ECO Newsletter

ECO received an invitation a few days ago to make its travel to COP23 “climate neutral”, by calculating the emissions of round trip air travel in tonnes of CO2 and compensating them. We decided to look into it a bit more and we have come out with more questions than answers.

First, is the calculator giving a real idea of someone’s carbon footprint? The invite says the calculator produces “conservative estimates of the climate footprint in tonnes of CO2”, which would give the impression that all the pollution is covered. But then, it refers to another tool for “more accurate calculation”. Additionally, the footprint does not take into account the impacts of non-CO2 pollutants such as aerosols, contrail formation and nitrogen oxides, which the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated to have 2 to 4 times the climate impact of CO2 emissions alone.

Second, is there double counting? If passengers buy credits that are already counted towards meeting a country’s climate target, then the offset credit does not neutralize anything as the emission reductions were already planned elsewhere. The newest UN Environment Emissions Gap Report, points out that  in the case of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects initiated several years ago that have not sold their credits, the reductions might be included in the emissions trajectory a country commits to in its NDC.
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What a year 2017 has been! No region has been spared the increasingly intense and extreme weather events that are becoming more frequent and as a result of climate change. Hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods, not to mention the superstorm that is the current US Administration. Fiji Prime Minister Bainimarama rightly said that when it comes to climate change, “we are all in the same canoe.”
 
If we don’t come together and act, things are only going to get worse. “Extreme” events could become the new normal. This year’s UN Environment Emissions Gap report finds that current NDCs will only reduce emissions by a third of what is required by 2030. Even with their full implementation, a temperature increase of at least 3ºC by 2100 is very likely. ECO first wrote, in 2010, that the next few years are crucial to closing this mitigation gap, and that it requires a sharp increase in mitigation ambition, climate finance flows, technology cooperation, and capacity building. Negotiators, do you hear us now?
 
To facilitate transformational change and limit warming in line with Article 2 of the Paris Agreement, making climate finance available on the ground is key. Climate change is going beyond the ability of people and ecosystems to adapt.
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As COP23 begins, there is a large (orange) elephant in the room. The Trump Administration has made the US the only country that has fully rebuffed the spirit of Paris — not only with threats of withdrawal but also renewed pledges to ramp up extraction of fossil fuels, and that’s not all. While the Administration is abandoning all sense of reason to eliminate climate policy (despite it being unclear whether those efforts will be successful), the resistance is active and fighting back, making positive progress well beyond the reach of the Trump Administration.

ECO’s here to help fill in the gaps and let you in on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the US climate scene.

First, the bad and the ugly: the Trump Administration’s endless attacks on efforts to address climate change. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), led by fossil fuel shill Scott Pruitt, has proposed rescinding the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era rule aimed at drastically cutting carbon emissions from power plants, and the foundation of the US’s NDC.

There are a slew of other terrible things his administration has acted on. Reopening vehicle emission standards for review with the aim of weakening them? Check. Halting a review of public land coal mining royalties and inclusion of climate change into reviews of those projects?
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ECO wants to remind everyone that despite the somewhat familiar setting of Bonn, this is no normal round of climate change negotiations, it is historic.This is the first time that a Pacific Island Nation is leading a COP.  And ECO asks, who better to lead this process?

After all, Pacific Island nations are some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The continuous burning of fossil fuels is leading to accelerated sea level rise; longer, more intense heat waves; and exacerbated natural disasters.  Yet, in the face of such menace, Pacific Islanders are standing together and saying to the world: “We are not drowning. We are fighting!”

This is the resounding message of the Pacific Climate Warriors, a network of Pacific Islanders fighting for climate justice, who yesterday joined with local communities and activists in the Ende Gelande action to confront Europe’s biggest source of CO2: the coal mines and power plants in Germany’s Rhineland. They stood in solidarity with thousands of people as part of a peaceful protest to shut down one of the world’s biggest lignite coal mines and demand an immediate coal phase-out — because these mines are still expanding and threatening the livelihoods of frontline communities around the world.
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While loss and damage has seemed all but forgotten at this SB, ECO expects the UNFCCC’s first Pacific island Presidency to inject COP23 with a strong dose of the reality of climate impacts, thus directing some much-needed attention towards L&D. Although there is no major decision on L&D for November, Fiji’s own extreme vulnerability to losses and damages should create a push for ambitious outcomes.

