Eco Digital Blog

Get To Work(shop)!

Submitted by rvoorhaar on May 1, 2013 - 12:29am

ECO is getting worked up by these workshops. On Monday, we heard several distinguished delegates mention the importance of participation. Well, ECO would like to raise your participation and call for interaction!

OK, so we’re being deliberately obtuse about what the distinguished delegate was referring to. Our “friends” from the brollies were actually setting up a dangerous dichotomy between participation and ambition, which is totally unacceptable. But for the moment ECO will let that pass (although you know we’ll come back to it!).

What surprised ECO was the re-articulation of well established positions in the initial workshop on scope and design. This is deeply disappointing. ECO urges parties to be brave; put creative ideas forward. Some will get flattened (like that frog!) but some will permeate. If you don’t ask you don’t get. ECO understands that years of disharmony make Parties nervous about revealing some of their thinking, but this is your time to shine. This is the year of conceptual ideas: we’re facing an unprecedented challenge, one that requires an unprecedented response. And in this new (to us), bright and transparent building, what better surroundings could there be for a more frank and visionary discussion?

We only have a few days here in Bonn, and ECO hopes that Parties have just been warming up before heading to the gym (i.e. Maritim). We hope to see you properly working out with each other over the course of this week's workshops; we want to see blood, sweat and tears!

Tags:

ADP2

Related Event:

ADP Second Session 2013

rvoorhaar's blog

On Equity: Part 1

Submitted by rvoorhaar on April 30, 2013 - 12:55am

ECO was positively surprised, during yesterday's ADP2 opening and the following workshop, hearing Parties expressing the fact that equity can't be neglected in the negotiations – a viewpoint that ECO shared long ago. Now that ECO and Parties have this common understanding on the importance of equity for the 2015 deal, let us suggest a way ahead: Parties should consider the equity spectrum approach.

Firstly, the core equity principles should be identified, such as the adequacy principle, CBDR+RC, the right to sustainable development and the precautionary principle. In the equity spectrum approach, the “equity index” would then be composed of a basket of more specific equity indicators. This basket would have to contain well-designed indicators that, taken together, measure both responsibility and capacity. It could include indicators for, inter alia, per capita income and standard of living, per capita emissions and historical responsibility, and domestic income inequality.

Once this basket of indicators is agreed, countries' mitigation pledges could be measured against this set. This would create the basis for assessing pledges in terms of their adequacy for staying below 2°C and keeping 1.5°C in reach, and in terms of a fair and equitable sharing of the mitigation burden and atmospheric space. In order to get this review done quickly, Parties should put their targets on the table by the meeting suggested by Ban Ki Moon in September 2014.

Such an approach would not preclude country groupings (like today’s annexes). In fact, it would make such groupings more coherent. For example, the set of countries that is high in capacity and responsibility would change over time – an important fact, given that such countries are candidates for ambitious, legally-binding, economy-wide quantified emissions reduction targets.

Of course many other kinds of commitments are also possible, and desirable. Obvious examples include renewable energy and/or energy efficiency targets and sectoral targets, all of which could have various kinds and degrees of bindingness. Also, it should be noted that some kinds of actions for certain countries can be explicitly contingent on financial and technical support.

Tags:

equity

CBDRRC

Topics:

Equity/effort-sharing

Related Event:

ADP Second Session 2013

rvoorhaar's blog

You Can’t Feed Your Addiction and Break It, Too

Submitted by rvoorhaar on April 30, 2013 - 12:53am

While delegates will be discussing low emission development opportunities in today’s workshop, many of your countries are still feeding their tragic addiction to fossil fuels. You say you want to keep global warming below 2°C and to keep the door open for 1.5°C, but in fact you are consuming fossil fuels as if 4 degrees was the new 2 degrees.

The International Monetary Fund tells us thzat this addiction is costing your taxpayers USD 1.9 trillion each year in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry (FYI, for comparison, 1.9 trillion seconds is about 60,000 years!). As shown recently by the International Energy Agency, the result of this is a continuous rise of global carbon emissions each year, while we know that emissions should in fact peak well before 2015.

The archaic, continued support for fossil fuels means that they remain artificially profitable and that low carbon alternatives such as renewable energy sources and energy efficiency are emerging much slower than they could. Let’s be honest here: you are not aiming for a 2°C world. No, in fact you are undermining the development of these low carbon opportunities, which could create local jobs and steer innovation. Instead you line the pockets of the fossil fuel dealers and encourage them to invest further in a 4+°C future.

