ECO 8, COP29
| ECO wonders where have all the heroes gone? |
| As ministers arrive at COP29 today, ECO can’t help but ask: where have all the climate heroes gone? The NCQG is crying out for leadership and an injection of hope. Negotiators have not been given what they need by their finance ministries and leaders to build anything close to an ambitious NCQG that meets the scale or urgency. We are hurtling toward failure, and the stakes are stratospherically high. But we know ministers like headlines – so ECO is inviting all of the ministers to outdo each other in a competition to become ECO’s hero of the day! But let’s be clear, we’re setting the bar high for heroes. There is no more time to wait on positions; we have heard it all during the last 3 years. At this crucial moment, ECO only wants to hear bold ideas. Developing country heroes are those demanding the needs of their people are met. Developed country heroes are those getting serious about public finance provision at the scale of the mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage needs, and making the wealthiest and largest polluters in their societies pay. So who’s going to break away from the herd and rise to the top of the pile? Your move, ministers. Real heroes are desperately needed, but only the kind who make headlines when they take real action. |
| Quit playing games [with my heart and people’s livelihoods] |
| ECO has been watching the adaptation agenda drama unfold — from National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) to the Global Goal on adaptation (GGA) — and one thing is crystal clear: all roads lead to finance. Let’s rewind to last year’s GGA negotiations, where developed countries clung to their favorite excuse of “let’s not prejudge the New Collective Quantified Goal outcome” to dodge any real talk about finance. Fast forward to Baku, and where do we stand? Spoiler alert: not much further. Judging by the embarrassingly few and inadequate pledges to the Adaptation Fund so far, it appears that developed countries are not yet ready to put their money where their mouth is. They’re quicker to pledge than to deliver, offering little more than empty words on adaptation finance. From what is pledged, will the Critical Adaptation Fund see any of that? Don’t hold your breath. And what is this so-called “doubling of adaptation finance” report but a round of self-congratulatory applause for [mainly] loaning $40 billion to debt-stricken countries? With still no clarity on the post-2025 adaptation finance goal. Now as for the NCQG … here we are one whole week into the COP, and developed countries seem too shy to table an ambitious adaptation commitment under the new climate finance goal. As always ECO would like to extend a benevolent hand and suggest that developed countries take a look at the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report’s estimates of “$215-387 billion annually until 2030” — a figure echoed in the GST and many submissions. But alas, just in case it slipped your mind, let us remind you about the need to provide public finance for adaptation beyond the doubling goal which is based on need, and agree on the provision of finance for formulation and implementation of the NAPs. |
| How to make the NCQG on climate finance truly land where it is needed |
| Over the course of the past TEDs and during the current negotiations, the discussion on improving access to climate finance has gained some focus in the NCQG decision text, with several proposals being put forward. While we welcome this limited progress, we emphasise the importance of landing on concrete ways to move forward.The current climate finance architecture reinforces inequalities. It is not properly targeted and accessible for countries and communities who need it most. All of this despite many initiatives by local organisations, women-led organisations, youth groups, farmers’ organisations, conflict affected communities, and Indigenous Peoples, among others, showing clear pathways on how, with proper resourcing, they can fully lead on climate action. The access procedures for most finance mechanisms are not flexible enough to respond to the realities and needs of many of these actors. Barriers to participation across all levels of decision-making limit their opportunities to meaningfully influence climate policy and finance priorities. Climate finance flowing to areas most in need — including places experiencing conflict and multi-dimensional fragility, is still scarce due to the unbalanced priorities and risk aversion from climate finance providers. It is in the interest — and obligation! — of all parties to address these issues through concrete action proposals in the NCQG decision but also in the context of the operationalisation of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. That must include: (1) agreeing on specific ways to simplify access and approval procedures (especially for small-scale structures); (2) reducing co-financing and other highly demanding requirements acting as barriers; supporting capacity strengthening (including targeted “readiness” finance); (3) creating direct access windows targeting different groups and acknowledging their specificities (Indigenous Peoples, and organisations representing women, youth, children, farmers, local communities, conflict affected communities, and people with disabilities among others); and (4) ensuring that these groups are adequately represented in all spheres of decision making (local to national climate policy making, contributors strategic priorities — including climate funds — and in the implementation of climate projects/programmes); and (5) supporting equitable and efficient access to information (including in national and local languages). |
| Take advantage of the Third Periodic Review |