At least some L&D discussion will occur at COP23, when the Warsaw International Mechanism’s Executive Committee reports on its efforts to flesh out its five-year work plan. So here are a few suggestions on what needs to happen before COP23 to ensure progress on L&D befitting a Fiji Presidency.

First, Parties and non-state actors should actively engage in the drafting of the WIM’s five-year work plan, especially at October’s ExCom meeting. Usually, work plans are negotiated in technical bodies and then reported to the COP, but are not reopened to substantial revisions. Therefore, key issues, such as institutional arrangements and additional sources to provide financial support for loss and damage, must be addressed in the ExCom’s pre-COP draft. ECO will be carefully monitoring how Parties — especially wealthy countries that have resisted supporting L&D despite pledging to do so in Paris — contribute to the ExCom’s work.
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It feels like only yesterday COP21 gave birth to the Paris Agreement and now it’s out in the real world — making change, and delivering a low carbon resilient transition. As Bonn draws to a close, implementing Paris is set to be a hot topic during a number of upcoming star studded events: the Petersburg Dialogue, G7, the Ocean Conference, and the G20, just to name a few.

The Petersberg Dialogue is first up, and it seems that Germany is keen to focus on what really matters: climate action. After doing a stellar job this session, Fiji will be making its mark once again when Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Bainimarama come together during this auspicious meeting to speak about climate action.

After that, the G7 countries will meet up. This is the first Summit for four of the G7 leaders — President Macron, President Trump, Prime Minister Gentiloni, and Prime Minister May. Each will be in the spotlight from May 26-27. ECO expects the G7 to send a strong signal of unwavering support to implementing Paris, which is good for the climate, good for the economy, and supported by citizens and voters. One country should not be allowed to spoil the party.
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ECO would like to alert you to the exceptionally exciting highlights of several statements made by the CVF leadership. Not only did they reaffirm their commitment to the Marrakech vision, they laid out concrete steps for implementation. ECO agrees that the Paris spirit is not only alive and kicking, but is also being implemented.

CVF supports the need to trigger, in 2018, the revision and enhancement of climate ambition by 2020 if the Paris Agreement’s goals are to remain achievable. It is also refreshing that several CVF members have already started revising their NDCs. They highlighted that increased climate action is not only necessary but also desirable for economic growth and job creation. As H.E. Emmanuel De Guzman, the Philippines’ Climate Change Commissioner said, “without increased climate action, no country can ever be great again”.

This statement comes at a crucial time as G7 and G20 countries prepare for two summits where climate change will be on the agenda, and the new American administration will be tested on the subject. As the CVF leads in climate action, and challenges others to do the same, it is up to the major economies in the G7 and G20 to prove that they stand with the most vulnerable countries and communities, not the interests of an elite few.

This latest round of talks has made it clear that after years in the trenches, many of our colleagues are suffering from a debilitating malady that we might call Equity Stress Disorder (ESD). The symptoms of ESD are many, but the most serious is the delusion that “equity” is the source of all our difficulties, and that, now, after the Paris breakthrough, we’ve put it behind us.

Alas, this is only denial. Equity remains fundamental to the Paris Agreement. The real question is what CBDRRC means — and how it can be operationalized in a post-binary world. Only by facing it head on can we hope to find the path to recovery and ambition.

None of us here at ECO have a psychotherapy degree, but we can perhaps help by calmly explaining the facts of the situation. Here goes:

• The world is a complicated place, thus, we need a new approach to differentiation; a dynamic approach that’s based upon the Convention’s core equity principles. To be blunt, we need a dynamic and non-reductionist approach to CBDRRC. Pretending otherwise is fine, but it’s not going to get us to a high-ambition world.
• There’s still some truth in the North/South “binary,” but it’s not a particularly helpful truth; not here inside the “UN bubble.”