Eco Digital Blog

Yesterday, the first contact group on adaptation in Barcelona took place as the countdown to Copenhagen enters its final phase. It was an extraordinary hearing although ECO struggled to hear because the acoustics were bad.

And there were some important things ECO wanted to hear clearly. The chair set out the mission: finish on Friday with a concise and manageable negotiation text that can be taken back to capitals for full review before Copenhagen.

Yet not all Parties seemed to share this objective.  A well-known big oil-exporting country complained about the chairs and the secretariat providing too much guidance, with the argument that this is a party-driven process. But ECO notes that everything in the text is a product of input by Parties.  The chairs’ guidance is a way of facilitating what otherwise would be largely unmanageable.

And time is running out.

Looking forward, let's review some things that definitely would be good to hear today with respect to the adaptation non-paper.

The preambular section must recognize the fact that there will be loss and damage from past emissions, and it is important to recognize who is responsible.

Under section A, the scope of action must include the provision of support, and not just the adaptation actions (Para. 5).  A credible response to the challenge of adaptation must also prioritize the needs of vulnerable countries on the international level, and the needs of particularly vulnerable people, groups and communities and ecosystems when it comes to implementation within developing countries (Para. 6).  The communities and people included in these groups should be identified by countries and should not be internationally prescribed. The meaningful inclusion of the vulnerable in all stages of decision-making must be ensured, in line with their human rights (Para. 7).

Under section B, ECO hopes to hear clearly recognition of the full range of adaptation activities, including support for situations where adaptation is no longer possible, and the need to scale up work as soon as possible.
Section C gets to the crux of the matter: the means for implementation. Legally binding funding obligations for developed countries are crucial if the Copenhagen Agreement is to provide a serious response to climate change.

Resources must be provided in addition to Official Development Assistance (ODA) targets and not come at the expense of the poor who are denied the expansion of basic services because ODA finance is diverted into adaptation. And it is clear that on average at least USD $50 billion per year of predictable and reliable resources are needed between 2013 and 2017, with further scale-up in the future.  These funds should be delivered as periodic grant installments, so that recipient governments can plan their adaptation programmes with the certainty of receiving funds.

So delegates, please hear us clearly.  Get to work right here, right now. There are only 8 sessions left until Copenhagen. Can’t you hear the countdown clock?  Tcktcktck . . .

What a difference only three weeks has made. Delegates, before checking up on your homework assignments from Bangkok, let's take a step back and look at the wider political picture.

Several governments previously not seen or heard from are frantically preparing for Copenhagen. Their heads of government and state want to make a strong statement when the big show premieres in 34 days ... and counting. These leaders want to do the right thing for their people and the planet. They are asking the hard question: What has prevented negotiators from implementing the Bali consensus?

Two things are standing in the way of an equitable agreement that limits or prevents dangerous global warming: too much fear and not enough ambition.

First, there is unsubstantiated fear of a legally binding agreement. ECO has written before about the commitment-phobes wandering these hallways. Responsibility and trust are what´s needed here!

Without trust -- and the transparency and accountability that underpin it -- no real deal can be had.  But just as important, without those that have the greatest historical responsibility coming forward, Copenhagen will go down in history as the largest, most expensive party in the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Secondly, there is insufficient ambition, and here is what we mean: enough ambition to have a future ... to enable people to enjoy the fruits of their labour without the constant fear of looming environmental disaster ... the ambition to leave to the next generation a greener planet.

Transition to low carbon development must be brought about within the next decade. The foundations for this urgently needed shift must be contained in the Copenhagen agreement. And what do we mean by a fundamental shift?  Only good things: investment in green technology worldwide, drastic cuts in emissions, and support for sustainable development and adaptation that really works.  Real ambition leads to a real transition.

Moving forward this week, Parties need to produce the manageable strong negotiating text that somehow eluded them in Bangkok. The important questions can be answered.  ECO knows you can do it.

The temptation to declare success along the road to Copenhagen, no matter what the outcome, will of course be great. So, to help sort the high road from the other roads, this week ECO will highlight attempts to greenwash and continue to award Fossils to those Parties who have earned them.  Remember, however, proposals that banish fear and build ambition will be get praise just as swiftly and surely.

The negotiations this week offer delegates an opportunity to give strength to vulnerable communities and make our ecosystems stronger. Decisions and discussions to date have yet to fully embrace that opportunity. It's time to pick up the pace from Bangkok, focus on the essential elements of a Copenhagen agreement, and prioritise the remaining time on negotiating those key points.

So for those who have misplaced the homework assignment from Bangkok: What do we want out of Barcelona? Progress, including but not limited to elements in the highlighted box.

The rising tide of local climate action is capturing the hearts and minds of people around the world. As we get to work in Barcelona, many of them are working just as hard to raise awareness and strengthen the resolve of their political leaders from Delhi to Washington, from Warsaw to Tokyo, and say, just do it in Copenhagen. Will you?

Right now in Barcelona is the time for Annex I Parties to change their LULUCF strategy and stop looking for cheap and easy credits from this sector. Continuing on this path will undermine the integrity of the Copenhagen climate agreement instead of creating a fair and transparent accounting framework through which industrialized countries take full responsibility for emissions from logging and bioenergy production.

It has already become clear that seriously flawed rules will be challenged by non-Annex I Parties and observers alike. Moreover, continued advocacy for such rules by some Annex I Parties risks a setback in the overall negotiations and raises the necessity for further modifications such as caps or discounting.

Fair and effective forest management accounting rules will provide an incentive to make structural changes in forest management that benefit the climate, and discourage forest management practices that yield little value. Yet the options in the current working text are flagrantly asymmetric.

Sources of debits are variously removed from the accounting altogether, defined away in the reference levels, explained as natural disturbances, or delayed for decades by favorable wood product accounting. Erasing debits is like deciding that nobody will ever fail in a pass/fail system – and will provide about the same amount of motivation for the effort to get forest management right.

It's a little hard to believe, but the positions taken by many Annex I negotiators effectively define their preferred management choices as carbon-neutral, regardless of what emissions actually are. In this fantasy world, you incur no debits for a ‘business-as-usual’ policy of cutting forests at age 50 even if most of the national forest estate is now 49 years old and you’re about to cut it all down! Nor do you receive debits for stepping up forest harvest to produce bioenergy. But the atmosphere sees the debits as emissions that should not have increased.

Annex I LULUCF negotiators need to remember -- or be reminded by their ministers and civil society -- that the planet is at stake here and, yes, we actually need to reduce emissions. Good intentions are welcome, but we are not here to engineer rules to avoid changing how forests are managed.

ECO is pondering what would happen if other sectors played the LULUCF game. How about assigning zero emissions to the power sector if they ramp up production using a business-as-usual practice of burning oil? In the LULUCF world they would only count the emissions if the sector switched to a dirtier fuel like coal. But that's not what we meant by 'ambition' in a good Copenhagen deal.

Here are just a few photos from the October 24 day of action...more can be found at 350.org