ECO Newsletter

Once again we are in Bonn and hearing testimonies of how heat waves, storms, and floods are ravaging the most climate-vulnerable countries. It is clear as day that we are now in adapt or go bust territory. Nonetheless, ECO dares to start its adaptation coverage on a positive note! Parties largely agree that the workshops on the development of indicators for the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience should be planned effectively taking all contributions into account.

So let’s learn from the GLaSS Programme and get the modalities for the UAE-Belem Work Programme sorted before we leave Bonn. Parties should establish a clear roadmap until COP30, detailing the criteria for the identification and development of indicators for  adaptation action and support. This two-year process should ensure coherence and linkage with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance to be agreed at COP29. In that sense, it is especially urgent to include  indicators on the Means of Implementation (MoI) in the UAE-Belem Work Programme.

Parties must also revisit the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), focusing on assessing progress, identifying gaps, and mobilising support. Otherwise we might find ourselves repeating the frustrating experience of SB58, where Parties could not agree on MoI and made no progress on NAPs.
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Today, the COP29 Presidency is hosting a dialogue on “Peace and Climate: Enhancing International Cooperation for Enabling Resilience to the Most Vulnerable.” This follows recent announcements that  COP29 in Baku will focus on the “advancement of the peace agenda.” With violent conflicts raging across the world, the links between peace and climate justice have become ever more pertinent. 

Military spending exacerbates the climate crisis in three significant ways:

• Firstly, an increase in military expenditure positively correlates with increased emissions, as militaries and their supply chains rely heavily on fossil fuels without any feasible prospects of the sector fully switching to renewable energy. 
• Secondly, it diverts valuable resources away from the urgent needs of climate mitigation, adaptation, and addressing loss and damage. The wealthiest nations, identified as Annex II in UN climate negotiations, allocate 30 times more to their military budgets than their provisions of climate finance to the most vulnerable countries. Similarly, lower income countries also spend significant proportions of their public finance on the military sector – to the detriment of climate adaptation and mitigation, as well as the well-being of their population.  
• Thirdly, ever-rising military spending creates a more insecure world, hampering diplomacy, trust, and cooperation, and leading to more conflicts and wars with devastating consequences for people and the planet.

Yesterday morning climate activists boarded a gas rig in the Dutch North Sea, around 20 kilometres northwest of the German island of Borkum. The Greenpeace activists occupied the rig for over 9 hours, preventing the platform from being fixed and installed, holding banners saying ‘No new gas’ and ‘Gas Zerstört’ (‘Gas destroys’). 

‘Rich countries must lead by setting 1.5-aligned fossil fuel phase-out plans in NDCs’ was probably too long for their banners. But it’s the logical continuation, and this clearly is what ECO expects from Parties. Especially from countries like Germany and the Netherlands, who profited for decades from fossil fuel extraction that fueled the climate crisis. ECO hopes we can leave this hypocrisy behind and put the ‘transition away’ words from Dubai into action.

New gas extraction in the North Sea means collision with the North Star. The IEA has said it for years: there’s no room for new oil and gas extraction, if the world is to keep 1.5°C within reach. New research from University College London and the International Institute for Sustainable Development makes this even more evident, concluding that new fossil fuel projects are not needed to meet the world’s energy needs, under scenarios that limit global heating under 1.5°C.
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ECO was pleased to read the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new report on the renewable energy ambitions of 150 countries in light of the goal agreed at COP28 of tripling renewable electric capacity worldwide by 2030 from 2022 levels. Among the key findings:

Only 14 governments have quantified their domestic renewable power objectives for 2030 in their NDCs; if implemented, they would add up to a mere 12% of the tripling target, most of this from China.

Even after aggregating the data from all kinds of non-NDC domestic announcements and targets, the IEA finds we’re only on track to reach 8,000 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030 – 3,000 GW less than the over 11,000 GW we need to stay in line with 1.5°C.

But there is some good news: actual deployment of renewables has been growing much faster than the ambition of governments (though most of this is in the OECD countries, China and India).

Governments must urgently close this gap, by making accelerated renewables deployment goals part of their next round of NDCs, enabling some level of international scientific review on their adequacy. 

