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Capacity Building is the New Black
22 Oct 2015
Capacity building is generally perceived as a low priority. It’s an old-school component that all Parties want (including Annex 1 Parties) and is critical to other issues such as mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and finance. Accordingly, it suffers from being everybody’s darling—and thereby ultimately no one’s. For this reason, ECO was surprised to learn that […]
When the Fox Guards the Hen House
22 Oct 2015
There is incredible global momentum on climate change. People, everywhere, are standing up and demanding that their governments take action and are having an impact. Such an impact that many of the biggest polluters have also taken notice and are scrambling to get on the right side of history—but only at first blush; let’s not […]
Adaptation Fund: Do Not Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
22 Oct 2015
In recent years, ECO has observed, with concern, the negotiations on the future of the Adaptation Fund (AF) in the post-2020 agreement. Among all of the financial mechanisms under the Convention, the AF has made unique progress. The AF plays an important role in the climate finance landscape by providing funding for small-scale adaptation projects. […]
Spirit of the $100 Billion Haunts Donors
21 Oct 2015
Earlier this month contributors showed us what a US$100 billion commitment looks like. The OECD/CPI report revealed that the commitment consists mostly of loans and private finance. In 2013, the contributions consisted of more than $20b in loans, almost $20b in private finance, equity and guarantees, and a mere $13b in grants. These numbers don’t […]
Article 6 (Finance): Surgical Insertions Bring Back Commitment, Adequacy, Predictability
21 Oct 2015
ECO believes it is high time to deal with the problem that, when it comes to finance, Parties speak about two separate issues: one is the shifting, attracting and mobilising of financial flows, public or private; the other is the provision of financial support by rich countries to poor countries. They are lumped together in […]
Bring Back Full Decarbonisation by 2050
21 Oct 2015
There’s one particularly valuable piece of mitigation text that got lost in the co-chairs’ pressure cleaning of the text. Namely, the text that called for full decarbonisation by 2050. ECO urges Parties to bring it back into the first paragraph of Article 3. Why? Because the Paris agreement needs to be a phase-out agreement, rather […]
Canada: the End of a Fossil-Filled Era?
21 Oct 2015
Seasoned negotiators among you will recall that there was a time when Canada was not a shoe-in for the Fossil of the Year awards. While never perfect, Canada once had a reputation for punching above its weight when it came to the climate talks—a reputation that began to fracture in Nairobi, was crumbling by Bali, […]
Consensus Reached On Scaling Up Financing Through Increased Cafeteria Sales
21 Oct 2015
Everyone knows that real climate negotiations cannot take place in public. ECO is therefore pleased to have spent Tuesday occupying the cafeteria seats instead of delaying the rapid progress being made in the spinoff groups. At last check, we were on track to warm the seats by 3°C, enough to ensure negotiators could later sit […]
The Cure
20 Oct 2015
ECO is eager for the discussions on Workstream 2 to start. Without a strong outcome on pre-2020 ambition, we are likely to lose any chance of keeping global warming to below 2°C, let alone 1.5°C. ECO would like to suggest a few surgical insertions for our patient to grow into a strong and healthy workstream: […]
Vital Surgery Revives Loss and Damage Solidarity
20 Oct 2015
ECO joins you in being glad that Monday is behind us, dear Delegates. And that the text ended up slightly less (or should that be more?) lost and damaged than it started. The reinsertion of institutional arrangements for loss and damage can be the basis for making the mechanism fit for purpose. In addition, […]