ECO Newsletter

The first Fossil of the Day award goes to…take a deep breath…Turkey, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, France, Japan and Indonesia for duplicity at the UN climate negotiations. While representatives from climate vulnerable countries, cities, businesses, and civil society organisations are fighting to keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground, as well as preventing the expansion of polluting airports (hat-tip to France), these countries still aim to increase their domestic fossil fuel extraction. By doing so, they are quite literally drilling under everyone’s efforts to keep global warming below the critical threshold of 1.5°C. These countries helped forge the Paris Agreement which is now in force, committing them to halt climate change, so they really need to get the left hand and the right hand talking to each other. Put your money where your mouth is, please!

The second Fossil of the Day award goes to Japan for its dodgy stance on coal. Japan has a crazy number (48!) of new coal power projects in the pipeline and is funding a massive 10 GW worth of new coal in Indonesia. On a near-daily basis Indonesian locals have been protesting against proposed coal operations in the Cirebon region, concerned about the impact on public health and water supplies.
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Parties came to Marrakech pledging to turn the Paris Agreement into action. But some countries don’t seem to see the need for a COP decision at all, let alone a decision that enables Parties to start discussing how to make the Facilitative Dialogue in 2018 a successful part of a momentous year to increase overall ambition.

ECO wants a clear decision from COP22 that recognises the importance of a robust, inclusive, and transparent Facilitative Dialogue that takes advantage of the benefits of ambitious climate action, and achieves the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

Parties should welcome the ability to design a Dialogue that represents an opportunity to take stock of progress already made, identify concrete steps to accelerate implementation, take account of the latest science (e.g. the IPCC report on 1.5°C), acknowledge front runners, and identify further opportunities for cooperation, in a facilitative manner. Waiting until 2023 for the Global Stocktake will be far too long to seize all of the opportunities already at hand.

Here are some lessons learned from past review exercises: agree a process for an effective and impactful Facilitative Dialogue, welcome Parties and non-Party stakeholders to share their views on what would lead to success and how to get there, start with an informal workshop in Bonn in May, and help Parties think through the options and opportunities for an effective process.
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The charming, narrow streets of Marrakech’s Medina teach you to share and co-exist. Perhaps the COP’s large open venue has had the opposite effect on Parties. Yesterday the High Level Ministerials twice passed over or delayed the opportunity to listen to civil society, doubling down the exclusion of civil society from most of this COP.

In the spirit of co-existence, multiple civil society constituencies—youth, women, farmers and environmental NGOs—brought together their diverse perspectives to convey their priorities on adaptation finance in just a few minutes, though to no avail. So ECO steps forward to provide space to voice their concerns.

Adaptation, a pillar of Paris Agreement, needs urgent, ambitious, and transformative public climate finance for vulnerable and impacted communities. The recently released US$100 billion roadmap shows that adaptation finance flows by 2020 will double the current levels. Yet that will still fall far short of the parity with mitigation finance that the Paris Agreement asks for. That gap cannot be filled by profit-seeking private finance, which favours mitigation activities. As well, that will favour richer developing countries, because they are more capable of absorbing private investment. That’s why developed countries should prioritise adaptation to help protect development gains in developing countries.
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It’s always nice to have money in your pocket, so the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) must be feeling cheerful. In a long anticipated announcement that was sprung as a surprise in Marrakech, the CTCN received the grand sum of… US$23 million!

While not as much money as expected, these voluntary contributions provide welcome assurance for the survival of the CTCN and its ability to deliver technical assistance to developing countries. Presented in an undramatic fashion, Canada, the EU, Korea, Switzerland, and the US hope to set an example for supporting ‘technology sharing’. These founding contributors hope to reemphasise the importance of the CTCN as a core mechanism for delivering technology for climate action.

To be clear, this is desperately needed. CTCN staff have spent an extraordinary amount of time securing funding. Of course, their time is better spent on delivering technology support—not having to carry a begging bowl to the capitals. A reliance on voluntary contributions impairs the sustainability and predictability of the CTCN budget and erodes its effectiveness and its mandate. Parties need to support a more regular process for replenishing CTCN funding, especially in the new Technology Framework.

ECO hopes the example set by these donor countries galvanises others to contribute and support developing countries in effectively developing and deploying technology to address mitigation and adaptation.

