ECO 9, SB62
A paper plane called JTWP
Delegates have been trying to fold the Just Transition Work Programme paper plane for more than a year. In Baku they ran out of time, and made one without balanced wings, while facing destabilising crosswinds. To everyone’s disappointment, the artifact did not fly long.
ECO is now reassured by seeing that in Bonn the paper plane is being folded more symmetrically. It might even fly from Bonn to Belém. ECO was indeed happy to see a text that reflected a lot of what civil society has been asking for, from principles to an option for institutional arrangements. A list of principles to secure key human, labour and Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the participation of workers, women, youth, people of African descent, and also of civil society in Just Transition initiatives at all levels. There is also the need for support and international cooperation for just transition pathways that must be recognised. Finally, the establishment of the Belém Action Mechanism for Just Transition would allow for holistic Just Transition pathways across the whole economy, covering contexts both within and between countries. This must be done through coordination, knowledge sharing, participation of all stakeholders and technical, financial and knowledge-based assistance.
ECO invites delegates to get it off the ground directly towards Belém. In the next months we will work on transforming the paper plane into something robust that can truly deliver and reflect justice for people and workers on the ground. Friends from civil society are ready to support and ensure that there is enough wind and momentum to transform what is in the draft into reality. The transition is already happening, and the JTWP needs to provide a robust response to the needs of workers, affected communities, and all rightsholders on the ground.
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Clean Energy’s Dirty Secret—And How COP30 Can Help Fix It
The fossil fuel era’s days are numbered – good riddance. But ECO worries: replacing oil barons with mining magnates who repeat the same old extractivist exploitation? That’s not a transition. That’s a trap.
The Paris Agreement triggered a gold rush for renewables – and the minerals they require. But here’s the ugly truth: while the Global North pats itself on the back for going green and races to secure transition minerals around the world, resource-rich nations watch their resources vanish overseas while their own energy poverty persists and their industries get locked out of value chains. Adding insult to injury, mining not only too often leads to human rights violations, it also degrades or destroys ecosystems, releasing natural stores of CO₂ and undermining climate goals in the process. Where’s the justice in that?
The UN Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals has drawn it for us: Human rights, labour rights, Free Prior Informed Consent for Indigenous Peoples, and consultation with communities aren’t optional; no-go zones aren’t negotiable, and circular economies can’t just be corporate buzzwords.
Parties to the UNFCCC need to stop pretending mining is the climate’s innocent BFF—or that clean tech will magically bloom in the Global South without fair trade, sustainable investments, and market rules that don’t follow the colonial playbook.
So here’s the tea: COP30 and the JTWP decision gives the climate community an opportunity to take a long overdue stand:
✅ Endorse the UN SG Panel on transition minerals’ roadmap and call on Parties to support its next steps;
✅ Embed key principles agreed in the UN SG Panel in the Belém Action Mechanism for Global Just Transition;
✅ Incorporate a focus on climate actions that advance just transitions in the context of explosive demand for transition minerals, in the agenda for future JTWP work, starting with the next dialogue.
The test of COP30’s success won’t be the promises made—but the irreversible processes it sets in motion (or helps avoid). A true Just Transition begins when we stop debating and start delivering.
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No More Smoke Screens: Cut Polluting Interests Out of Climate Talks
It took three decades for COP to finally name the root cause of the climate crisis, fossil fuels, in a decision text. Have you ever wondered why? For ECO and anyone with critical insight into this space, the answer is clear: it’s because the very industries driving the crisis continue to not only roam these halls with impunity, but to actively shape the agenda. This is textbook conflict of interest. Polluting industries escape mention from negotiating texts, but leave a heavy footprint on delegate lists – at COP29, there were more fossil fuel lobbyists than delegates from the ten most climate-vulnerable countries combined.
Fossil fuel companies and other polluters aren’t serious about solutions – their motivations dictate the exact opposite. They are determined to delay, detract and derail the fight against climate change to maximise their profits, at the expense of humanity and the planet. Wrapped in buzzwords like “net zero,” “clean gas,” “nature-based,” “climate-smart” and “sustainable intensification,” their agenda is distraction, not decarbonization.
