ECO 5, SB64
12 June 2026
COP30 President – Here is your TAFF to-do list
ECO looks forward to the COP30 Presidency’s Roadmap discussion on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels today. This critical discussion takes place at a time of great turmoil in the world, especially in the Global South. The convergence of many crises: wars, genocides, and climate disasters are destroying lives, livelihoods and existence itself. There are also energy shocks, broken food systems, extremely high food prices, and a super El Niño on the way.
The promise this discussion holds, lies in its potential to inform the ‘how’ in the task of transitioning away from the primary cause of the global climate crisis, in a just and equitable manner. What we do not want is another rhetorical exercise on its need.
ECO must admit that the scant information provided on the proposed roadmap leaves a lot of open questions. However, we have never shied away from offering solutions, so here is a to-do list for the COP30 Presidency to consider in order to achieve a people-centered, just and equitable Global Framework to support the development of National Roadmaps to Transition Away from Fossil Fuels:
- Differentiated timelines for countries to undertake domestic phase-out of fossil fuels – rooted in CBDR-RC, equity, historical responsibilities and science, centering right-holders and respecting sovereignty. Obviously, this would require wealthy Developed Countries to stop all expansion of fossil fuels, both for domestic use or exports, and lead the way by undertaking the transition first and fast.
- Principles of Just Transition must be the foundational pillar of the global transition, with the Belém-Antalya Mechanism (BAM) playing a facilitative role. Including eradicating energy poverty by guaranteeing universal access to affordable, reliable, safe and sustainable renewable energy
- The global framework should guide the integration of national roadmaps into NDCs
- To make all these transitions possible, we need developed countries to provide predictable and accessible finance to developing countries before we count the transition milestones. It must account for the full costs of a Just Transition, and be delivered in the form of grants and concessional public finance, not loans. ECO suggests they simply stop funding wars and other forms of mass destruction and redirect that money to this just cause for humanity instead. In fact, the world’s financial architecture itself needs an urgent overhaul, to address debt and tax injustice and finally free developing countries from colonial traps.
- You are correct in thinking that a lot of international cooperation, technology transfer and capacity building would be needed to do all this, ECO concurs!
- We must add this final one as well, because ECO is well acquainted with the bouts of selective amnesia in these corridors – The energy transition must be towards a Just and Equitable 100% Renewable-based energy systems and in no way rely on dangerous, unproven techno-fixes with which so many of the billionaire class seem to be obsessed. This extends to the Electrification targets that delegates have been abuzz with all week
Once the COP30 Presidency guarantees ECO’s TAFF to-do list, we will revert with a long list of solutions for countries to include in their National Roadmaps, including, but not limited to: time-bound, science and equity-based targets and pathways grounded in the realities of the peoples’ lives.
***
♫♪♪ Ain’t no BAR high enough ♫♪♪
‘At the tune of ain’t no mountain high enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, here is some inspiration for adaptation negotiators to sing from the same sheet’
Verse
Listen Parties, hear us now,
When the floods come rushing in.
When the heatwaves scorch the land,
Communities can’t just “adapt” on a whim.
They’ve got the knowledge, they’ve got the plans,
They know what’s needed on the ground.
But without support to make it real,
Resilience just can’t be found.
Chorus
Ain’t no BAR high enough,
Ain’t no vision bold enough,
Ain’t no goal strong enough, baby,
Without finance coming through.
Match ambition with the means,
That’s what Parties need to do.
Raise the BAR, fund adaptation,
And let communities lead it through.
Verse
We’ve spent hours drafting text,
Roadmaps, frameworks, plans galore.
But another paper on a shelf
Won’t protect the ones we’re fighting for.
If BAVA’s going to show the way,
It must help turn words into deeds.
A vision backed by public support,
And finance that reaches where it’s needed.
Chorus
Ain’t no BAR high enough,
Ain’t no vision bold enough,
Ain’t no goal strong enough, baby,
Without finance coming through.
Match ambition with the means,
That’s what Parties need to do.
Raise the BAR, fund adaptation,
And let communities lead it through.
***
The Return of the BAMbassadors
When Parties agreed at COP30 to develop a Just Transition Mechanism, it was in response to a need to move beyond dialogues and towards real implementation. This year, parties have the mandate and the responsibility to deliver on its operationalisation and make the Belem Antalya Mechanism for a Global Just Transition a reality.
Feeling this urgency, ECO walked into the first discussions about the Mechanism with high expectations about what Parties would put on the table. And honestly? ECO felt extremely energised! Speech after speech, developing countries started filling the room with a lot of energy and ideas, painting a vivid picture of how the Mechanism could really support the countries, workers and communities that are trying to implement just transition plans – from support structures for national and local just transition strategies to producing guidance to better incorporate just transition in national planning, to influencing how climate funds can support social and economic justice needs associated with the transition, and on the need to include rights holders in the Mechanism, and so many more. You know who you are, BAMbassadors!