| ECO is sure that delegations remember the First and Second Periodical Reviews in 2013-2015, FPR and 2019-2022, FPR2 and the impressive Structured Expert Dialogues (SED), when the best scientists of the world presented their newest research on climate change. One of their most important messages was that there is no guardrail for a limit on global warming (e.g. the 2ºC limit) as there are major impacts for warming below any such limit. That message was heard: the FPR concluded and COP 21 in Paris decided to limit global warming well below 2ºC and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. Last Saturday the preparations for the Third Periodic Review (PR3) started. This is an excellent opportunity for delegates at UNFCCC negotiations to learn from the latest science. What do we know on specificities of the Paris goals? What about an overshoot of these goals and potential associated reversibility? Would Parties change their mind after an intense consideration of the tipping points that we are approaching? What does the emerging science on 1.5°C and overshoot say? This is not part of the Global Stocktake so there is no overlap between GST and PR3. ECO supports the GST being the main process to ensure implementation of the Paris Agreement and its 1.5°C target. That means that IPCC AR 7 results must be reflected both in GST2, and in PR3.PR3 also has an important task to examine the progress we see towards achieving the Paris goals. And the Joint Working Group of SBSTA and SBI on the PR3 should look at the role of the GST compared with the tasks of the PR3. The GST covers only member Parties of the Paris Agreement soPR3 should also have a look at the progress achieved so that we can have full coverage of global emissions. COP30 has to establish the scope and modalities of PR3 and install an SED. PR3 could be very helpful in better understanding the climate crisis and what we should do to keep its impacts as low as possible. |
| Rich countries: why are you playing cruel games? |
| Rich countries have a tried-and-true approach to loss and damage. Agree a step forward; then fail to honour it. When the WIM was established with a clear mandate to “enhance action and support,” rich countries spent 10 years walking that back and frustrating progress on support at every turn. Now that the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) has been established and operationalised rich countries are trying to ensure it withers and dies quietly. Rich countries want to exclude loss and damage from the NCQG in order to kill the FRLD. Their refusal to accept Loss and Damage under the NCQG negotiations risks the FRLD becoming a sideshow. A small inconsequential fund created to respond to a political problem with no commitment for a long term, adequately resourced fund, that is to be sustained for current and future generations. ECO wants to be clear, despite the disingenuous input from developed country negotiators, independent legal advice finds that there is no legal impediment to having Loss and Damage included within the NCQG. They are holding it out as a negotiating chip in the hope they can trade it for an expansion of the contributor base. Using impacted communities and countries on the frontline of climate impacts as a negotiating tactic says all you need to know about their motivations. Eco hopes that we are wrong and that developed countries have a change of heart and champion Loss and Damage as a subgoal in the NCQG. A clear signal to this effect by the global north might just be the signal needed to unlock these negotiations; the catalyst to ignite the momentum that these negotiations sadly need. |
| Fossil Fuel Reggaeton |
| Sing along to the tune of Yankee Daddy’s Gasolina A la COP le gusta la gasolina(¡Dale menos gasolina!) Como le encanta la gasolina(¡Dale menos gasolina!) Como le gusta la gasolina(¡Dale menos gasolina!) Como le encanta la gasolina(¡Dale menos gasolina!) El M.W.P. casi termina No discriminaSe perdió un party de marquesina El twenty-eigth quedó’n la esquina Luce tan mal que ni’ GST le combina Climate finance, lo domina Janguea en carro’, motoras y limusina’ Mientras el planeta se calcina Todo por culpa de la gasolina A la COP le gusta la gasolina(Dale menos gasolina!) Como le encanta la gasolina(Dale menos gasolina!) Como le gusta la gasolina(¡Dale menos gasolina!) Como le encanta la gasolina(¡Dale menos gasolina!) English COP29 likes gasoline(Give it less gasoline!) It really loves gasoline(Give it less gasoline!)x2 The Mitigation Work Program is almost over It does not discernIt missed the street party Paragraph twenty-eight was left in the corner It looks so bad that not even GST fits in it Climate Finance dominates it It hangs out in cars, motorcycles and limousines While the planet is burning All because of the gasoline COP29 likes gasoline(Give it less gasoline!) It really loves gasoline(Give it less gasoline!)x2 |
| ECO loves Frankenstein Let ECO tell you a story. Once upon a time, a poor UAE dialogue was alone, in a text, inanimate. It was lifeless, confused about what it could become. A dialogue on finance? A dialogue with a smattering of finance? Only on finance? Would it cover Mitigation a little? A lot? Not at all? Parties were not ready to decide, so the dialogue remained lost and trapped in a 2-D world of brackets and redlines. Even the best available science was not able to help. But yesterday, the UAE dialogue could find a bit of hope. It seems that Parties would be ready to compromise and discuss. Parties are proposing to merge the several options that we now have on the table. A dialogue that is talking about implementing the GST outcome, but with an attention on equity and considering finance as the core angle. A dialogue that can help people, that is talking about saving 1.5°C. How nice was that? Now, perhaps, the little UAE dialogue is ready to come to life–not as a single idea, nor with a homogenous focus, but instead as many things combined. With so much to cover, the dialogue can be constructed from several ideas, expectations, angles… So which is why it could be a Frankenstein dialogue. Why not? ECO loves Frankenstein. If that can help us to solve the climate crisis, let’s go forward with that. Ministers, you have all the elements in your hands, now it is time to bring the UAE dialogue to life! |
