ECO Newsletter

ECO is happy to share this part of our publication with the Women Gender Constituency(WGC) to help amplify their voice. This article reflects the views of the WGC.
We have all been waiting for this G moment, the Global Stocktake. A number crunching exercise. A moment to calculate fairytale emissions reductions and fancy carbon budgets, to fill in tons of tables, fulfill blurry indicators, and draw colorful figures. However, ECO wants to remind Parties not to lose the essential point in this exercise. 50 years of trying and you still don’t spot the G in mitiGation, nor in the Global adaptation Goal, nor in technoloGy nor in loss and damaGe? We are on fire and you refuse to see it.

Don’t you think that we should all cool down and give it one last try? How can we do things differently, so that we all stay alive? Just follow the instructions and listen to the Gender Action Plan. From priority area A to E you will find the right way to the G in the Paris aGreement. Science backs this approach. The latest IPCC report tells us that reducing our inequalities will help us cope with unbearably HOT situations. So, in the GST, let us focus on the crucial aspects that we should take stock of and let bloom.
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ECO welcomes the first technical dialogue of the Global Stocktake. It is not often that such a UNFCCC technical process uses a format that fosters meaningful discussions, rather than just hearing statements. Co-designing the GST process and its inputs was the main demand of several UNFCCC constituencies, and ECO is happy that our words have been heard.

ECO is excited to participate in today’s opening plenary for the GST, and to be part of the so-called Roundtables, and the “World Café,” and all the events around the technical dialogue in the coming days. ECO is hoping to have meaningful discussions with Parties on the precise gaps we are facing in mitigation, adaptation, finance (including for loss and damage), equity, respect for Indigenous and human rights, protection and restoration of ecosystems and all other relevant topics to the Paris Agreement. ECO knows that Parties need no reminder that equity and human rights are both critical and not the same thing. Both must be actively and explicitly addressed in the Global Stocktake. This should come as no surprise to Parties. Indeed, all Parties have long-standing human rights obligations, as reflected in the Paris Agreement.

We all already know that we are not on track for 1.5°C.
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Eco is pleased to report that Brazil has so far been uncannily tame at SB56. Be it for the lack of relevant Article 6 debates or for the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming Presidential elections in October, the fact is that Brasília seems to have given their diplomats some breathing room. Generally, Brazilian negotiators are making constructive interventions rather than playing obstruction.

Of course, there is a “but”.

The good attitude seen in Bonn is in total cognitive dissonance with what is happening at home. On the inside, the world’s 5th biggest carbon emitter is in dangerous turmoil, with sociopath-in-chief Jair Bolsonaro threatening a coup every other day. Right now, the world reacts in despair as a British journalist and a former federal indigenous protection agent have been missing in the depths of the Amazon jungle for four days – and the Bolsonaro regime loiters with the search operations. The president has called the journalistic investigation into the violation of indigenous rights, that led reporter Dom Phillips into the rainforest, “an unnecessary adventure”.

The episode illustrates the ghastly treatment given to indigenous peoples by Bolsonaro, an autocrat wannabe who’s been delivering on his promise of opening up the Amazon rainforest for business (and triggering a genocide and a carbon bomb in the process).
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The ocean is the greatest unsung climate hero – it is the largest ecosystem on the planet and the most important carbon sink.

 But ocean health is in jeopardy if we continue to misuse its carbon sink capacity as a buffer to atmospheric changes. The ocean has absorbed over 90% of the excess heat generated by humans since the industrial revolution, without which, it is estimated the Earth would be 35 degrees hotter. But these climate services are not merely chemical and physical reactions – they rely on a functioning ocean-carbon pump, which in turn relies on an ocean full of marine life, fish and healthy habitats. 
Coastal and marine blue carbon ecosystems not only provide climate mitigation benefits, but are key to adaptation by acting as buffers against the impacts of extreme weather events and sea level rise. Similarly, managing healthy populations of fish and more complete marine food webs not only increases the ocean’s resilience in the face of climate change, it also reduces the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by increasing sequestration and reducing emissions from the fishing fleet. 
Keeping the ocean’s ecosystems functions intact to maintain its power to mitigate and adapt to climate change protects the livelihoods of millions of people around the globe living in coastal communities, especially those in coastal LDCs and SIDS.
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On their way to Chamber Hall which yesterday hosted the 1st session of the Glasgow Dialogue, Parties were greeted by a very special welcome committee organized by various civil society groups.