Unfortunately, a few seem to be living in a pre-COP30 world, where the development of the Mechanism had not been agreed… a couple seem to believe financing just transitions is out of the scope – read the decision please, and some are playing the chicken and the egg game claiming a 90 page list -and growing- of events on just transition has to be finalised before we can decide what the BAM should do.
and the EU… well, ECO thought it important to acknowledge its progress, putting forward concrete proposals of activities the Mechanism should undertake, recognising the enabling nature of Just transition and the importance of enhancing technical capacities for those designing Just Transition strategies. That said, its seems that a bit more work is needed for them to carry the full title of BAMbassador. A sure way to do this is for the EU to recognise that other organisations will not be able to fulfill all these activities, and if these organisations were doing it, maybe we would have seen JT happen in many places…
Let’s stick to the good vibes of our BAMbassadors… Momentum is clearly building up!
***
Still waiting for the river to flow? What the Veredas Dialogue missed about climate finance
After nine hours of sessions early this week, the first meeting of the Veredas Dialogue has now concluded. Feels like Groundhog Day.
ECO had high hopes: would we finally get a structured process for coherency, and a framework to see if financial flows are enough for a 1.5°C world?
Instead, Veredas felt like a deja vu with guiding questions focused on private finance and ‘enabling environments’ for countries to “attract” finance instead of systemic reforms. Evidence clearly shows private finance barely trickles into development and climate action; while more money flows out of the Global South as debt payments to the Global North.
Barriers outlined in the session included limited access, high debt, costly capital, and punitive credit ratings downgrades for climate-vulnerable countries. What’s needed to overcome these is stable, predictable grant-based public finance with equity in global economic governance – not another private finance instrument or more debt. For many countries, this is a precondition for implementing Art. 2.1c.
But ECO believes there may still be some hope. Towards the end of this week’s sessions, a handful of delegates dared to mention the need to tax fossil fuel profits, redirect subsidies from polluting industries towards cleaner investments, cancel debt in the Global South, and even the potential of taxing extreme wealth, as ways to help boost public finance. ECO thinks these points deserve much more airtime in future sessions.
.Taxing the extraordinary wealth amassed in private investment portfolios, company ownership structures and spread out capital assets, often linked to emissions-intensive activities more effectively could raise hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds per year for climate investments and disincentivise private investments in polluting sectors.
Article 2.1(c) is, after all, about making financial flows consistent with low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways. That also means reducing the flows that continue to lock economies into fossil fuel dependence.
The real test is whether future discussions focus on fiscal and policy space for developing countries, public finance under Article 9.1, and innovative sources like progressive environmental taxation and polluter-pays measures under CBDR-RC.
After all, if the river is drying up, it helps to look upstream before concluding that there’s no more water.
***
Article 6: truth or dare?
ECO wants to take a trip down memory lane and invite countries to humour us in a game of truth or dare? Not the kind that involves innocuous secrets or fun little stunts. This one is all about Article 6.
So Parties,
Will you dare to engage in Article 6?
Buyers, will you dare to replace investments in domestic decarbonization efforts with payments for flimsy certificates that effectively lock in fossil pathways? Are you ready to fund projects that risk displacing or harming communities and destroying ecosystems in the name of ‘cost-efficiency’?
Sellers, will you accept the risk of issuing letters of authorization, potentially depleting your country of the mitigation activities needed to meet your own climate targets? Are you ready to then have to take even more ambitious mitigation actions to comply with your own responsibilities? Are you ready to accept that this exchange is sold as a ‘collaboration’ but mainly benefits the buyer, who gets to walk away from their climate guilt and historical responsibility while continuing polluting activities?
Or will you accept the truth?
Article 6 was never intended as cheap flexibility; it was meant as a tool that enables countries to go above and beyond their national commitments by increasing ambition and hastening implementation of the Paris Agreement (misguided as that is). The truth that we see is that the first cooperative approaches under Article 6.2 and activities under 6.4 prove that Article 6 is not fit for purpose. ALL Article 6.2 cooperative approaches reviewed so far appear to have ‘inconsistencies’. ECO reads this as a euphemism for something being really wrong with them. Analyses show that the first two 6.4 projects are about to issue hundreds of thousands of credits that are not backed up by science.
To see the truth, the first step would be to allow civil society to actively and meaningfully participate in this discussion. During the full Article 6 Day on Monday, you somehow managed to have zero people from civil society speak, despite having other speakers on panels not once, but twice. During the Article 6.2 Ambition Dialogues, we conveniently didn’t get to hear from observers during the first session.
What are you so afraid of? ECO can only assume it is the inconvenient truth about Article 6.