ECO Newsletter

A long time ago, even longer than the weeks before COP27, the famous pyramids of Egypt were built. ECO heard that the tips of the biggest pyramids were covered in gold and shone brightly – so should your cover decision delegates. By the way, no one covered the tip in oil or coal, which makes sense as the place for all fossil fuels, including gas, is in the ground. ECO has the main modules and bricks to build your pyramid.

Brick one: The climate crisis is a human rights crisis
Remember our newly minted right via the UN General Assembly resolution 76/300 and Human Rights Council resolution 48/13 recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the promotion of which requires the full implementation of the multilateral environmental agreements under the principles of international environmental law.

Brick two: Deliver on Loss and Damage – and do so at this conference, no need to take as long as building the pyramids did
Delegates, it is time to establish a new Loss & Damage Finance Facility to address this gap as an operating entity under the UNFCCC Financial Mechanism through 1/CP27 and 1/CMA4 decisions. Don’t forget to establish the advisory board of the Santiago Network as a constituted body to enable it to address technical and capacity-building needs to address Loss & Damage on the ground.
... Read more ...

ECO is pleased to see that a draft text with options for the mitigation work programme was issued by co-facilitators. It is great to start discussing from a concrete basis, but there are still too many options. We are closely following your efforts (well, at least from a few of you) to try to refine them. Hang in there friends, this is important for all the peoples and ecosystems of the world and also for your children and grandchildren. It’s our last best chance to keep 1.5 within reach; we can’t rely only on the GST to do that. We know you are as tired as we are and we want to help your work by pointing out what we like and what we don’t like in the current text. Tiredness should not be an excuse not to pay attention to the potential and risks of the options on the table.

Like:

• Mentions CBDR-RC, equity and fair shares; music to our ears!!!!
• Stressing the urgency to peak at the latest by 2025
• Just transitions that promote sustainable development and the eradication of poverty
• Importance of being informed by the best available science
• Fair and equitable distribution of the carbon budget
• NDC implementation and investment strategies: very interesting, getting to real action.

Let’s imagine that you are building a ship. We won’t call it Titanic because we know how that ended. But you know there are increasingly heavy seas ahead, icebergs and peril aplenty. Your ship has the finest architects, engineers and crew and the best wishes of the whole world. Let’s call it the good ship Adaptation and you are the parties talking about her first voyage. Here are ECO’s tips for a successful trip:
Leave no one behind. This means putting the most vulnerable at the head of the queue. Others more able will follow.
Listen of the forecasts to inform your route, including those local and Indigenous people who know the seas best, and have sailed many times before
Have the same wise people pilot the ship when in their waters
Make sure you have an ample and fairly-sourced supply for your whole journey, including reserve to respond to unpredictable events. Spread your resources equally across the ship so as not to tip it over,
Make sure you know where you are bound and that you will know when you get there
Chart your progress, check your bearings, and be prepared to alter course when needed.

Of course, the Global Goal on Adaptation is not a ship, nor a GlaSS bottomed boat.
... Read more ...

ECO is concerned about the executive committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism, the ExCom. It seems to be suddenly waking up from a long slumber and is confused about its role. It was established in 2013 at COP19 in Warsaw and has progressed at a snail’s pace since then. Its inability to establish an Expert Group on Action and Support until 2020 is a case in point. Despite this, the ExCom has done excellent work under its first two mandates, enhancing knowledge and strengthening dialogue, coordination, coherence and synergies. But it has failed on its third mandate, the mandate that ECO considers the most important: enhancing action and support, including finance, technology and capacity building, to address loss and damage.

The ExCom has been working hard and has a very important function as the executive committee of the WIM, but it cannot do everything. It’s like Batman without Robin: Robin, in this case, being the Advisory Board of the Santiago Network. The ExCom is a political body that leads, but the SNLD is meant to be the operational body that gets the work done. Its approach is inclusive; It is accountable to the UNFCCC for delivering its work, and it is led by developing countries to ensure that its efforts are targeted where they are needed the most and reaches the people currently being overlooked by the current international system.
... Read more ...

With consultations on loss and damage nearing half-time here in sunny Sharm el-Sheikh, ECO is disappointed to report that — despite the excessive air-conditioning — meeting rooms have been full of little more than hot air.
In terms of the process, things have been difficult. Loss and Damage is a critical issue for this COP, yet room sizes have simply been too small, meaning that observers — and even parties — got kicked out of consultations today. ECO thanks the EU representative for recognising the role of civil society in pushing the loss and damage agenda, and for asking for an overflow room for observers.
In terms of substance, familiar battle lines are being drawn. G77+China and AOSIS have clear positions and are holding their lines. Any attempts to sow divisions have so far been unsuccessful.