The IEA examination of both existing and likely new policies finds that China, Germany, the US, India, and Spain are delivering the bulk of the current action when it comes to renewables deployment; trailing behind particularly are Sub-Saharan Africa and the OPEC countries.
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At last week’s World Health Assembly, 194 World Health Organization (WHO) member states adopted the landmark Climate Change and Health resolution. The resolution highlights the increasing recognition of climate change as a major threat to global public health and elevates climate mitigation and adaptation to public health priorities. This outcome is a result of years of efforts by civil society and WHO leadership. Crucially, it enables WHO and the global health community to tackle the climate crisis more effectively, working closely with the UNFCCC and building on the COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate and Health.

The resolution calls out the many ways climate change affects health, including through increasing food insecurity, air pollution and infectious diseases. It also sets a framework for promoting health and building climate-resilient and sustainable health systems. The resolution tasks governments to take rapid action for a “health-in-all policies approach, without diverting resources meant for primary health care.” They must assess national vulnerabilities, develop adaptation plans, and integrate climate data into early warning systems.

However, the resolution has some glaring gaps. It fails to explicitly mention the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis or the need for a just transition to renewable energy. It also falls short of addressing gender-responsive climate action, health systems and health services, sexual and reproductive health and rights issues, and the needs of marginalised populations like children and youth, older people, LGBTQIA, and refugees.
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The eagerly anticipated first dialogue on the UAE Just Transition Work Program (JTWP) took place on the 2nd and 3rd of June. The topic was promising: “Lessons in incorporating Just Transition into NDCs, NAPs and LT-LEDS Breakout Discussions”. ECO couldn’t sleep due to our excitement on having meaningful exchanges about how we: secure justice for workers, communities and whole countries; and equitably phase out of fossil fuels, transform food systems, and phase in renewables. All this underpinned by the principles of CBDR and international cooperation.

However, to our disappointment, the discussion was a rehashing of old talking points. Countries seem to have forgotten they have agreed already on the social and economic transformation as part of a Just Transition! And that the national context have to shape just transition strategies. Restricted by a structure focused on NDCs and other national plans, countries presented their work in self-congratulatory “icebreaker” presentations. Truth be told, it was a very non-dialogue-y dialogue. You know that feeling when you go to a meeting thinking you are going to have a robust discussion about implementation gaps, challenges, and places of consensus for enabling a just transition, and leave thinking: this could have been an email?

Although ECO appreciated the various examples of stakeholder consultations mentioned, there is a stark difference between mere inclusivity and actual, meaningful participation.
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While the great finance cook-off gets underway here in Bonn (see yesterday’s ECO), ECO is also looking ahead to see which chefs in the UNFCCC kitchen will be selected to host COP in 2026. For today’s ECO, we’ll look at what Australia is baking.

Australia is emerging as a promising contender to host COP31, but to deserve the honour, ECO believes they must be able to show in the lead up that they can deliver both results that meets the competition’s standards, and amiability in the kitchen — that is, good collaboration with their intended team partners, the Pacific.

A huge number of civil society viewers penned an open letter last week to express their concerns about Australia’s ability to compile a balanced NCQG this year. While a course of mitigation and adaptation finance on their own might have been enough to win over audiences in 2009, it’s evident to anyone watching that the climate has changed and the stakes are now much higher. ECO has made it clear that a finance goal in 2024 must contain loss and damage not just as a nice garnish, but as a key ingredient. But to date, Australia has seemed determined to leave ECO with a bitter taste, promoting an NCQG that remains two dimensional.
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Welcome back to Bonn! Wasting no time, the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body kicked off the meeting yesterday with a session to engage with Parties and stakeholders. ECO appreciates the Supervisory Body’s attempts to have more consultations and to boost stakeholder participation. The bad news is, their attempt is largely failing. Deadlines for written inputs on critical documents are impossibly tight (sometimes only a week!), and interaction during the meetings is left until the very end, when minds have mostly been made up. This has meant that the long list of questions shared for the stakeholder consultation sadly could not be covered in detail during the consultation. So ECO will take this opportunity to outline once again what needs to be front and center in the future deliberations on Article 6.4.

Firstly, REDD+ projects pose such inherent risks in terms of permanence, additionality, quantification and human rights infringements as to make them incompatible with Article 6.4, whether at the project level or jurisdictional level. To prejudge their eligibility with any specific guidance is a mind-bogglingly bad idea indeed.

Secondly, ECO remains concerned about the ongoing revisions to draft recommendations on removal activities and methodological requirements (which ECO hasn’t seen any work on).
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