*[Enwl-eng] [can-eecca] Fwd: [CAN-talk] ECO - Wednesday, December 5

[ENWLine]

 

Hi CAN,

Here is ECO for today. Special thanks to Inga, Lutz, Claire, Julie-Anne, Carlos, Eddy, Teresa, Adam, Syaqil, Barbara, and Katharina, as well as all those who contributed through the working groups and on CAN-Talk.

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12 years left: What have you done to respond to the SR1.5?

ECO was blown away by the SBSTA-IPCC presentation yesterday. The IPCC started off with a presentation that not only woke up weary delegates in the plenary but also woke them up (if they had somehow missed it previously) to the urgency of the need to act. The IPCC stressed that if Parties want to stay below 1.5°C and cut CO2 emissions in half by 2030, immediate action on every level is needed. They cannot start in 2029. Each year matters, just as each tenth of a degree does as well.

Some Parties questioned the feasibility of these scenarios. The SR1.5 report contains a number of pathways that could be followed to limit warming to 1.5°C, some being riskier than others.  Ultimately, however, feasibility is not a question the IPCC can answer as it comes down to political will.

In terms of responding to the SR1.5, ECO expects to see the growth of political will throughout these two weeks, as negotiators streamline the text for the rulebook and when Ministers arrive to set the course to strengthen NDCs. Pursuing the most ambitious pathway to limit warming to 1.5°C has several co-benefits for people, biodiversity and future generations, and should be the moral imperative for any leader on this planet.

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Planning for a Koronivia bumper crop

Koronivia is a long way from Katowice, but progress on the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) at COP24 is well within reach.

Every farmer knows that success depends on maximizing the time available within the growing season. This means knowing the landscape within which you are working, assembling the resources you need to do your work, and planting and harvesting according to a clearly structured plan.  

The same applies to the KJWA. 

In order to make the most of the short negotiating season available here, ECO suggests Parties consider the following ways of bringing clarity to the work ahead of them:

1- Ask the Secretariat to undertake a mapping of the work of the Constituted Bodies, and a review of available means of implementation - both financial and non-financial. This will allow Parties to identify and discuss existing gaps related to each of the workshop topics.

2- Ask the Secretariat to simultaneously undertake a review of available means of implementation, both financial and non-financial.

3- Agree that a key deliverable of the KJWA could be criteria or guidance for NDCs, GCF, Adaptation Fund & Constituted Bodies, to ensure they reach five overarching objectives: food security, adaptation, absolute and equitable emission reductions, ecosystem integrity and gender responsiveness.

4 - Identify questions that Parties and observers can address in submissions and discuss them in the workshops. These could include: which Constituted Bodies are most relevant to the current submission/workshop topic? What guidance or support has your country sought from Constituted Bodies regarding this topic? What are the gaps in the guidance or support provided by Constituted Bodies? What role can Constituted Bodies play to address gaps in knowledge and means of implementation and to support the identification of good practices and the development of guidance for action?

The KJWA was a major achievement after years of difficult talks. It is critical that work now gets underway in a structured way to ensure Parties and observers can move together towards having some sense of the tangible outcomes the work program can deliver.

Oh, and as we’re talking about agriculture, here’s some more food for thought: the KJWA is the success of a multilateral process that, for all its shortcomings, is the best bet to ensure that a diversity of perspectives are represented. Hosting workshops anywhere but at formal UNFCCC sessions would be like closing the barn to all but the biggest livestock.

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3 billion reasons to freak out about Brazil    

 

Brazil, the birthplace of UNFCCC and a so far trusted broker of the Paris Agreement negotiations, is about to become one of the world’s climate rogues. All thanks to president-elect Jair Bolsonaro and his set of very peculiar ideas about climate change and the Amazon rainforest.

Bolsonaro is not even in power yet and has already embarrassed Brazilian delegates here in Katowice by backtracking on hosting COP25 less than 10 days before the start of COP24. It’s, for sure, a shame, but let’s stay positive and keep an eye on the silver linings: can you imagine a COP President who thinks global warming is nothing but a Marxist plot to transfer power to China? No, you haven’t read it wrong, and those are Ernesto Araújo, the incoming Brazilian Foreign minister, words. 

Even if Bolsonaro doesn’t follow the steps of his BFF Donald Trump and keeps Brazil in the Paris deal, his grand vision for the Amazon is gut-wrenching: drop deforestation control, open up Indigenous lands for agribusiness and mining, scrap protected areas and crack down on activists, just for good measure.