ECO wonders why some here in Bonn are still acting as if we can strike a “balance” with fossil fuel and factory farming interests. That’s not balance, it’s capture. And it’s costing us time we don’t have. You can’t trust a dealer to end a drug crisis they profit from. And we won’t solve the climate crisis while letting polluters write the rules. The WHO treaty on tobacco works because it locked the industry out. The UNFCCC must do the same. We need fresh air in these negotiations, literally and politically. That means an Accountability Framework that includes robust conflict-of-interest rules and shutting the door on industry and corporate capture. The call for a conflict-of-interest policy within the UNFCCC, like the one applied on Big Tobacco, has become impossible to ignore. Meanwhile, COP host countries like Brazil must confront the contradiction of calling for climate leadership while seeking to expand oil.
We’ve seen public health wins when harmful industries are kept out of policy-making. Climate should be no different. We must act like our health and lives depend on it – because they do. It’s time to kick big polluters out!
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The People Say: Make the Fossil Fuel Industry Pay!
Eighty-one percent of people support taxes on oil, gas, and coal industries to pay for climate damages. And 86% of people support channeling taxes on revenues of oil and gas companies towards the communities who are most impacted by the climate crisis. You don’t have to take ECO’s word for it, these are the key findings of a new global survey across 13 countries, representing close to half of the world’s population, released by Greenpeace International and Oxfam International.
The survey was conducted across Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Kenya, Italy, India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the US. And people across political affiliations, income levels and age groups agreed.
ECO wonders, when will policy makers finally listen to this overwhelming majority?
Just five oil and gas corporations made over US$ 100 billion in profit in 2024. New research by Oxfam International shows how a polluter profit tax on 590 oil, gas and coal companies could raise up to US$ 400 billion in just its first year.
The Roadmap can follow the path of New York state in the US, which will raise US$ 3 billion a year from fossil fuel companies to support communities adapt to the climate crisis. Think of the untapped potential described here, which Global North governments could use to help unlock huge amounts of public finance to deliver on their international climate finance obligations toward Global South countries and for a Just Transition.
ECO fully agrees with this overwhelming majority, who think that the companies profiting from driving climate devastation need to pay for the damages, while ensuring that costs are not passed onto consumers or workers.
ECO calls on rich countries with a large historic responsibility for causing the climate crisis to start by introducing national taxes that make big polluting companies pay for climate damages, and protect consumers and workers. This can raise grant-based public finance for developing nations, alongside supporting climate-impacted communities at home. ECO hopes for this call to reverberate not only in the Baku to Belém Roadmap to USD$1.3 Trillion, but also in discussions on the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force and the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
The verdict in the court of public opinion could not be clearer – make those profiting at the expense of the world pay.
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Belém prices and the law of the jungle
ECO simply cannot wait to travel to Brazil in November for the most anticipated climate conference in recent years. The mighty Amazon rainforest, the hospitality of the host city Belém, and an endless flow of açaí and tapioca ice cream will be the perfect complement to the just transition COP..
The good idea of hosting COP30 on the frontlines of the climate crisis was soon met with an ugly reality: not only is the Brazilian government confronted with internal incoherence, but it also didn’t do nearly enough to prepare Belém for the summit. Now delegates and civil society alike are scrambling for fishy accommodations that have been advertised for as much as USD 400,000 for eleven nights. So much for inclusivity, dear host country!
Brazil has so far displayed a dangerous “we’ve got this” attitude, but last week’s logistics briefing was anything but reassuring. With only five months to go, the accommodation booking platform that the hosts have been promising to have online since February will be opened “in a few weeks”.
If this particularly wild interpretation of the laws of economics prevails, COP30 will fail. The fossil fuel lobbyists who will show up because they are able to afford a bedroom. And they wouldn’t even be crowding the space, because there will be hardly anyone else. In its glitzy promo video, the Brazilian government insists “Belém is ready”. Is it ready for empty negotiation rooms? Delegates from countries as diverse as SIDS and the EU have duly chastised the COP30 presidency over prices and the risk they bring to participation. To say nothing about civil society and Indigenous Peoples, usually the first to have their numbers cut due to scant funding.
ECO is worried, Brazil. We know about the legendary improvisation capacity of your musicians, but this is no bossa nova.There are a lot of wild animals in the COP30 jungle – we can’t let crazy economics be one of them.
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