ECO Newsletter

We, the European Youth, want to remind all country delegates that are already comfortable with the current development at COP25: we did not meet in Madrid for a second-class climate conference, but to decide on the crucial remaining subjects of the Rulebook and – of course – to take the urgently required next steps: increase efforts and reach the ambition we need! 

After one week of polished and largely unproductive negotiations, we are still awaiting proof of your commitment and ambition. There is one thing, civil society and the climate need: a clear promise and decision from member states to enhance their NDCs in 2020 at the latest. 

And we have one Party we want to focus on: what is your next step, EU? Your Parliament declared a climate emergency and you, new Commission, have promised to put climate action at the core of its activities. Yet, here at COP25, no official statement has been made about when you will step up to raise ambition. Come on, we know you just got started, but climate change is not really waiting for you to decorate your offices…

COP25 is the time for the EU to choose whether it wants to be a “Climate Champion» or to slow down action.
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ECO is pleased to share our platform with the Indigenous Peoples Caucus to amplify their unique and individual voices.

Bushfires have been raging across the illegally occupied lands of Australia for the past few weeks, wiping out homes, displacing communities and threatening wildlife populations to the point of extinction. Lidia Thorpe, Gunnai, Gunditjmara, Djab Wurrung Woman reflects on the way that disregard for indigenous rights and knowledge has resulted in what is now an uncontrollable situation. She says, “the logging of old growth forest in the name of jobs continues to strip the earth of moisture and throw the ecosystem out of balance.” This has contributed to what has been one of the driest summers to date. 

The traditional practice of burning, a form of fire management that has been used successfully for thousands of years by her people, has been ignored and misused. She says “the way the Department of the Environment go about their business is not in line with our traditional ways of protecting and preserving country.” As residents throughout Australia are subject to the devastation of these fires, environmental groups are finally coming to the realisation that indigenous knowledge and practices are a vital part of ongoing climate solutions.
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Last week ECO exposed the Australian Government’s role in pushing for use of carryover units from the Kyoto Protocol to meet a large portion of their already very low Paris NDC for 2030 – ECO likened this to a runner wanting to start a race at the half-way point, rather than at the starting line. That’s obviously not fair or responsible (ECO might say it is even cheating), especially when the race is about stopping catastrophic climate damage.

This week ECO can reveal it’s even worse than that! The Australian government has updated their plans on carryover and is now trying to use it for almost 60% of their NDC, to avoid a whopping 411 million tonnes of carbon abatement. This gets right to the heart of ambition and their genuine commitment to meet responsibilities under the Paris Agreement.

Australia’s strategy in Article 6 negotiations to ensure use of Kyoto carryover is basically a ‘nothing to see here’ strategy. After all, Australia is reportedly the only country admitting that it will use carryover credits to meet its Paris target, and seems to be hoping the issue will just slip by.

But early in week two of COP25, their cover was blown, after the Guardian Australia reported that as many as 100 countries, led by Costa Rica and Belize, formally challenged Australia and called for a ban on the tactic, including text to be inserted into the rulebook.
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Multilateral Development Banks Promise Paris Alignment: but won’t say when they’ll stop funding fossils.

The nine multilateral development banks (MDBs) — which include the World Bank, the Asian Investment Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank among others — have an outsized influence on the private finance landscape and on countries low carbon development pathways. 

As public *development* banks, who are mandated to act in the public good, they should be at the vanguard of the all-important provision of Article 2.1c – “making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.”

It seemed they got off to a good start — they first promised to align their financial flows with the Paris Agreement in 2017! But they’re yet to come up with the goods and a timeline ever since. On Tuesday at COP25, ECO waited with baited-breath for another much-anticipated joint announcement, but instead was greeted with a dizzying array of impressively content-free flowcharts, assurances their framework would show “some projects are Paris-aligned and others are not”, and a promise that full implementation won’t happen until 2023-2024. Another smoke and mirrors powerpoint presentation! It seems politics trumped science on this occasion.

If public banks who are literally mandated to do sustainable development want to wait until 2023 to implement a framework that will eventually get their finance aligned with 1.5°C, we hate to think what the plans of the private arm of the financial sector might look like. 
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The Gender Action Plan (GAP) has been a critical driver of progress and action on gender responsive climate change, and there is an urgent need to renew GAP now.

Civil society present at COP25 wants to remind governments of their responsibility to deliver a robust GAP to drive just and effective climate solutions. We are not here to let governments trade off between rights and resources, and we expect them to uphold their human rights commitments and gender equality. We, the people, the rights holders, demand our duty bearers to engage in good faith towards getting an ambitious new GAP.