The cost for the climate would be nothing short of catastrophic: deforestation has already increased by 32% between August and November. According to Brazilian scientists, it could climb to mind-boggling 25 thousand square kilometres (nearly one Belgium) a year, with resulting emissions of 3 billion tons of CO2. This would be like adding nearly ten Polands to the atmosphere – and a sure blow to any chance of the world staying below 1.5 degrees.

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Fred: a generous guy or a dickhead? It’s all about context

 

If Fred told you that he was paying $500 towards helping Ginger with repairs to her home, you may tend to think that Fred was a really generous guy. But, if you found out that Fred had run his truck into Ginger’s house, you might be slightly less convinced of Fred’s generosity. If you then found out that Fred was drunk at the time this event occurred, and that it wasn’t even the first time that Fred had drunkenly driven into Ginger’s house, in fact he was a serial offender, you might be even more disinclined to see it from Fred’s perspective.  And THEN you found out that Fred’s damage to Ginger’s house this time was way more than $500, plus the damage in the past, well suddenly the real Fred is revealed. It gets even worse, this $500 payment is already being counted towards Fred’s child support payments. Now Fred looks like the real dickhead he is.

This is a tortured analogy of the situation with the Warsaw International Mechanism’s (WIM) for Loss and Damage planned technical paper on sources of finance for loss and damage – rich countries are going to get to double count their aid, humanitarian and adaptation finance, in fact any money they think seems to vaguely smell of ‘loss and damage’, without any assessment of actual loss and damage occurring or the needs of vulnerable countries.  Unless the terms of reference for the paper are changed, the outcome will be as meaningful as “Fred’s a generous guy, he gave Ginger $500” and will engender just as much trust.

 

The WIM has to really and truly start working on finance for loss and damage, to provide input into the review next year. It’s going to require the COP to not push it off but to kick goals.

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KP2: the Good, the Bad, and the Paradoxical

ECO has a full meal waiting for you just here: we have some good news, some bad news, and to finish, a paradox. 

The good news is that our host, Poland, has finally ratified the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol. Together with the Cook Islands, Guinea-Bissau, St. Lucia, Togo, Tonga, and Uruguay, the other recent ratifiers, this brings the total number of ratifications up to 122. 

The bad news, however, is that this is not yet enough: in order for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP2) to enter into force 22 more countries are needed.

And that’s where the paradox comes in. We find well over 22 ratification candidates among some of the countries and groups which most frequently raise the issue of the urgent need for Doha ratification and pre-2020 action. Even Qatar, the birthplace of the Doha Amendment at COP18, has not ratified it yet. What signal does that send to future hosts and presidencies?

It is worth noting that KP2 entry into force will make it possible to hold developed countries to their pre-2020 commitments, and that failure to ratify and implement the KP2 sets a worrying precedent for the Paris Agreement. It’s been six years, Parties. It’s past time to walk the talk.   

ECO strongly suggests you use our helpful table below as input to your interventions and discussions at today’s technical part of the Pre-2020 Stocktake, and especially at Monday’s high-level event. 

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From the Front Lines

Hospitals in dusty small towns. Young children lying on beds next to their mothers displaying familiar signs of severe malnutrition. Some survive, others don’t. Niger is one of the poorest countries on Earth with one of the highest rates of child mortality. This is a result of many factors, among them, endemic poverty, high population growth, and a lack of education on child nutrition. However, it is extreme weather and recurrent droughts in this vast arid strip of land that have continuously pushed communities over the edge, exasperating and making episodes like the ones described above more and more common. Niger is one of the countries that is most adversely affected by climate change. Rainy seasons have become much shorter and harder to predict, challenging communities to survive with lower quality, and quantities of food and water.

 

Climate change is not abstract for anyone here, it has become a harsh reality with real and concrete consequences on communities. When the rains don’t fall and changing seasons significantly impact crops and livestock, life becomes incredibly dire, especially for the most marginalized and vulnerable people of society. 

But this is just one part of the story. 

I see women and men in remote villages in Niger who are eager to use better technologies and improved, drought-resistant seeds. I see women who organize themselves into village saving and loan groups to ensure they have an alternative source of income to feed themselves and their children. More than anything I see people willing to adapt for the sake of their communities. 

Mothers and fathers who do not want to leave their village but want to do whatever it takes to stay in the place they’ve called home for centuries.

 

My wish is that decision-makers at COP24 understand that preventing loss and damage is the key to ensure that no further irreversible harm is caused. We must save lives. We can no longer wait for communities to be stuck by climate-induced disasters over and over again.

