Tag: Equity/effort-sharing

ECO is very pleased to note that the volume on CAN’s proposal for the Equity Reference Framework has been turned up at the Bonn session. ECO now asks Parties that they go back home and add it to their favourite playlists to keep them inspired between now and September, when they will turn in submissions on what architecture they foresee for a successful outcome in Paris.

Through this session and at the ADP2 (April/May), Parties have made it clear that the “principles of the Convention will apply and need no reinterpretation in the 2015 agreement.” We are (doubly) delighted that Parties have identified this as common ground. Having said that, there is work to be done to ensure that these principles don’t just remain principles in the Convention and that they get translated into actions and commitments on the ground.

But we have less than a thousand days left between now and Paris. Keeping this in mind and reminding ourselves that there can be no ambition without equity, ECO had proposed a practical process to ensure that Parties have a clear understanding not just of how their commitments will together enable us to stay within a 2 degree C world, but also of how their fair shares can be formulated. This would mean that Parties develop a shared Equity Reference Framework that embodies the Convention’s core equity principles. As you might already know, ECO identified these to be: a precautionary approach to adequacy, CBDRRC and the right to sustainable development. Along with the latest science, these core principles, reflected in an agreed list of indicators, and including of course the call for developed countries to take the lead in climate mitigation, can be used as a benchmark when framing, setting and reviewing Parties’ mitigation and financial commitments.

ECO is excited about the level of response that this proposal has received, both through some Parties’ call for an Equity Reference Framework at the ADP plenary and the excellent turnout at the CAN side event. South Africa, Kenya, The Gambia on behalf of the LDCs – ECO warmly welcomes your constructive interventions on this matter. A special thanks to South Africa for a strong reminder to Parties during the closing plenary of the ADP for the need for a clear set of rules for fair and equitable effort sharing that would lead to equitable access to sustainable development. Brazil, Norway and EU – ECO welcomes your openness and interest and looks forward to more from you. ECO now encourages all parties, in their submissions to the ADP co-chairs ahead of Warsaw, to outline what criteria and indicators they think capture the equity principles as identified above. This would lead us to a Party led process with extensive expert input designed to get us to a workable framework for assessing both mitigation and finance commitments.

While we would have loved to have another meeting for Parties before Warsaw, this is not to be. However, we are excited to know our friends from the Nordic Council will be organising an entire meeting exclusively focused on the question of equity. We would love for this to be an open and inclusive meeting that takes on board experts and other stakeholders, so it can feed into Warsaw in a substantial manner. ECO thinks this exemplifies good leadership and welcomes and encourages more of such spaces and platforms for tuning into and turning up the volume on equity.

Poland is an extraordinary country. It has overcome many years of oppression and poverty to transform itself into a significant economic powerhouse and a proactive European player on diplomacy.

But it appears the Polish government is willing to risk their status as rising international star, and allow its politics to be captured by high carbon incumbents.

If the Polish government continues to pursue this position, it is quite likely that the EU will lose patience, and a diplomatic backlash is quite possible. This will result in Poland losing its say to shape the future of Europe’s energy regime, widening the gap between its ageing and inefficient energy infrastructure and a more dynamic, smarter and innovative power system across other EU countries.

ECO wonders if the Polish government is kicking itself in deciding to put their names forward for the Presidency of COP19 later on this year. Warsaw will not be a Poznan. Back in 2008, the Poles were still only agitators as opposed to today’s outright blockers of the EU’s energy and climate ambitions. Poznan was a low-key COP, unlike Warsaw, which should agree on the outlines of an Equity Reference Framework for the post-2020 deal; outline further efforts on public finance (with the engagement of Finance Ministers); close the pre-2020 mitigation gap; affirm the political significance of the Loss and Damage debate and set in place a series of processes to deliver a 2015 agreement.

Warsaw will be a high profile event. But Poland’s diplomatic strategy is flawed – they are invisible, and there is an emerging disquiet amongst many Parties and observers if they were the right choice. Among those are established voices such as Raul Estrada-Oyuela, a legend to those of us in the climate and diplomatic arena, who unforgettably locked delegates in the room in Kyoto to hammer out the subsequent protocol, who calls Poland’s ability to host such an important event into question, based on the Polish SBI chair’s failure to resolve this issue. (Link to Estrada’s letter here http://bit.ly/estrada-oyuela)

What is needed from the Polish government is not just to be a rising star, but a sophisticated diplomatic actor that understands how to build consensus around ambitious action climate change. An actor who has a more mature and deeper understanding of its national interest. An actor who understands that a reliance on coal undermines the long term prosperity of its own people, and recognises that modernising its economy is essential if it is to compete in a globalised world.   Instead, what we have is a government that plans to build new coal fired power plants and open new lignite reserves, which recent studies state have the worst implications upon health within the EU, and that also displace 20,000 people.  Such aggressive coal expansion, and its persistent objections to greater European ambition, cannot be reconciled with its desire to be an international player in the run up to 2015.