Indeed, the first of their asks seems to have been achieved: recognition of the loss and damage finance gap. As the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda said on Tuesday, this should not be perceived as a controversial issue.
There is more debate on the need for a new loss and damage financing facility, that this funding should be new and additional, and precisely what should be agreed at this COP.
... Read more ...

Good news from our GST sports correspondent, the GST half time at COP27 ended quite positively. ECO wants to thank the co-facilitators of the technical dialog for conducting this session with improvements since Bonn. The dialogue was very inclusive and allowed interactive discussions. ECO can also report that Parties (players) are motivated to kick-off the second half!
The GST second half during the year 2023 is crucial and will be more challenging: our football team has to score goals by defining the political outcomes of this first GST.

As a strong motivated referee who was on the field during the entire game thus far, ECO also wants to highlight the following:

RED CARDS SHOULD BE GIVEN FOR FALSE SOLUTIONS: ECO was alarmed to hear some statements during the GST roundtables and world café station. The mandate of the Global Stocktake is to rely on the best science available. It is not about defending political and economic priorities over what climate science is telling us, especially the IPCC. ECO cannot hear, cannot accept, in this UNFCCC context, statements arguing to develop solutions with high risks to human rights or those that are unproven at scale, and that prolong fossil fuel dependency. These false solutions go against the rules and principles of the Global Stocktake being people centred.
... Read more ...

A dozen of the world’s largest agricultural commodity trading companies promised in Glasgow to deliver a high ambition roadmap to 1.5°C for the agri-commodity sector by COP27. The Roadmap was published on the 7th by TFA and the WEF, but very discreetly announced at the Forest and Climate Leader Partnership.

No wonder, as preliminary information on its content already indicated that there was a dramatic lack of ambition, and has generated negative reactions from the UK and US governments. More than 80 Brazilian and global NGOs also signed a Manifesto asking for the immediate end of all commodity-related deforestation and conversion.

This matters a lot, as the soy, beef and palm oil sectors alone are responsible for about half of all agricultural land-conversion related GHG emissions, and these few companies together represent a dominant share of all forest and ecosystem-risk commodities´ trade. Recent studies highlight the urgency of eliminating commodity-driven deforestation and conversion, for the agricultural sector to do its fair share of contributions to a 1.5°C pathway.

The “Agriculture Sector Roadmap To 1.5°C” published on Monday falls far short. Soy-related deforestation will be able to continue at least until 2025, and legal savannah conversion forever. Cattle will also be able to encroach on forests and savannahs in the foreseeable future, setting their ambition only to achieve legal compliance.
... Read more ...

Even though agriculture is more visible than ever at COP this year, this isn’t necessarily a good thing. False solutions in food systems are more active than ever!

In these stressful times, let us remember a time when Agroecology almost made it into a COP outcome. Agroecology that empowers rural communities is the only approach that is built from the ground up by peasant and social movements. It is the only approach that ticks all the right boxes: adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity, human rights, and much more…

Sometimes ECO has to ask itself: Did we dream that the text from Glasgow COP26 included [Agroecology] in brackets?

Today, on Agriculture day at COP27, those days feel like a long time ago – much longer than a year ago. Especially when you look at the initiatives being announced today with so much fanfare.

With initiatives such as AIM4Climate, the corporate agribusiness sector is serving up its false solutions that see farming as the job of technology instead of smallholder farmers. Instead of real solutions for climate, farmers, and food security, the AIM4C menu includes “innovative tools by the private sector,” sensor technologies and MORE fertilisers instead of fewer!

Brace yourselves, agri-eenwashing is coming!
AIM Cartoon.jpeg

ECO is happy to share this part of our publication with the Indigenous Peoples Caucus(IPO) to help amplify their voice. This article reflects the views of the IPO.

As we wrap up week one, the Indigneous Peoples’ Caucus held a press conference to highlight the outcomes of the lackluster negotiations. The impassioned speakers laid out the concerns, updates, and calls to action from our caucus. It’s become clear the objections to Loss & Damage, climate finance, and Article 6 are becoming illusions. The negotiations have become a battle of rights-based approaches versus market-based approaches. If we continue down this path, then who are we even trying to save the planet for?

Our rights and knowledge continue to be sidelined and left out of the global stocktake, climate finance, and Article 6 negotiations. This has enabled big polluters to dominate the discussions. When we start to look at the composition of the largest ‘delegation’ in the hallways and buzzing in the ears of state nationals, it’s big oil and gas. At COP26 they were the largest delegation, but that wasn’t enough – this year they decided they needed to increase their representation by another 25%! These busybodies are out here greenwashing, and promoting false solutions geared towards allowing big polluters to continue business as usual – pillaging Indigenous lands and waterways, all while making record-breaking profits off the genocide of our peoples and lands.
... Read more ...