oil x- coal x- gas! Keep them in the ground.

This is why ECO welcomes India who asked for the phase out of all fossil fuels to be included in the cover decision. ECO also welcomes the similar strong language against fossils today and on Saturday from the EU, Colombia, the UK, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Spain. ECO wants to see the equitable phase out of coal, oil, and gas, ensuring a just transition for all workers and communities across the world. All countries must agree in the cover decision to call for the phase out of all fossil fuels, with rich countries phasing out first and fastest whilst providing their fair and equitable share of finance!

But ECO is confused. Because ECO heard India, the EU, and others all calling loud and clear for a call to phase out (or at least phase down) fossil fuels in the cover decision, but the Presidency’s summary of bullet points for what could be in the cover decision released last night seems to have accidentally missed this.
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ECO is perplexed. After a year’s workshops, the GlaSS work programme still hasn’t found its feet. Parties wasted precious time dithering and parroting each others’ interventions. Let ECO remind you that as we are negotiating here in Sharm-el-Sheikh, on African soil, people are dying due to climate impacts. ECO knows you did a lot of work this year and that you are excited for next year’s workshops. However, ECO would be remiss if it didn’t point out the importance of establishing the key building blocks of the Global Goal on Adaptation. The people and planet are relying on this process to deliver!!!

Let ECO show you a solution which is quite straightforward. COP27 must give a clear signal to the outside world on how we are moving forward towards meeting the overall objective of reducing vulnerabilities, enhancing adaptive capacity, and strengthening resilience as outlined in Article 7.1. ECO is seeing some good elements in the draft text that need to be strengthened further and Parties must see lessons from the Sustainable Development Goals and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. And we would be mad if we didn’t mention the central nature of local leadership, Indigenous knowledge and no one left behind alongside the best of science.
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Today it’s civil society day here at COP27. And today, thousands of people are still in jail for daring to speak out for human rights, democracy and environmental integrity. ECO has been reminding our dear readers that climate is a human rights issue, and that there is no climate justice without social justice.

Since COP has started, civil society observers have never felt so popular: innumerable local staff members have been taking pictures and videos of us, of our phone and laptop screens. Some observers have been randomly stopped at the entrance… they thought it was for an autograph but instead it was to get their bag checked!

And while this constant level of control is unacceptable for a UN meeting, they offer only a mild insight into the struggle our sisters and brothers go through every day, when basic rights like the freedom of speech, press and peaceful assembly are not upheld.

Last week, a huge march happened within the COP premises. There was high energy and solidarity, but ECO cannot help but regret that this happened within well protected walls, far from the streets where people are living first hand what it means to have their political and civil rights heavily limited.
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ECO loves multilateralism, but sometimes it feels a bit like Parties are spoiled children that never get told off. To review Parties’ cooperative approaches under article 6.2, Parties are currently proposing that the review process shall be “facilitative, [non-intrusive,] non-punitive, respectful of national sovereignty and avoid placing undue burden on participating Parties”.

With all those caveats, ECO wonders what the point is of even having a review. Especially since some Parties are also fighting to keep the right to designate any information as “confidential”, as ECO highlighted yesterday.

Do you know what *is* intrusive, punitive and places a major burden on Parties? Climate change. And it’s time that the UNFCCC process starts setting up rules that can bite and have real impact. We don’t need another facilitative and non-punitive exchange between experts and Parties. We need a stringent review that will verify whether Parties who trade mitigation outcomes are actually delivering real impact, or just trading hot air and patting themselves on the back for it.

Information under article 6 should be public, complete, and all cooperative approaches must deliver real climate action. A strict review process needs to be established to deliver this.

For all their faults, the CDM, the 6.4 mechanism, and even the voluntary carbon markets do require independent and binding checks of the mitigation activities that lead to the generation of tradable units.
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ECO fails to understand why is it that humans, as rational and self-interested creatures, want to continue to dig and drill in the ground for energy when the most abundant and economically sound choices are available above the ground, for free, and come with myriad benefits.
A decade or so back, fossil fuels made some economic sense because the levelized cost of energy from fossil fuel sources was significantly cheaper than renewables. But now, especially for wind and solar, the cost is on par or even cheaper than fossils, and that’s before we look at the social costs and impacts they have on our health, well-being, and most importantly our climate. ECO is perplexed as to why countries would want to support some vested interests just want to get richer and richer at the expense of the world. 
Fossil fuel companies, including some of the world’s biggest oil and gas firms who claim to support the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming below the 1.5°C threshold, are likely to generate profits (not revenues!) of about US$250billion in 2022. Even more outrageous is that they are set to spend almost $1trillion in the next eight years on new gas and oil mining, all while being fully aware that any new investment in fossil fuels will push the world irrevocably over 1.5°C and have severe repercussions on the climate and our lives. 
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ECO is aware that Sharm El-Sheikh is not your best pick for seeing Egyptian antiques, but we have nonetheless found a few old monuments at the site of COP27. One of them is the huge Tomb of the Bolsonaro Government, a 300 square meter empty ruin of a kingdom that should never have been. Right nearby, the smaller Mastaba of the Amazonian Governors looks slightly more modern, but it is actually promoting very ancient ideas – such as not ending deforestation by 2030.

After hinting in Paris at zero illegal deforestation by 2020, a target that was never achieved, some Brazilian Amazon states are now not only backtracking in their pledges, but actually proposing a destruction target: reducing rainforest clear-cutting to 50% by 2035, or to 80% by 2030 in the case of heavily deforested Mato Grosso. The state of Pará is aiming at having “only” 1,300 km2 of forests destroyed every year by 2035 (nearly half the area of Cairo). The question is whether there will be anything left to cut down so far in the future.

Dear governors, ECO is confused: as a country, Brazil has already committed in Glasgow to zero deforestation by 2030. Incoming president Lula has also repeatedly said that he will strive for zero deforestation.
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