Agreements and Disagreements
2 December 2015
A permanent Action Agenda building on the lessons of the Lima Paris Action Agenda could narrow the gap between current emissions trajectories and those required to limit global temperature rise to below 1.5°C.
Some of the elements of such a permanent Action Agenda seem to be falling into place. Nobody disagrees about the importance of closing the gap or of identifying menus of good policy options that could be scaled up or replicated. Nobody disagrees about the benefits of involving non-state actors. There is a growing consensus that we need to appoint two high-level champions to facilitate the development of initiatives that help to close the gap.
However, it gets murkier from there. Though developed countries can and should launch unilateral and cooperative actions with their own resources, developing countries will require additional finance and technological support to take extra action. Yet some parties seem to think that this should not be discussed.
Similarly, it is clear that climate change impacts are increasing and that we need to develop additional initiatives to scale up adaptation actions. Yet, the fate of a Technical Examination Process for adaptation is still hotly debated, and here too some Parties do not want to discuss ways to increase support for adaptation.
ECO would like to remind Parties that the real measure of success for Workstream 2 will be whether it helps us to address climate change in the short term. This can only be done if developed countries increase their targets and if enough financial and technological resources are made available for mitigation and adaptation action on the ground.