 

By Amadou Dan Kouré, CARE Niger 

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FOTD

Cough, cough .... Did anyone else notice that strange haze in the air? ... cough, cough ... I suppose there is something to be said for the way light reflects off the “clouds,” but really? Why are we at COP in a coal region? 

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Monday that there is no contradiction between climate protection and coal use. He also stated that Poland has coal reserves that will last for 200 years more. Then yesterday, speaking at the Barbórka Academy of the Tauron Group, he stressed that the Polish mining industry and mining constitutes "one of the foundations of the Polish economy", determining the country's energy security and are "to a great extent" a guarantee of its energy sovereignty. What a warm (or boiling hot?) welcome from the hosts of COP 24! 

There is a stark contrast between his words and what science says – the recent IPCC report clearly states we have 12 more years to save the world and deliver on ambitious climate action. Meanwhile, the past four COP Presidents have been busy urging parties and stakeholders alike to send an “unequivocal message” from Katowice on the need to “enhance ambition by 2020 that puts the world on a trajectory compatible with the objectives of the Paris Agreement,” pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. It’s clear this presidency is not doing enough! 

Yesterday’s Fossil of the day went to Poland for trying to protect their one true love – coal – and not its people and environment, as well as for downplaying the urgency of climate action that we need to stay alive - a decision to strengthen NDCs in line with the IPCC Special Report on 1.5C. 

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Synchronized Swimming

Have you ever watched synchronized swimming? Combining swimming, dancing and gymnastics; it’s considered one of the most complicated dances in the world. It can be done solo, duo, trio or in groups and it’s harder than most sports because it’s also under water.

For quite some time, negotiations around Article 9.5 of the Paris Agreement have felt like a pretty difficult dance. In 2016, it kept us working many hours into the night, and at COP23, ECO felt the outcome was out of step with what was necessary. Throughout the year, we always felt the operationalization of Article 9.5 was going to be a heck of a difficult maneuver at COP24. 

Today, at the Head of Delegations meeting, ECO felt countries are finally progressing on one of the most basic rules from the artistic world: a good dance requires not only exquisite technique, but also a lot of trust in your partner. Like, for example, when the APA co-chair agreed with Canada: “we are listening to each other and trying to find solutions”. ECO hopes this rhythm flows further and would like to propose ideas on how this can lead up to a beautiful tango performance called substantial progress and full operationalization of Article 9.5 of the Paris Agreement: 

Contributor countries should agree to provide similar types of ex-ante information for every channel and source to ensure comparability and coherence when informing on the mobilization of climate finance. 

The process should recognize national circumstances and availability of information (such as specificities of national budgets) and allow for a flexible process where contributor countries provide projected levels of public finance in accordance with the obligation under Article 9.5. 

If a contributor country is unable to provide enough quantitative information, such country shall provide as much qualitative information as possible and explain why it cannot provide more.

As some Head of Delegations said, and ECO agrees, the process to be adopted by Parties must build on the Strategies and Approaches, while at the same time such process should ensure equal reporting modalities for all countries that are mandated or that will voluntarily inform and communicate in accordance with Article 9.5. 

The process should define the timeline and format for submissions, allow for a synthesis of those submissions and plan for a biennial finance ministerial dialogue to discuss the information they contain. 

It should also ensure linkages with the Global Stocktake as per Article 9.6 and overtime to the assessment and overview of climate finance flows.

As the Head of Delegation for Egypt said yesterday, we should focus on the landing and, as the Head of Delegation from South Africa said, there needs to be a balance between information and the process on how to use this information. This is our challenge right now! 

ECO welcomes this synchronization among Parties and hopes these dialogues will give them the trust and tools to fully operationalize Article 9.5 of the Paris Agreement. 

 

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Andrés Fuentes

-- CAN-talk Listserv | CAN-...@listi.jpberlin.de | https://listi.jpberlin.de/mailman/listinfo/can-talk | Emails received through CAN-talk are confidential and should not be circulated beyond CAN members unless otherwise stated. -- Subscribe to CAN's ECO Newsletter @ http://climatenetwork.org/eco-newsletters --

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Network Development and Outreach Department 

Regional Campaigns Communications Officer EECCA 

(Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia)
Climate Action Network-International (CAN)
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From: Andres Agustin Fuentes Martinez <afuentes...@gmail.com>
Date: ср, 5 дек. 2018 г. в 05:08
Subject: [CAN-talk] ECO - Wednesday, December 5

 

From: Tatiana Shauro

Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2018 5:03 PM

Subject: [can-eecca] Fwd: [CAN-talk] ECO - Wednesday, December 5

 

 

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