Just last year, the energy industry invested 674 billion dollars for more fossil fuels! However, the Carbon Tracker Initiative has shown that national governments and global markets have created a carbon bubble that will make the real estate bubble look like a blip. If Parties are really serious about avoiding dangerous climate change, nearly 70 percent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal must remain in the ground. Further investments in fossil fuels are locking us in to a carbon-intensive development pathway and making climate action more costly, while diverting investments from existing low cost low carbon solutions.

In ECO’s opinion, any new fossil fuel infrastructure puts our planet at risk. ECO therefore suggests that you stop being bipolar and start having a serious conversation here in Bonn about how to phase out fossil fuels subsidies. ECO has pointed out that this phasing out should not increase the vulnerability of people in developing countries and therefore must happen in developed countries first.

The ADP could develop ambitious pathways for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies in developed countries and identify options to shift those subsidies to additional mitigation activities (allowing higher pledges by developed countries). Imagine all that you can do with these savings from phasing out subsidies! You could use this money to support climate actions in developing countries! Or, at the very least, buy ECO some very nice birthday presents (green's our favourite colour).

For developing countries, the ADP could support work to carefully switch fossil fuel subsidies into supporting clean energy access and fostering sustainable development. The ADP could also identify and discuss ways for some developing countries to pursue fossil fuel subsidy phase-out as supported NAMAs.

Being conflicted over such a serious issue can’t be good for your mental health over the long term. Best resolve it now.

Tags:

Mitigation

ambition

fossil fuel subsidies

Topics:

Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Mitigation

Related Event:

ADP Second Session 2013

rvoorhaar's blog

Raise The Bar or Stay Home

Submitted by rvoorhaar on April 30, 2013 - 12:47am

Even as CO2 concentrations are about to break the 400ppm threshold, fresh climate disasters are announced all over the planet, and carbon prices are collapsing because of lax targets on par with BAU, countries have apparently come to the UNFCCC ADP meeting in Bonn with nothing to offer.

Developed countries seem to be looking off in the distance beyond 2020, with images of universal participation and bottom-up national pledges dancing in their heads. Mundane issues like what has to change in the next 6 years and 8 months to stay below 2 degrees are apparently the farthest thing from their minds.

Parties are in Bonn to get down to work on two tasks – raise pre-2020 ambition and craft the next legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas pollution – potentially the most significant global treaty that will ever be negotiated. Delegates should be mindful of the fact that that your work this week and over the next few years will secure you a place in the history books.

Whether the legacy you leave behind is positive or abysmal depends on your creativity, commitment, negotiating skills and sheer hard craft. In short, you will have to be prepared to pull out all the stops. Our planet deserves no less.

Although negotiating a fresh climate deal for a new decade and beyond, Parties also need to address the less sexy issue of the yawning gap between the pledges that are currently on the table and the effort required to limit global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Neither objective should be ignored to the detriment of the other.

Take heart from the fact that the more we achieve in terms of closing the gap over the next 6 or so years, the lighter that workload will be. And it would augur badly indeed if Parties entered into a new climate agreement with a huge ambition deficit.

One place parties can start making progress this year is on international transport. After failing to get any text in discussions under the Bali Action Plan, this year Parties can make a fresh start, by reaching agreement under the International Maritime Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization on a fast track to implementation of market-based measures for international maritime transport and aviation that can put a price on emissions from these sectors.

The ADP must take up this issue and ensure that these sectors make their fair contribution to global efforts to control emissions and generate finance for climate action in developing countries.

Action is needed on many fronts. As yesterday's opening statement by AOSIS laid out, “this is about political will.” Developed countries must have the will to take real action on curbing the continual increase in global temperatures or, let's face it, a new global deal won’t meet our agreed goal of staying below 2°C. So, developed country Parties, best shape up or head home.

Tags:

Topics:

Related Event:

ADP Second Session 2013

rvoorhaar's blog

On Equity: Part 2

Submitted by rvoorhaar on April 30, 2013 - 12:34am

The following are excerpts from a particularly incisive intervention in the ADP workshop yesterday afternoon. In case you missed it, ECO suggests you take a look. And if you didn't miss it, ECO suggests you take a look anyway, since it's a subject Parties need to work much more on:

“What is needed is a process that would allow for a proper equity review of the pledges, to be conducted in parallel with the equally-critical science review. To that end, the Parties should launch an open, expert process to develop an equity reference framework that is suitable to the evaluation of national pledges. This framework would have to be designed to maximize both ambition and participation. Parties, when making pledges, would be guided by the knowledge that these would be evaluated within both the science and equity reviews.

