ECO 10, COP25, English

Our voices are being silenced and it´s not funny. 

Despite emptier hallways this evening, we continue to hold space even as our colleagues are shut outside in the cold simply for raising their voices for a better future and climate justice.

After a frustrating series of negotiations leading to bland compromises on unblocking funds for poor countries to make plans, a toothless criticism of the committee charged with ambition, and an unseemly struggle for control over the accounts, adaptation has been stranded at this COP.

Have you ever thought about what you would do if the climate changed the place where you live? When climate impacts hit, impacting your life and livelihood, you have to decide: stay or go. In the driest corridor of Central America, it has been years since rainfall catastrophically decreased.

Yesterday, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi state-owned oil company, floated 1.5% of its shares on the country's stock exchange in the world's largest Initial Public Offering. The IPO is expected to raise at least US$26 billion for the company, and potentially up to $29b - which is the largest influx of financing for fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement was signed.

ECO [welcomes] [recognizes] [notes] the publication of the triad of chapeau decisions, known to all you negotiating lovelies by the melodic monikers 1/CP.25, 1/CMP.15 and 1/CMA.2.

There are good elements in the current drafts, but there is still room for improvement in the remaining [2][3][4] days of COP.

ECO would like to remind developed countries of the US$100 billion climate finance commitment they promised to deliver annually by 2020. We are not sure whether you have noticed that there is actually not much time left to hit the target, as 2020 is getting closer.

Well, after already delaying a year, it looks likely that the 6-year work-plan for the Forum on the Implementation Response Measures has stalled, though discussion continues, facilitated by a pair of Ministers. 

Right now, the youth of Australia are not being listened to by our government, even though the impacts of the climate crisis are here now. Sydney and regional NSW are blanketed with smoke from catastrophic bushfires, with fires all across the country, and air quality 11 times what are hazardous levels.