ECO is disappointed to see governments play politics, create obstruction, and act in what seems like a poor procedural manner that is delaying potential action on the GAP. There is a real lack of political will to actually #ActOnTheGAP, to make certain that the new GAP will ensure momentum, and to achieve a decision on the new GAP now at COP25 and not in the future. This is not the leadership we need from governments on gender equality in this process.

ECO reminds Parties that if they leave here with no decision, they will have lost a critical moment to invest and scale up a gender responsive climate solution.
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Over the last week, we’ve heard a lot of talk about Article 6, and a lot of it has been very technical, including critical rules for ensuring global emissions are reduced globally, preventing double-counting, and what share of proceeds should go to the Adaptation Fund, amongst others. And ECO has been pleased to see an increasing number of Parties (Tuvalu, Switzerland, Mexico, Costa Rica, followed by Australia, Canada, the EU, New Zealand and Norway) talking about the critical role of human rights in successful and fair climate action. But missing from all of this are the human stories about what these rules mean to people who are being impacted – every day – by projects that fail to integrate human rights, were given a “sustainable development” stamp, and have resulted in destructive outcomes. We cannot ignore these people.  

Never fear, ECO is here to help. This Human Rights Day, we’re sharing the story of the communities impacted by the Alto Maipo hydroelectric project. Since we aren’t in Santiago, you won’t be able to visit the Cajon del Maipo, just 50km from the former COP25 venue, where you could have witnessed the devastating impacts of this so-called “clean” hydro project. So, ECO will help paint a picture.
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Increasing climate ambition during this COP25 is one of the most anticipated results. This ambition must be effectively brought to action; in addition to climate finance and mitigation commitments, we need social conditions that facilitate implementation and ensure that the people most affected by climate change benefit from climate responses. 

It is in this context that the ratification of the Escazú Agreement takes on a fundamental importance. This agreement arises from the need to have a binding framework in Latin America and the Caribbean that recognizes the human right to a healthy environment and protects the access rights that make possible its effective implementation: the right of access to information, right of access to public participation in decision-making processes, and the right of access to justice in environmental matters. 

The Agreement is also particularly important as it explicitly recognizes the importance of protecting environmental defenders. Latin America is the most dangerous region for activists and local and Indigenous leaders who defend the rights of their communities and their land. According to Global Witness, in 2018, 51% of the reported 164 murders of environmental defenders were carried out in this region alone.

This legal and institutional framework can help ensure that climate commitments, such as NDCs, are developed in a participatory and democratic manner.
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Week 2 at COP is “rumours week”, and delegates turn into gossip-producing machines when it comes to predicting deals. One rumour in particular has made ECO’s heart skip a beat: let’s put all the old junk CDM credits in a reserve and only allow countries to use them if they don’t meet their NDC target. 

If it was up to ECO, the 861 million remaining CDM credits would be long gone and rules would be adopted to ensure an ambitious, fair, and equitable transition into the post-2020 era. The 4 billion CERs that risk flooding the Paris market would certainly not find their way into Article 6. So, here are ECO’s thoughts on the idea of a CDM reserve, keeping in mind we are not talking about valuable assets; we are talking about junk credits worth €0.20 a piece.

So, what’s wrong with the idea of a reserve? First off, a reserve could undermine climate targets. If the reserve can be accessed by a Party simply because it has not met its NDC, there is no point in having a reserve – the Party might as well use the credits directly. Second, transferring all CERs into a reserve does nothing to address the fact that a multi-gigaton carbon bomb is threatening to enter and destroy the Paris Agreement.
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Week 2 at COP is “rumours week”, and delegates turn into gossip-producing machines when it comes to predicting deals. One rumour in particular has made ECO’s heart skip a beat: let’s put all the old junk CDM credits in a reserve and only allow countries to use them if they don’t meet their NDC target. 

Being an Indigenous ally is no easy job, but neither has it been easy navigating the COP space as an Indigenous person this past week, having microphones cut off during the march, being lectured by non-Indigenous people or tokenised for our Indigenous songs and regalia. Indigenous people are key leaders in the climate space, and it is imperative that our allies can effectively support Indigenous participation and leadership, so that we can move quickly towards the milestones that we so desperately need to reach. 

Climate change is often contextualised within degrees of warming, scientific formulas, or articles, but if we re-lens climate change we can look back to its source. Colonisation has been the catalyst for redefining human relationships to land and water under the premise of ownership. This has allowed for centuries of land, water and human exploitation, namely within Indigenous territories and to the detriment of Indigenous peoples.
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