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Fossil of the Day
We should really talk about that thing. You know, the crisis facing the planet.
It’s important, right? We’ve talked about it a lot already.
Maybe we think so, but there seem to be some who don’t …
Parties agreed at COP23 that the Talanoa Dialogue would be designed to enhance ambition. However, that spirit seemed to have escaped some parties in their interventions in the Talanoa Dialogue events yesterday. There was perhaps no Party that seemed more dead set against ambition in Talanoa than Egypt.
Despite the IPCC findings that current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) put us on track to 3oC warming or more, and the numerous calls at COP24 for urgently scaled-up actions and targets before 2020, Egypt made it clear they had no interest in discussing more ambitious NDCs before 2020.
What’s more, they doubled down on their no- ambition strategy, saying there should be no negotiated outcome of Talanoa. Perhaps it has escaped them that we are here at the“climate negotiations”discussing the defining issue of the 21st century: the shortage of ambition – past, present and future – to address climate change. We need outcomes that commit countries to scale up climate efforts in the pre-2020 and post-2020 period, not more ducking and weaving to dodge discussion of ambition!
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Fossil of the Day
FIRST PLACE: AUSTRIA
It looks like we have some new bad boys in town!
Now, they aren’t the usual suspects, but that doesn’t mean they are well behaved. So much so, that they may be getting a bit of coal in their stockings this Christmas.
Today’s first place Fossil goes to Austria! The EU Council — under the lead of the Austrian presidency — wants to subsidise existing and new coal plants for the next 17 years, until 2035! Unfortunately, this is not the kind of leadership we are looking for, Austria.
The so-called “capacity mechanisms” are used as backdoor subsidies for the most uneconomic and polluting power plants. These subsidies add EUR €58 billion to energy bills of EU citizens for funding coal, gas and nuclear. Coal power plants receive the vast majority of it, and polluters plan to build new coal plants in the EU, thanks to these subsidies.
Austria leads the EU Member States in these negotiations — which could end subsidies to coal. Instead, it has chosen to please coal laggards like Poland, Greece and Bulgaria, rather than listen to progressive Member States and put an end to subsidies for coal.
Those still waiting for a happy ending … sorry.
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Fossil of the Day
Introductions can be kind of important, don’t you think?
We use them to connect to people in a “Hi, how are you?” way, or in documents to give a sneak peek at what the text has in store for the reader. Sometimes they are relevant in treaties… Wait, just sometimes? That can’t be right.
Saturday’s fossil went to the US for rejecting the inclusion of human rights and other elements of the preamble of the Paris Agreement in the Paris Rulebook.
On Friday, in the APA discussion on agenda item 3, the US challenged the inclusion of a reference to the preamble, saying it was attempting to operationalize something that by definition wasn’t operational. We’re not the only ones perplexed by this, right? Parties should know that preambles and the important framing words they contain are integral to treaties. This one, in particular, happens to house the agreement that Parties will respect, promote, and consider human rights. The US legal gymnastics to exclude the preamble suggests a hidden intention: further sidelining human rights from climate action. But every country at COP has existing human rights obligations, so the Preamble isn’t new or additional. And all 184 Parties to the Paris Agreement should respect, promote, and consider rights obligations in climate action.
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Fossil of the Day
Switzerland
Does anyone know what all the fuss is in Katowice? It’s the 24th conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Just checking that you all know what you are actually attending.
Unfortunately, when negotiations on climate finance accounting opened on Tuesday, Switzerland stated that according to their reading, the terms “New and Additional” (named so due to the new and additional changes climate change poses) did not make it into the Paris Agreement. Why is this important? Developed countries provide new and additional finance, which is required by developing countries to make action possible.
The basic challenge, and argument, is that if climate funds are not new and additional, developed countries can just relabel ordinary Official Development Assistance (i.e. ‘double’ or ‘triple’ dipping). That means that there is a risk that other development topics such as human rights, gender, education, health care, are getting less attention. And, there should also be a concern for Least Developed Countries (LDCs). There is a general trend where climate finance is focused on mitigation in emerging economies. That means that funds can be shifted from education in LDCs to mitigation in China, for example. But hey, you could argue that it’s not only Switzerland!?
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Fossil of the Day
Oops they did it again!… Oh baby, baby!
Could it be a glitch in the matrix or a mirage in the desert? Or is it our senses that are failing us in the smog? But during negotiations here in Katowice we distinctly heard Kuwait proposing to delete specific references to the findings of the IPCC 1.5°C Special Report that were originally referenced by the Executive Committee during talks under the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage. Apparently because they “are not okay with the report.”
The IPCC report vividly highlights the massive loss and damage that many countries and communities around the world already suffer as a result of climate change. This situation will be further exacerbated if the world fails to shift away from fossil fuels as a matter of urgency – cutting emissions fast and deep enough to stay within the 1.5°C limit.
We trust that progressive countries in the Arab group will find their voice and reassure us that it was indeed just a glitch.
Kuwait also blocked a proposed paragraph that encouraged the ExCom to strengthen gender considerations for the implementation of the 5-year work plan. The Group was only willing to allow women and youth to be mentioned as part of vulnerable populations.
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