ECO Newsletter

In the city of lights and with a light of hope, those 197 parties agreed, among others, to safeguard principles of human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples, food security, just transition, ecosystem integrity and protection of biodiversity, intergenerational equity, gender equality and public participation.

But ECO is starting to feel a bit puzzled … we’ve heard that a Rulebook is being written to implement this Paris Agreement, but that the great eight principles are incomplete, and scarcely and shyly mentioned.

A few of those principles are mentioned (although heavily bracketed). But we’re sad to see food security has been left out.

Negotiators who have worked hard in the discussions under the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture to safeguard food security in a changing climate might feel that their efforts are being undermined by this APA oversight. After all, they might agree with ECO that there is a risk that Team Koronivia could end up developing excellent guidelines or outcomes on food security — only to see farms, lands and livelihoods threatened by misguided climate action.

ECO has been running back-and-forth from the negotiations in areas B and D to side events in area G. ECO is getting quite the exercise! However, ECO forgot to stretch before exercising – and now, ECO feels sore. ECO hopes that Parties in the transparency negotiations don’t make the same mistake. We all know that stretching is vital to maintaining individual flexibility and improving balance so you don’t slide off slippery sidewalks.

Speaking of (back-)sliding, ECO would like to remind Parties that they decided in Paris that they would maintain at least the frequency and quality of reporting as under the Convention.ECO thinks this applies to reviews as well…there’s no avoiding a true technical expert review.

Flexibility and support are crucial, so reporting and transparency can improve over time. Luckily, the Paris Agreement clearly provides flexibility for those developing country Parties that need it in light of their capacities. Flexibility and support have to be provided to develop the capacities of those Parties who need it. But you can’t keep stretching forever, at some point you need to begin exercising. Flexibility should no longer be provided to Parties once they have the capacity. Improvement plans are a great tool to help Parties to build their capacity over time as well as to track their progress.

Yesterday we were treated to the draft decision text of the report of the Executive Committee (Ex-Com) of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts. The report starts off well, highlighting the forthcoming review of the WIM, seeking inputs to the terms of reference for the review, and reminding everyone of the importance of the IPCC special report on 1.5oC. Sadly, that’s where the positives cease. But ECO thinks it might have a suggestion on how to improve the text.

But first, a slight detour: At many previous COPs, negotiators have struggled to come to terms with the fact that Loss and Damage is separate from adaptation. Amazingly some WIM Ex Com members attempted to subsume Loss and Damage under Adaptation, despite the fact that it is a separate article in the Paris Agreement. This would ignore the plight of the millions of people already facing the irreversible consequences of climate change; for many of them it is already too late for adaptation. The IPCC 1.5 report has confirmed that loss and damage is a real problem, with substantial evidence of the impacts, causalities and attributions.

Maybe the problem with loss and damage is that negotiators are too focussed on two of the three tasks from the Paris Agreement, namely to avert and to minimize – but somehow forgot the third one, to address?