With one week to go in the June 2014 session, it’s time to see where we stand on some of the key issues. Here is ECO’s take.
Adaptation
There was rich discussion on how adaptation should be addressed in the Paris agreement, but no sense on what that a goal would look like or how it would actually fit into the 2015 agreement. There was no clarity on whether adaptation actions should feature in the INDCs for example. Developed countries need to ramp up financial support substantially for adaptation activities, but there is no agreement, yet, on exactly how to do that.
ECO reminds Parties that COP20 must also take decisions on the governance structure and two-year work plan for the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage, as well as the Nairobi Work Program’s activities in the areas of health, ecosystems, human settlements and water.
Equity
Equity is central to these negotiations. Without equity, there is no ambition, and without ambition, there is no equity. The good news is that there’s a placeholder for equity indicators in the co-chairs’ draft decision text which must be addressed by countries when they put forward their INDCs.
ECO calls for an agreed list of equity indicators to be included in the final information requirements decision, both to inform the preparation of countries’ INDCs and to be used in assessment of them next year.
There was robust discussion in the Structured Expert Dialogue of the 2013-2015 review process. This analysis and other expert input needs to directly inform the ADP’s negotiations going forward.
When discussion on the INDC information requirements draft decision begins, ECO will call for a formal in-session space that allows experts from civil society, think tanks and Parties to share the results of their equity reviews of countries’ INDCs. This should help inform the assessment of both their collective adequacy and their individual fairness. ECO has not given up on its request for a formal equity review (ERF) as an essential part of the 2015 deal.
Finance
Finance in the 2015 agreement was the elephant in the room throughout all the other ADP discussions. This week, delegates will discuss how to include finance in the scope of the INDCs. For developing countries to go the “extra mitigation mile” in their INDCs, they need greater clarity and commitment on what developed countries will be providing in terms of public finance after 2020. We saw developed countries push back on the whole concept of providing any quantified commitments, contributions or targets for post-2020 finance as part of their fair share in the 2015 agreement.
It was good to hear that the question of capitalising the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has now shifted from if to when and how much.
ECO calls on developed countries to put forward their commitments to capitalise the GCF at the Climate Summit in September, and for those commitments to add up to at least US$15 billion. ECO reminds delegates that pre-2020 finance is a key enabler, both to greater pre-2020 ambition and to building confidence towards the 2015 agreement.
By Lima, developed countries must be able to demonstrate that finance is increasing in real terms. A global roadmap for scaling-up global public climate finance needs to be developed.
Mitigation
There has been been a groundswell of support for the phase out of fossil fuel emissions by mid-century through dramatically increasing energy efficiency (EE) and by ramping up the deployment of clean renewable energy (RE) technologies. There was great discussion on the need to have ambitious mitigation commitments in the 2015 agreement, what form those commitments might take and over what time period. There was support for developed countries to take on quantified economy-wide budget reduction targets. A number of countries also called for developing countries, that have the capacity, to take on such targets. Other developing countries firmly objected to this, saying that this kind of target should only be expected to be taken on by current Annex 1 countries.
The ADP will now turn its attention to pre-2020 mitigation, assessing the results of the Technical Expert Meetings on RE and EE, as well as on cities and land use issues.
ECO calls on Parties to mandate the Secretariat to prepare a technical report by the October ADP session on the gaps and impediments to RE and EE deployment and ways to overcome them, given the roles of existing multilateral and bilateral programs.
Based on this analysis, Parties could discuss the decisions that should be taken at COP20. This could include guidance to the GCF that priority mitigation funding should go to RE and EE actions, and to the Climate Technology Centre and Network on how it can assist developing countries in these sectors. Lima also needs to set up an institutional structure for capacity building, otherwise many developing countries will not be able to fully access new technology and funding.Parties could also agree in Lima to make Workstream 2 into an ongoing platform that helps close the mitigation gap.