The Capacity-Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) is up and running. Eight donors — (Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the Wallon Region in Belgium) have joined the US, UK and Canada to pledge more than US$50 million to the CBIT.

The first set of projects have already been approved by the GEF for implementation in Costa Rica, Kenya, and South Africa. Finally, a global coordination platform is being put in place to share lessons learned and engage with partners to help deliver more country projects. This came less than a week after negotiators approved the terms of reference of the Paris Committee on Capacity Building (PCCB). The PCCB’s membership is almost complete with the first meeting set for May 2017.

ECO is happy that things are moving fast on the capacity building front, including beyond the UNFCCC arena. A number of initiatives, consortia and networks emerged during COP22: the NDC partnership, which brings already more than 40 countries and major institutions to accelerate the implementation of NDCs; a network of about 30 universities to support the dissemination of the work of PCCB; and the south-south consortium of 10 universities from LDCs focusing on adaptation.

This also echoes the importance of education, raising awareness and public participation, which were hailed as critical during the education day, to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement.
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ECO salutes a major step forward in the transition to a decarbonised and climate-resilient world. At 2.30pm in Room Atlantic, please come welcome the launch of the 2050 Pathway Platform, a new tool that allows state and non-state actors to share their plans and learn from one another’s strategies and approaches.

The launch of the Platform marks a high point in this COP. We have already seen the release of the first long-term strategies from several countries. Germany stole the show last week, followed by the US, Canada and Mexico yesterday, and the excitement is building to see which other countries will bring their plans forward with the Platform’s launch today. ECO has heard that 20 countries will be signing up alongside over 200 companies and numerous subnational actors.

Why are we so excited? It’s quite straightforward—the Platform is a concrete sign that countries and other actors are taking the PA seriously and mainstreaming climate planning into a long-term vision for national development – that’s what we need to limit global temperature rise to 1.5ºC.

While having a plan is no guarantee of success, without one, failure is certain. This is the first step towards developing a vision of how achieve our PA goals, and how quickly we need to accelerate action.
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On a more serious note: last Saturday afternoon, while countries gathered at COP22, human rights and environmental defender Jeremy Abraham Barrios Lima was assassinated in Guatemala City. He worked at Guatemala’s legal environmental defence organisation managing sensitive information related to high-profile litigation for the protection of the environment.

On Climate Justice day, Jeremy’s murder is a tragic reminder of the deadly price that individuals around the world are paying for speaking up to defend their right to a healthy environment. Last year was the worst ever for human rights defenders, with on average three individuals being killed every week. Many others were threatened, intimidated, and continue to face death threats on a daily basis.

ECO reminds negotiators that it is the people working on the front lines of their communities around the world who make Parties’ work at COP22 possible. In turn, as Parties negotiate how to increase ambition and scale-up financing for adaptation and mitigation projects, they must protect the people putting their lives on the line.

Supporting climate justice means ensuring that people are safe. Countries need to take steps to ensure that they are not complicit in these acts of violence against human rights defenders. For example: 22 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean will meet next week to work towards making access rights binding law for countries throughout the region, in order to address the root causes of attacks against environmental and human rights defenders.
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Yesterday’s first place Fossil of the Day award went to Australia for their complaints about dirty baggage. ECO doesn’t mean to gossip, but yesterday Australia was caught complaining to the US about American charities standing in solidarity with Australian communities who are fighting to prevent the construction of the largest ever coal mine down under—Adani’s Carmichael mine. Australia ratified the Paris Agreement last Friday, so lobbying for coal expansion here is an ugly thing to be doing.

Second place went to Austria for dodgy lobbying and dragging down ambition. Despite no progress on emissions for over 25 years, Austria has lobbied hard to get maximum flexibility for LULUCF credits as part of the Effort Sharing Decision for the EU’s 2030 climate targets. At the same time, the Austrian government has failed to make any kind of post-2020 financial commitment. Boo to you, Austria!

Last place went to New Zealand for supporting suspect carbon credits. Despite being involved in discussions to develop ‘high-integrity’ international carbon markets, NZ has been fronting up with ‘dodgy carbon credits’ to meet its obligations under the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. New Zealand: why are you trying to be Australia now?