ECO was delighted that this message quickly found an echo in the room. AOSIS reminded the hall that the Glasgow Dialogue was not their first choice and the only reason they agreed to it at COP26, was under the condition that the Dialogue would lead to the creation of a Loss & Damage facility at COP27. 

Having raised the need to address loss and damage since the creation of the UNFCCC almost 30 years ago, vulnerable countries, understandably, won’t back down. Delaying a decision by another 3 years, while climate impacts only worsen, is simply not acceptable. And let’s face it, the current financial architecture does not provide an adequate response to all existing loss and damage needs, let alone future needs.

 For instance, there is no or very limited available finance to support island communities who face the consequences of slow-onset processes like sea-level rise; populations who lose their farmlands, are forcibly displaced, and witness the disappearance of their traditional cultures. ECO found the presentations of efforts supported by the World Bank, the GCF and the CREWS initiative quite interesting, but they primarily focus on minimizing loss and damage and leave aside the bulk of losses and damages which deeply infringe human rights.
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As delegates gather once again for negotiations under the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, the current conflict in Ukraine is triggering alarming global price rises for food, fuel and fertilisers.

This global crisis comes at a tragic time for communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. Currently 20 million people are facing famine in the Horn of Africa due to the drought affecting Ethiopia, Kenya and Somaliland. They and millions of others are not only losing their livelihoods to climate change, but are also seeing the price of food escalating beyond their reach – with tragic consequences.

Meanwhile, farmers around the world are also being hammered by the rising price of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers, triggered by the increasing cost of fossil fuels. But on farms where fertilisers have been applied for many years, soils have sadly lost the  biota that provide natural soil fertility. Cropping systems have become dependent on agrochemicals delivering nutrients to grow crops, creating a vicious circle of dependency that needs to stop.

Alternative strategies to provide natural soil fertility are urgently needed to avoid significant crop yield reductions. If multiple agricultural nations simultaneously experience reduced crop yield, this will further worsen the crisis in global food prices and availability.
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Action for Climate Empowerment is the workstream related to public participation, access to information, education, training, awareness raising and international cooperation.
 ECO never tires of reminding you that three of these six elements – the right to access to information, the right to participation and the right to environmental education –  are internationally recognized human rights. While less “sparkly” than topics like Loss and Damage or Article 6, ACE has the potential to break down the silos across different workstreams, acting as a catalyst for increased climate ambition and a people-centered implementation of the Paris Agreement.

At COP26, ECO was extremely disappointed when Parties swiftly moved to adopt the new Glasgow work programme on Action for Climate Empowerment without any reference to a “human rights-based approach”. Though initially included as one of the guiding principles for the new Work Programme, it was removed during the very last hours of negotiations. Leaving the mandate for a new Action Plan to guide the implementation of ACE as one of the few highlights. 

As ECO never loses hope, we have arrived in Bonn with renewed optimism that Parties will use the negotiation of a new ACE Action Plan at SB56, to be adopted at COP27, to make sure that it actually enhances effective, rights-based implementation of the Paris Agreement. 
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The first workshop of the Glasgow – Sharm el-Sheikh (GlaSS) work programme on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) opens today.

And it’s about time too. 

It’s been seven long years since the GGA formed part of the Paris Agreement. Yet only now are we discussing the means to realise its aims.
But better late than never. If that is, the urgency is recognized. If it’s a learning process rather than a negotiation in an obscure language. And if it’s inclusive and transparent. 
 First and foremost,  ECO insists that people must be at the centre of the Global Goal. After all, what we are working towards is reducing their vulnerability and increasing their resilience and capacity.
We will be looking around the workshop today to see if there is a diversity of people represented—youth, women, disabled, poor, Indigenous Peoples and the marginalised impacted by the climate disasters—reflecting the diversity of vulnerabilities and the many and various routes to resilience.