French cuisine
6 June 2015
ECO is quite the food buff, and hence has been salivating in anticipation of the spectacular cuisine later this year in Paris.
Much like turning snails into escargot, thoughts of Paris should inspire negotiators to turn a slow start at the facilitated meetings here in Bonn on Workstream 2 into meaningful work on a COP decision text.
With all that Parisian inspiration, Parties can deliver a delicious WS2 recipe:
Start by pre-warming the Technical Examination Process (TEP) to lead to actionable political decisions, which enable the development, scale up and duplication of good initiatives, policies and measures.
In a large saucepan, add a generous portion of ramped up developed countries’ pre-2020 mitigation and support efforts.
Sprinkle a request to developing country parties to consider increasing their pre-2020 efforts, unilaterally and bilaterally, with financial, technological and capacity building support from developed countries.
Let this simmer with a technical examination process to continue beyond 2020, until we clearly see that the emissions gap is closing.
Season with a mandate to the Convention’s technology and finance bodies to prioritise mitigation actions with sustainable development co-benefits identified in the TEP, and address barriers to their implementation.
In the meantime, sift initiatives of all actors through a sieve of clear criteria to identify the ones that are truly meaningful and ambitious. Sprinkle these initiatives with recognition.
Prepare a clearly structured high-level event that will encourage additional climate action, enhance implementation and ensure follow up.
Plan to bake at an average temperature of 1.5 ̊C or (if at all possible) less.
Serve with real, additional and urgent emission reductions.
Julia Child would agree: this recipe will deliver a Paris decision on WS2 that contributes to effective additional actions to combat climate change as soon as possible. Bon appétit!