How to think about such an equity review? The first point is that the demands of equity have already been agreed. This is true at the level of the Convention’s keystone text on CBDR & RC, and it’s true of the four fundamental equity principles – ambition, responsibility, capacity, and development need – that underlie the principle of CBDR & RC and, of course, our shared vision of 'equitable access to sustainable development' as well.

None of this is going to change. Nor should it. Climate, after all, is a global commons problem. The cooperation needed to solve it can only exist if the regime – as it actually unfolds in actions on the ground – is widely seen as being not only 'fair enough,' but an actual positive driver of developmental justice around the world.

What is needed is dynamic equity spectrum approach. This is our key point. And here I must note that a dynamic equity spectrum approach would be entirely consistent with the principles of the Convention, and in particular with the principle of CBDR & RC.

One final point. We do not have to agree to 'a formula' to have a way forward. Reasonable men and women can disagree about the indicators appropriate to, say, capacity. And if we approach the problem in good faith, we may yet find that all plausible, dynamic approaches to CBDR & RC yield approximately the same, or at least strongly overlapping results. Which might just be good enough, at least in the short term.

To sum up, we need a solid science review, we all know it. But we need an equity review as well, and on this front it will take some time to work out the details. But we already know the key thing – will not succeed without a deal that’s at least, as the Australians say, 'fair enough.' And the equity spectrum approach may just be the best way to get one.”

Tags:

equity

CBDRRC

ADP2

Topics:

Equity/effort-sharing

Related Event:

ADP Second Session 2013

rvoorhaar's blog

Mothers of Ambition

Submitted by rvoorhaar on April 29, 2013 - 1:43am

Plato observed in The Republic that necessity is the mother of invention. Parties, he was speaking about you. Humanity formed the State to enable the conditions for sufficient food, shelter and security. Today we face an unprecedented challenge – how will we respond?

At this early stage in developing the global climate agreement in 2015, “ambition” dominates the agenda – and for good reason. The IPCC’s forthcoming AR5 will shine a bright and unyielding light on the planetary emergency we now face.

It’s not just about the need to close the emissions gap. While those 11 gigatonnes will help the atmosphere, they won’t break the back of the politics to get us below 2°C. What is required is for collective agreement to dramatically change the course of human development with the climate clock ticking. So it’s simple: the 2015 deal must deliver ambition compatible with a below 2°C trajectory.

There is a sense in some quarters that a top-down method to achieve that kind of ambition is out of reach politically, so a bottom-up approach will have to suffice. But these underachievers are missing the point. Either they wilfully ignore the fact that climate change will ravage the globe and its inhabitants, or they think Plan B[ottom-up] can keep us out of harm's reach of unavoidable climate change. But Plan B isn’t working. After all, despite floods, droughts, fires and the vanishing Arctic sea ice, developed country commitments have hardly changed since Copenhagen and the Green Climate Fund still has no money.

For those of us, like ECO, who defend the legally binding regime, we get pinned as idealists. But ECO begs to differ. You are the idealists. We are the realists. We know what is needed to avoid dangerous climate change and to keep us on a below 2°C trajectory.

Of course, these bottom-up actions are helping, but it’s not enough. Moreover, those proactively promoting Plan B[ottom-up] are neglecting the investors and businesses that require a strong signal from governments to shift their assets. And ECO knows that a strong signal doesn’t mean a “yeah, I can do that, for sure”. Nope, it needs a legally binding, long-term commitment for governments to decarbonise their economies.

So ECO wants to see everyone behave in our new (albeit temporary) accommodation here in Bonn. And in particular on equity. ECO would like to see here in Bonn the development of a strong equity framework that provides both context and metrics to measure progress. We are seeing notable progress in refining that framework, anchored firmly in the Convention and the foundational, but dynamic, concepts of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and equitable access to sustainable development. But progress is not yet completed, and Parties must stay focused on achieving a shared understanding on equity.

While necessity is the mother of invention, invention, in this case, requires a top-down regime.

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Topics:

Related Event:

ADP Second Session 2013

rvoorhaar's blog

Putting the “2 (degrees)” back in Workstream 2

Submitted by rvoorhaar on April 29, 2013 - 1:37am

It is well-trodden ground that there is a huge gap between what Parties say they want (staying below 2°C and keeping the door open to 1.5°C) and what Parties have pledged to contribute between now and 2020 to achieve that planetary necessity.

In theory, Workstream 2 has already identified how to bridge the gap through: 1) improving developed countries’ woefully inadequate 2020 emission reduction targets; 2) identifying ways to enable and support developing countries in upping their own pre-2020 ambition; and 3) joint complementary action in addition to the first two areas on everything from phasing out HFCs to fossil fuel subsidies. The task now is to JUST DO IT.

