ECO Newsletter

Why farmers and negotiators should be worried about AI 

Beep boop beep boop… There’s been quite a bit of talk of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and “technical innovations” in this week’s Sharm el Sheikh negotiations on agriculture. ECO wonders: have agriculture negotiators become so tired of working unsuccessfully towards consensus, that they have decided to leave the fate of our food systems in the hands of AI? Clearly, they have forgotten that doing so may lead to the loss of their very own negotiating jobs and livelihoods? On the other hand, computer-led negotiations on agriculture and food security may finally make them reflect on the plight of small-scale food producers seeing their land grabbed to create sensors-and-drone-farming installations. 

The recent informal note outlining a roadmap for the joint work on agriculture and food security included a dubious push for tech-based “innovation”, such as AI or biotechnologies, to be discussed at the next sessions. ECO is really concerned about the focus shifting away from small-scale food producers and their livelihoods, instead being concerned with sci-fi illusions and techno-fixes to the climate crisis that will lead to unchecked loss of livelihood in rural communities and ultimately hunger. 

ECO would like to remind delegates that one quarter of the world’s population relies on agriculture for its livelihood.
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ECO saw a beautiful signing ceremony yesterday in front of Wien and could even catch a glimpse of the host country agreement for COP29. What a privilege it was, but ECO wonders if it will disappear into the deep caverns of the UN system, like all the other COP Host Agreements that have come before this one?

The short sighting was not enough to read the whole document and ECO could not see whether the COP29 host agreed to implementing strong human rights safeguards – critical to safe and meaningful participation in the COP – like Parties agreed to last year in the Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings (AIM) room. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out because those very same Parties decided to make the agreements public. 

So are they? Join ECO on an exciting treasure hunt to find the host country agreement of COP28!

Puzzled? Yeah, ECO too. After months of trying to get a hold of the host country agreement of COP28 and being sent from pillar to post without success, ECO is not too excited to start yet another such hunt for COP29.

How about making the hunt less of a mission impossible by mandating the Secretariat to upload it on UNFCCC.int/HCApublicforreal? 

ECO couldn’t agree more with one of the Article 6 negotiators: the negotiations on Article 6.2 are like being on the Titanic, moving towards the tip of an iceberg. So, negotiators, let’s zoom out. How did this ship get here? Why are you on this ship in the open ocean? And what was your destination anyway?

The Paris Agreement was the initial harbor. You set off from there, on a course for 1.5ºC, and chose Article 6.2 as part of your fleet to reach this goal. But the Article 6.2 Titanic is drifting off; it seems that part of the crew never wanted this ship to be part of the 1.5ºC fleet anyway, and they have thrown out the compass. Now we’re steering between the icebergs of technical intricacies, and those negotiators who still want to reach 1.5ºC are trying desperately to make the best of a bad situation. ECO hates to break the news, but Article 6.2 is adrift: without a major course correction, it will enshrine an offsetting instrument with weak oversight, leading to Spurious Hot-air Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes. 

Redirecting the Article 6.2 fleet won’t be easy, but luckily ECO brought its sonar to spot the hidden icebergs ahead and get us through safely.
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As the mitigation work programme continues to struggle within the UNFCCC, work is progressing on the decarbonization of a significant, but often overlooked, global polluter: international shipping. The International Maritime Organization, the UN’s London-based shipping regulator, adopted a GHG Strategy last year that sets clear reduction targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050, together with a commitment to a “just and equitable transition”. The challenge is now to design the regulations to deliver on these commitments.

This weekend, IMO negotiators will convene informally in Bonn at the German Transport Ministry. ECO will be keeping an eye on these discussions, including the extent to which they involve and elevate the voices of those with most at stake in the outcome: SIDS and LDCs, who are both heavily dependent on international shipping and most vulnerable to climate impacts – including from emissions from ships.

$100 billion! That’s a number ECO has heard for well over a decade, and again this week. ECO wishes that this was in celebration of reaching a full $100 billion in grants-based public finance, but sadly no. This is not about the amount of climate finance which was promised per year by 2020 – and not delivered.

No. It is the volume of oil and gas deals done last year by just one nationally-owned oil company, ADNOC, when the UAE held the COP28 presidency.

That’s right, $100 billion!

While ECO thought we were in Dubai to increase ambition on fighting the climate crisis – including a full, fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phase out – it seems that others were there for a different reason: promoting oil and gas.

ECO had its suspicions, of course, but a new Global Witness report confirms that when you put the head of an oil and gas company in charge of the climate negotiations, then you end up with more oil and gas commitments.

Conflict of Interest, anyone?

Among the deals done were ones with other members of the troika – the countries which will host the next two COPs. And it’s not lost on ECO that when we go to this year’s petrostate host country, yet again a former oil and gas executive will be in charge.
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It is early June; time for the SBs. While the weather is a bit weird (could it be climate change?), the usual tactics and games unfold: calls for urgency, last-minute agenda fights, reinterpretations of agenda items just agreed a couple of months ago…

The clear and unchanging message ECO wants to convey this time is: there is no climate justice (in NDCs) without human rights (in NDCs). 

ECO made a little detour via Strasbourg on the way to Bonn where the European Court of Human Rights found Switzerland in violation of its human rights obligations for failing to implement sufficient measures to combat climate change. If the floods in Kenya, Brazil and other countries and the heatwave in South and Southeast Asia (just to name a few) weren’t enough to convince Parties that their enhanced NDCs should be in line with the objective to limit warming to 1.5°C, maybe this verdict will help. 

This powerful judgment should be reflected upon by all Parties – it is the perfect opportunity to step up national climate action. ECO also eagerly awaits a strong advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice that reinforces the understanding that protection against climate change impacts is a human right obligation, and that Parties’ legal obligations related to climate change go well beyond the conference halls of the UNFCCC.
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Wandering around the negotiation rooms, ECO hears many items under Adaptation. Yet there is deafening silence on gender equality. While the decision text on the GGA in Dubai reflected the need for gender responsiveness in national adaptation plans (NAPs) and “to take gender into account” during their implementation, one cannot simply lean back and consider the job done, not even with this acceptable but ultimately weak language.     

ECO finds it distressing that among priorities during interventions gender is not making the cut, at least you haven’t forgotten about Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge. Weren’t the rights of Indigenous Peoples and gender once besties and mentioned in tandem? Has it somehow slipped from negotiators’ minds? Or is this silence sending a message about gender equality not being important for climate justice?

So here’s a friendly reminder to all of you who can speak in the Adaptation negotiations: gender equality is in fact one of the most cross-cutting and important social bases for climate justice, and we still have a long way to go. Adaptation measures have no purpose if they are not informed, designed and implemented in a gender-responsive manner.      

And if you’re casting about for ideas on how to do it, consider the good example of your Mexican colleagues from the EIG group.