ECO Newsletter

You’d have been winning points galore in recent days. We’ve seen a raft of announcements in support of a socially fair move towards climate neutrality – a ‘just transition’ – at COP26.

ECO likes it best when words are matched by actions. Luckily, that also seems to be the case. Two years after the launch of the Katowice Declaration in 2019, countries are finally committing to support each other financially to drive just transitions.

However all too often, when ECO looks closely, the details are missing. And we all know that’s where the devil is.

Take the new ‘Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet’ (GEAPP) led by the Rockefeller Foundation. This acknowledges the need to provide technical assistance, regulatory reform support and work with transformative country partnerships, but we need to know how this will work. 

And the partnership of the EU, US, Germany, France and UK to help South Africa get out of coal has focused on the money (US$8.5 billion over 3-5 years). We need to know more about the ‘investment framework’ and the conditions for financing. 

ECO is adamant that we can’t have a happy and healthy society if our environment is hurting. We need to work on both together. 
... Read more ...

Like a bad magician, the UK government desperately wants people to look the other way as it tries to pull off a clumsy trick with one hand while doing something completely different with the other. Everybody can see the sleight of hand for what it is: blatant hypocrisy, “a do-as we say, not as we do, and please look over there”.

Despite being hosts of this COP their desperate push for fossil fuel projects continues. Projects are proposed that don’t have a future and damage the planet when nobody can argue with the clear, science-based need to reduce emissions. Yes, we need to keep 1.5°C alive but how can we pursue that critical path when our words and actions are so lacking in alignment?

Friends of the Earth put out a report a few days before COP showing how the UK government is still addicted to fossil fuels here and elsewhere in the world with 40 new oil, gas, and coal projects in the pipeline before 2025. And these projects are just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath them lie more prospective oil, gas and coal developments that will completely scupper the UK’s climate efforts unless the government rapidly changes direction. 
... Read more ...

29 countries and institutions, including the United States, Canada, Mali and Costa Rica, have joined a United Kingdom-led commitment to end direct international public finance for unabated coal, oil and gas by the end of 2022 and instead prioritize a clean energy transition. After a wave of commitments to end international coal finance, this is the first international political commitment that also addresses public finance for oil and gas. 

Since the initial announcement on November 4th, the initiative has snowballed, with the Netherlands, El Salvador and Germany signing on this week. Together the signatories represent at least US$21.7 billion a year in influential and often preferential public finance for fossil fuels for 2018-2020. This is a massive portion of the $63b a year in known G20 and Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) finance for fossil fuels. 

Shifting public finance for energy out of all fossil fuels and into clean energy is an urgent task. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that to limit global warming to 1.5°C, this year needs to mark the end of new investments in not just coal, but also new oil and gas supply. Yet, G20 and MDB public finance for fossil fuels is currently 2.5 times their support for renewable energy, which averages $26b per year.
... Read more ...

As we get into week 2, we continue to hear about the importance of Article 6. But ECO remains concerned that as Parties get bogged down in the technical details (which are important and ECO is happy to discuss them), they are forgetting about what’s really important and ultimately what it’s all about: people, a healthy planet and the ambition needed to keep warming below 1.5°C. 

Never fear, ECO is here to remind you. People and nature around the world have been negatively impacted by previous market mechanisms and seen their lands destroyed or taken without consent. Do you really want Paris Agreement implementation associated with human rights violations? Now is the time to take steps to prevent harm: By guaranteeing rights-based safeguards in the article 6 text; through meaningful participation and consultation with those impacted (including women, communities, workers, youth, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples – don’t forget about FPIC … we could go on); and ensure there is an independent mechanism to redress potential harms. Rights-based and inclusive climate action is better climate action. And that includes at this COP. ECO has seen it work.   

ECO hears you say that this COP is about enabling us to stay on a path to 1.5°C.
... Read more ...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen the disastrous effects of systemic neglect of disabled people. 

We are overwhelmingly overrepresented in Covid-19 deaths, yet many countries have engaged in discriminatory medical triage protocols that treat disabled lives as acceptable losses. This clearly devalues our lives, as does many countries’ premature return to “normal” (including the hosting of  this COP), well before it was safe for disabled and immuno-compromised people. 

Climate breakdown, like Covid-19, compounds existing inequities, disproportionately harming the one billion disabled people on the planet. This is especially true for our disabled communities who are multiply marginalised, and live on the frontlines of both climate change and eco-ableism. 

Many disabled people are still imprisoned in institutions, including the 12 residents of an assisted living facility, who were among the victims of the flash flooding in the Ahrweiler district of Western Germany as recently as July 2021. This is one of many instances demonstrating that when disasters hit, disabled people are literally left behind.

Those of us who are also Indigenous understand first-hand how the colonial and extractive drivers of climate breakdown have stolen and damaged our lands, undermined our cultural practices, and left our communities behind across almost every societal development indicator. 
... Read more ...

Over the past week and half, Parties have been negotiating the terms of Article 6 and still struggle to agree on human rights language. In our opening statement, the IIPFCC, represented by Taily Terena, called on Parties to ensure that “Article 6 upholds human rights, and specifically, Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, and leads to real emissions reductions.” 

However, as we enter into week two, the hangover from COP25 still plagues Article 6, as our rights pop up and disappear on the whim of Parties in a political game of Whack-a-Mole. 

Article 6 has direct implications on communities – from land grabs to our rights to consultation and participation. There are growing concerns that without rights safeguards Article 6 would do little to substantially reduce emissions – something that many of our communities simply cannot afford to wait for. We need to ensure that we not only find ways to agree on mechanisms for reducing emissions, but that this happens swiftly and with the guidance of Indigenous Peoples who are already safeguarding 80% of the world’s biodiversity.  

As we enter this final leg of COP26 the IIPFCC calls Parties to uphold their existing commitments under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).
... Read more ...