ECO thought “doing it” would require no explanation, but some recent happenings in many developed countries are getting their positions all wrong.

First and foremost – and we really thought this was obvious – the thing that needs to go up is the target, not the temperature. For the EU this means moving to 30% - a move which really shouldn’t be that difficult considering that it has already achieved its 20% target almost 8 years ahead of schedule and will actually achieve more than that (around 25-27%) by 2020. How can the EU host 2 COPs over the next 3 years and ask the rest of the world to do more while it decides to take a break? In addition, the EU’s incompetence at repairing its own emissions trading scheme is pretty mournful. A modest measure to temporarily limit the surplus of allowances in the EU carbon market was recently rejected by some within the European Parliament.

The rest of the developed world is no better, and many are far, far worse. There are rumours that Japan is planning to lower its ambition from its current 2020 pledge. Australia is not likely to do anything about its tiny 5% pledge and, depending of the outcome of the upcoming national elections, things could hit rock bottom, even though the Australian public is strongly in favour of climate action. The US pledge could be labelled ambitious, if the ambition was to overshoot 4°C, while the country is barely on the path to achieve its very weak 2020 target. And Canada – well, their only ambition is to withdraw from as many international treaties as possible (if you hadn’t heard, they’ve also withdrawn from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification).

This drooping ambition level needs to stop. By 2014 ALL Parties (Kyoto Parties and free-riders alike) will have to increase the ambition of their 2020 pledges. Without this, you won’t get a global agreement in 2015, and – worse – you will not prevent dangerous climate change from destroying entire civilisations and threatening the future of your children.

There is also a role for developing countries in increasing near-term ambition. It is worth assessing what additional ambition more advanced developing countries can muster as well as what precise support will enable all to do even more. Jointly, developing and developed countries should use Workstream 2 to create an upward spiral of increasing support (finance, technology and capacity building) and ambition triggered and enabled by such support. This could also help avoid that, due to, for example low levels of climate finance, developing countries may find themselves in situations where they lock-in low ambition because of inadequately supported actions.

Finally, there are the complementary actions. The COP in Warsaw would ideally invite other bodies (Montreal Protocol, ICAO and IMO, G20 and so forth) to foster actions in their spheres of expertise and influence to result in additional emission reductions. Those actions would need to come in addition to what Parties have committed to do based on their 2020 targets, pledges and NAMAs, rather than as means to achieve them. This is why ECO and some Parties have used the expression “complementary”, a word whose proximity to the somewhat less ambitious “complimentary” should not create the false impression that avoiding catastrophic climate change is an issue of voluntary action – it is not. It is an obligation Parties have towards the millions of people suffering climate change already today, and towards the hundreds of millions if not billions who will be suffering tomorrow, whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by inaction, complacency and pretension currently at display at these negotiations.

Tags:

Topics:

Equity/effort-sharing

Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Mitigation

Region:

Europe

Related Event:

ADP Second Session 2013

rvoorhaar's blog

The Doha Decisions

Submitted by rvoorhaar on December 7, 2012 - 5:26am

Today is the day to press the reset button. The planet is shouting warning signs at us but the Conference is sleepwalking off the cliff of climate disaster. A political deal was struck in Durban and all need to stand by it.
Ministers, while you bemoan theimpending doom in high sounding high-level speeches and promise to do everything within your power to stop it, your negotiators dig in ever deeper in the back rooms of the QNCC.
The Doha deal ECO believes is still within reach would take immediate steps to improve the short-term ambition we urgently need. Your political ambitions need to be matched by targets and pledges more ambitious than the ones currently on offer.

Speaking of pledges: whatever hap-pened to the ambition of the Gulf countries to become climate leaders? What or who is holding them back? Was this the cause of the commotion at the Qatar Airways desk yesterday?
Clearly, much hard work lies ahead to close the growing gigatonne gap. This must start right away with an ambition ‘ratchet’ mechanism (KP) and plan of work with specific milestones (ADP).

Which brings us to the most uncooperative track of all, the LCA. With 53 (!) outstanding issues, this feels like the playroom after a toddler’s birthday party. Is that what you mean by Party-driven process? Where is the leadership, who can take the reins? Surely, with good will, the spirit of compromise and some elbow grease the real crunch issues can be dealt with by ministers. And the outstanding ones can be moved forward to a suitable home before the sun sets here at Doha.

Now – no more delays, no more excuses – you must adopt strong amendments to the Kyoto Protocol that strengthen its environmental integrity by limiting hot air. To those that abandon Kyoto in search of a warmer climate: shame on you.

