ECO Newsletter

Is this the summit where world leaders with a ghoulish climate record show up disguised as climate champions? But ECO also looks forward to hearing from some real champions:

In fact, in Scotland it was customary at Halloween to not get ‘treats’ for simply showing up in costume, one had to actually perform (songs). Please pay some respect to the local culture and deliver.

Many, in particular, rich nations and big emitters see the need for Loss and Damage finance as clearly as on a foggy Glasgow Halloween night without a lantern. So let ECO shine some light: COP26 must respond to climate-induced losses and damages across the world and deliver political recognition of the need for additional financial resources for this. Globally, we have entered the era of Loss and Damage. For ECO this will be the litmus test for COP26. Not responding to the realities of financing needs for Loss and Damage means failure.

Next, if you really want to frighten people this Halloween season, show them the newest IPCC Assessment Report. The UN Secretary-General rightly calls it “code red for humanity”. However, the G20, the biggest neighbours on the block, have not given much candy. They are promising good things but are capable of so much more.
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Since 2009, rich nations have over and over again promised to deliver US$100 billion per year by 2020. Yet over and over again, they have kept on failing. 12 years ago, the same year The Black Eyed Peas released I Got a Feeling, these wealthy nations set expectations and they failed. This is not someone else’s promise. This is their own promise. Developed countries love the world to acknowledge their efforts. They seek praise when they come to the venue. And every little thing they do, they just love to make a show of it. But you know what? They are not The Black Eyed Peas.

The song that developed countries have tried to get us to sing lacks tuning, rhythm and I got a feeling everyone but them is just tired of listening to it. Just last week, the Climate Finance Delivery Plan published by Canada and Germany showed that yet again governments have failed and will not achieve the $100bn goal until 2023, which actually means that we will only know in 2025 if their projection becomes reality. Not a word on adaptation. Nothing on loss and damage.

If developed countries want to make this the COP of enhanced action they first need to prove they know that global action only happens if all countries can participate.
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Like cramming the night before a big exam, the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rushed out a last-minute net zero plan five days before this conference with no new policy and no accountability. 
This so-called plan is what Mr. Morrison proudly calls the ‘Australian way’. But anyone who has been to the last 25 COPs knows the Australian way is to block, destroy and delay negotiations and undermine global ambition.

 
Australia’s current plan has net zero ambition and will have net zero impact.

    
Instead the world can expect ever-growing coal and gas mining – maintaining Australia’s position as the third largest exporter of fossil fuels behind Russia and Saudi Arabia.

    
The success of these critical negotiations depends on climate laggards like Australia putting aside their tricks and committing to real action.

    
Australia is yet to commit to halving emissions this decade (as most other developed countries have done), has refused to sign up to the Global Methane Pledge, refuses to re-join the Green Climate Fund and has resisted calls to phase out coal power.

    
In fact, Australia has opened three new coalmines in the last month and there are at least 20 new coal projects and three new gas basins in the pipeline.


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The Brazilian delegation has offered to help clear up some confusion about its Article 6 positions. The delegation has noted that some negotiators and observers of limited imagination have had difficulty understanding how a country with an economy-wide emissions reduction target in its NDC could also have emissions reductions “outside its NDC”.
The Brazilian Head of Delegation admits that the concept can’t be easily explained or understood. However, the delegation and certain parts of Brazil’s government and economy are totally committed to the concept, especially because of its usefulness in justifying exemptions from inconvenient “corresponding adjustments” or CAs. While some argue that CAs are necessary to avoid double counting of emissions reductions and to make sure carbon accounting corresponds to how much carbon humans emit to the atmosphere, Brazil would like us to believe that nothing could be further from the truth.
The Head of Delegation has been insisting that Brazil is ready to be flexible in reaching agreement on Article 6 at COP26. He notes that Brazil has already shown considerable flexibility, including conceptual flexibility that challenges traditional and outdated notions of emissions accounting that hold that there is nothing “out there” beyond economy-wide targets in terms of emissions and emissions reductions.
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