ECO 6, COP25, English

Welcome back! ECO’s conversation with an OMGE automatic cancellation skeptic was just too [lengthy][complex][exciting] for one day.

On 2 December, category 4 typhoon Kammuri made landfall in the Bicol region of the Philippines. Several hours prior, Paula Guevara, a resident in the region, recalls a literal calm before the storm. Then she heard a whistling sound she had only previously heard during typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Her household then lost power.

Yesterday ECO answered some developed countries’ questions on why a new finance facility on loss & damage (L&D) was needed, how L&D should be defined, and why new and additional finance is needed to address L&D. Countries loved it so much that they asked ECO a few more questions.

With fists up, banners high, and hearts ablaze with conviction, over 500,000 people took to the streets of Madrid last night to strike for climate action. ECO was on the Paseo del Prado to join the marchers — led by the Fridays For Future youth movement — and judging by the emptiness of IFEMA yesterday afternoon, so was most of the COP. 

ECO has a difficult life making choices sometimes. We grapple with choosing which sandwich to eat for lunch or which pavilion has the best coffee. So we sympathise with Parties who have spent a lot of time struggling to decide on their preference for common NDC time frames, debating between 5 years, 10 years, or a 5+5 option.

We’re almost halfway through COP25 and carbon markets remain the talk of the day. The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which was co-founded by Shell, is going full speed ahead to keep markets high on the agenda. Yesterday, the IETA pavilion hosted six side events on the topic. This is no coincidence. 

We all know the reason for our annual COP convergence: avoiding catastrophic climate change. The IPCC told the world that we have the next 10 years to close the emissions gap, but the message from National Inuit Youth Council President, Crystal Martin-Lapenskie, is “Inuit living in the Arctic don’t have 10 years.

Imagine if in the Olympics you could get away with starting the race half way down the track. That is what Australia plans to do with its NDC — to carryover a controversial “overachievement” from its modest Kyoto Protocol commitments to extinguish half the effort required to meet its very deficient 2030 target. Australia has admitted it has 367 million tonnes of units.

ECO is excited to see so many Annex I Parties participating in the multilateral assessment of their biennial reports. ECO congratulates Parties for participating and thinks the multilateral assessment can be a great place to share experiences and lessons learned with other Parties in a constructive environment.