There are some encouraging signals that progress was made on the workplan needed to keep us on track for a fair, ambitious and binding Paris Agreement in 2015. We must of course learn from past mistakes (pssst, Copenhagen)! This workplan needs clear deadlines and milestones. We strongly recommend delivering a consolidation text by the end of next year and negotiating text at COP 20 at the latest.
Also essential to a Doha deal are concrete inclusive steps to be agreed on implementing the 'fairness' principles of the Convention in our new 2015 deal. We need clarity on what 'equity' means for you and what it means for me? If even the U.S. can learn to talk about it, so can we all. But talk is cheap and these ‘discussions’ need to informnegotiations starting in 2013.

Announcements on finance are awaited from those countries that have yet to make theirs. But in order fordeveloping countries to have confidence that the $100 billion per year commitment will be kept by 2020, the LCA must close with a clear collective commitment that public finance will increase above Fast Start levels in 2013, and amount to at least $60 billion in new and additional public finance by 2015. To do otherwise is to leave the poorest communities without any assurance that they will be supported to cope with climate impacts.

Looking back in 2015 we might find the real story of the Doha climate talks was not that yet another compromise deal was struck -- a tiny step forward when step change was needed. The Doha deal must start to pave the way for the most vulnerable, the victims of climate change whose faces we saw on Al Jazeera, who are facing loss and damage this very day in their communities and cultures. You must agree today to set up and pilot an international loss and damage mechanism.

Doha may still be remembered as the place where you rediscovered your will to cooperate. Just maybe. Much like you did to save the banking sector in 2009. The planetary crisis looming over us dwarfs that finance crisis.
Ministers, delegates, today we are in your hands. You are playing for the whole planet.

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Topics:

Related Event:

COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

rvoorhaar's blog

Latin Heat – Dominican Republic Takes it Seriously

Submitted by rvoorhaar on December 7, 2012 - 5:23am

To tell the truth, the last couple of days have not seen a lot of Progress, much less Ambition. But along comes something that makes you think there is hope and good will somewhere.

ECO is quietly cheering the rumours of developing countries putting pledges on the table. Today at the High Level Segment, the Dominican Republic pledged an unconditional 25% emission reduction below 2010 levels by 2030 in absolute terms, to be accomplished with domestic funds plus international community solidarity. This is in a national law and therefore mandatory for the government to deliver.

Congratulations to the Dominican Republic for taking serious action on climate change and recall that many other countries are also doing their job. This is the kind of attitude we need in these negotiations to move things forward.

Tags:

Topics:

Region:

Related Event:

COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

rvoorhaar's blog

Finance Action

Submitted by rvoorhaar on December 7, 2012 - 5:19am

The causes and effects of the global climate storm are dispersed; there is fragmentation and institutional inadequacy. This is true of most global problems, but the factor that really complicates climate action is the spatial and temporal dimensions. The effects of greenhouse gases are not ‘hot spots’ at the source. They are in fact global and the effects are most brutal in areas where emissions are low.

We need to converge our moral and ethical values to tackle this vast problem. The youth organizationSustainUS conducted a social experiment on Thursday at the QNCC to test this premise.

Youth representatives asked individuals entering the Conference where they would place their money, were it completely up to them: the Green Climate Fund, Fast Start Finance, Midterm Finance (2013-2020), Military Spending and Fossil Fuel Subsidies.

Each respondent received fake money at the start of the moving walkways from the garage to the QNCC and had to choose along the way where their currency would best be spent. Many dismissed the youth holding the Military Spending and Fossil Fuel Subsidies jars and split their ethical urges between the three climate change finance options.

By the end of the event, the Green Climate Fund was the clear winner. The utilitarian calculus made on the moving walkways was in fact a choice to support those who are worst off.

The 1.2 billion people living on $1 per day stand to gain more from $100 than someone living on $100,000 a year. It seemed that this was a quick calculation in the participants’ minds when placed with a clear choice.
Yet according to a report by the National ResourceDefense Council, fossil fuel subsidies in 2012 were $775 billion globally while the GCF remains at $0, the FSF total is way below $30 billion (even setting aside the ODA double-counting aspect), and no road map has been laid down for midterm finance between now and 2020, nor pledges made to start mobilizing funds for the GCF in the final days of Doha.

Climate change has posed a systemic difficulty for political actors that calls into question the very institutions that we use to fight for climate change, even as we ourselves, given the chance, make choices on behalf of the most vulnerable and the future of the planet. This small informal experiment shows how far we have to go to close the gigatonne and equity gaps.

Tags:

climate finance

Topics:

Finance

Related Event:

COP18/CMP8 Doha Climate Conference

rvoorhaar's blog

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