ECO Newsletter

Celebrating 50 years since the first UN conference on the environment, Kenya and Sweden, supported by UNEP, co-hosted last week Stockholm+50 – a UN conference on how to accelerate the 2030 agenda and the SDGs.

The Stockholm+50 key recommendations should guide negotiators in Bonn. Particularly Recommendation 3, which reads: “Adopt system wide change in the way our current economic system works to contribute to a healthy planet…  phase out of fossil fuels …and recognizing the need for financial and technical support towards a just transition.”

This is a significant step forward on the COP26 outcome, recognizing all fossil fuels and the need to phase-out and not just phase-down the leading cause of the climate crisis. Parties to the UNFCCC must redouble their efforts and ensure the need to phase-out fossil fuels and phase-up just transition action is included in the decision texts, embedding the conclusions of Stockholm+50 into the UNFCCC process.

In addition, the recommendations include the need to recognize and implement the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment – shining a light on the importance of rights-based thinking.

Colleagues in Stockholm were acutely aware of the implementation gap. They were clear that we must “strengthen national implementation of existing commitments for a healthy planet … including by … scaling-up capacity support and development, access to and financing for environmentally sound technologies.”
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If someone wanted to paint a picture of the disfunctions and failure of multilateralism in preventing a climatic disaster, they would find a target-rich environment in the global efforts to control emissions for international shipping and aviation.

Contrary to popular misconception, these emissions were not left out of the Paris Agreement. In fact, emissions from international transport are an integral part of Paris climate and emissions goals. So they must be fully included in the Global Stocktake, Article 6, and all other relevant provisions of the Paris Agreement.

What makes international shipping and aviation emissions distinctive is that they occur on trips between countries and often outside national boundaries, and for this reason have not, in most cases, been included in national targets or NDCs.

Such emissions are the focus of processes under other UN bodies –  International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for aviation and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for shipping. But until now, these bodies have failed to align emissions with the Paris goals – especially to their fair share of global efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.

Rather than setting an example for other sectors and putting in place measures to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve full decarbonization before mid-century, ICAO and the IMO have produced disappointing results.
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‘Transformation refers to a change in the fundamental attributes of natural and human systems’ (Source: IPCC AR6)

Everybody agrees that to deal with and respond to the climate crisis, there needs to be transformation in the systems that have led us to where we are now.

And that includes the UNFCCC. Twenty-eight years of business as usual has not gotten us very far.  The world faces warming of 2.4°C at the present trajectory. Addressing Loss & Damage has hardly got to the starting line and funding isn’t anywhere to be seen. Only now, after the strong intervention of the countries most affected, are we beginning to talk about a Global Goal for Adaptation.

But talk so far has produced little. To be serious about increasing resilience, building capacity and reducing vulnerability we must step away from the careful plodding language of diplomacy and start talking action. 

There are some good signs. COP26 set off the work programme for the Global Goal on Adaptation. At this weeks SBs the first workshop will be held. The time for a Global Stocktake is at hand and roundtables for that are also being held this week. That’s good. But there are no solid rules for workshops and roundtables.
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For the Paris Agreement’s implementation, mutual trust is a key ingredient. This holds true also with regard to commitments made by developed countries to provide climate finance to developing countries.

Now, ECO remembers well, that time last year when developed countries finally acknowledged that they had not kept their promise to ramp up climate finance to $100bn a year by 2020. A string of new pledges was to save the day for COP26, although developed countries estimated that, with those new pledges, they would reach the $100bn level three years late – in 2023.

Or will they? Among the pledges was Germany’s promise to increase climate finance budget allocations to six billion Euros a year by 2025 at the latest. Yet, federal budget negotiations for 2022 that just concluded, provide for almost no increases over 2021 planned levels of slightly above four billion Euros, and internal drafts for the 2023 budget would, as of now, even lead to a slight decrease. So, rather than gradually increasing climate finance towards the promised level for 2025, Germany, for now, looks at stagnating climate finance levels. 

 To be sure, ECO would perhaps not pick on Germany, one of the larger climate finance providers, if it were not for the SB56 taking place in Germany, and, more importantly, for Germany holding this year’s G7 presidency, putting the country under special scrutiny.
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Under the climate agreements, if you want to access climate finance to install solar panels to mitigate your greenhouse gas emissions, you can access the climate facility to purchase the panels. If your house is threatened by increased flood risk, you can access climate finance to raise your house to adapt, again paid for by the climate facility. But if your house is devastated by a massive flood, you lose your house and your belongings. You suffer huge Loss and Damage and you are on your own. You cannot access climate finance to help you rebuild.

The science is conclusive. The recent impacts report from the IPCC shows extreme climatic events have been observed in all regions. Populations with considerable development constraints, who have the highest vulnerability, and who have contributed the least to climate change, are disproportionately suffering these impacts. Simply put, those least responsible for the climate emergency are paying the highest price.

If we don’t act now, then we already know that the costs will add up. NOW is the time for increased global solidarity. NOW is the time for courage to stand up for the greater good. Lessons learned from the global pandemic demonstrate that money at scale can be mobilized when the political will exists.
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High-level ministers have finally arrived in Glasgow and are discussing Article 6. Hooray! Surely they’ve been paying attention to all of ECO’s asks, and will quickly agree on an extremely robust Article 6 package! Right? Except, well, that’s not quite what we’re hearing… 

Obviously it can be hard to tell what’s happening behind closed doors in ministerial discussions that observers are largely excluded from, but fear not! ECO has its ways, and has been privy to some of the deals that are currently being hashed out.

ECO would normally joke about the absurdity of some of the options on the table, but we are increasingly very worried that ministers are actually willing to compromise on grave issues… like whether corresponding adjustments should apply to all Article 6 transactions or not.

ECO really wished it wouldn’t need to spend its time explaining why double counting, including double claiming, is a monster. However, some Parties are strongly lobbying to drop corresponding adjustments from being applied to “other international mitigation purposes” (OIMP). 

ECO heard that it’s coming from you, US and Japan, and that the COP Presidency, Brazil and others are keenly embracing it. ECO hopes that’s not true. And apparently this proposal is worryingly gaining traction among ministers.
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