| Missing: Guidance for 6.4 ECO kept rubbing its eyes yesterday morning looking at the new 6.4 text for the CMA. No matter how hard ECO looked for the promised guidance to the Supervisory Body of the Article 6.4 mechanism (SBM), especially on removals… It just wasn’t there. Only last week when concerns were raised about the unprecedented gaveling of the SBM report, including their controversial decision to adopt standards before receiving the ok from CMA, ECO heard reassurances that this was not the end. Guidance can still be given, they said. It was particularly mentioned that the CMA would provide additional guidance for the standards for methodologies and removals, which among other things could open the door to some risky Carbon Capture and Storage abatement and dangerous geoengineering technologies to qualify as removals. And yet, yesterday there was not only no meaningful guidance to be found, but ECO could not believe its eyes when it saw a paragraph discouraging revision of standards and tools in the future “to ensure regulatory stability”. The SBM already agreed to review and update some standards in the future, including its insufficient grievance mechanism and safeguards tool, which this paragraph could endanger. It puts regulatory stability over science and human rights. ECO can’t believe that the CMA’s would give up its authority to the small body of individuals that make up the SBM. After all, it is governments that are responsible for protecting biodiversity, communities and their rights. ECO knows negotiators are under pressure to finish, but better to be the smart tortoise than the hare. New research is coming out all the time to propose ways of plugging some of the numerous holes of carbon credit rules. Adopting a decision that restricts the ability to take such new scientific findings into account is counter to the logic of progressive improvements over time. The CMA has proven it needs more direction. Don’t just take note of what the SBM says it will do: mandate that the post-credit monitoring period has to be a minimum amount of time, based on science. ECO would also like to see guidance for a science-based risk reversal tool. It’s critically important to periodically review and ensure that markets are following the science consistent with the protection of ecological integrity and community wellbeing. The Supervisory Body must do these things before any activities and the CMA should also require them to do so in consultation with rights-holders. And when it comes to transitioning projects from the CDM to Article 6.4, they must all be additional and accordingly assessed by the SBM. ECO hopes that when it searches for guidance later today, it’s able to find it! Don’t let Big Ag have a field day at COP As Parties managed to open the portal for joint work on agriculture and food security (when ECO thought the lock may have been a little tricky), let’s hope Big Ag does not bulldoze through the gate and destroy the land carefully stewarded by small-scale food producers and Indigenous Peoples. On “Food, Agriculture and Water Day”, this might sound all too familiar. The significant presence of fossil fuel and agribusiness lobbyists impedes the prospect of meaningful transformations in our food and agricultural systems. ECO knows this presence could lead to more land grabs in the name of mitigation, human rights abuses, animal suffering and irreversible environmental damage. Land that could be used to scale up agroecology, a system that actually works, for adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity, and equity, is instead being put aside to continue business as usual. Billions of people depend on the agrifood sector for their livelihoods. It is the 2nd largest emitting sector after energy, and accounts for at least 15% of annual fossil fuel consumption. The industrial agriculture model is reliant on petrochemicals to make pesticides and fertilisers, ensuring the increasing dependance of agriculture on high carbon energy in the future. If we want to meet the climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals, we need to urgently transform both the agriculture and energy sectors. One transformation cannot be tackled without the other. These transformations cannot happen with deep-pocketed lobbyists in the venue. They are merrily pushing for false solutions and private finance that moves us further away from the just, resilient, and equitable transformation of food systems we need. And this push for private finance and carbon markets is incompatible with what we need: an ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) that is public, grant-based, and allows finance to flow to the communities delivering equitable, humane, agroecological systems that prioritise the environment, animals, and people, and have proved to deliver from a mitigation and adaptation perspectives. A transition will only be just if smallholder farmers and fishers, pastoralists, Indigenous Peoples, women and other frontline and marginalised groups impacted by climate change are in a position of leadership to craft policies and solutions that they have created and successfully tested. Let’s keep Big Ag out, don’t let lobbyists have a field day in the UNFCCC. |
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