Dear Friends/Co-sailors,
Sharing below the ECO update from Day Two of the UNFCCC ADP
2.10 negotiations in Bonn, Germany.
This has been shared with us by Linh over email.
Hope you find it useful.
Thanks and best regards,
Ranjan Panda
Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network, India
Mob: +91-9437050103
Email: ranjanpanda@gmail.com
Unlock Ambition with the Keys to Success: 5-Year Cycles and
Robust Ratchet Mechanism
With over 50 INDC submissions, representing more than 60% of
global GHG emissions, it’s already clear that the ambition underpinning those
contributions will be far from sufficient to keep warming below 1.5°C. Parties
need to urgently address this huge ambition gap. To ECO, it is obvious that a
robust and legally binding ambition mechanism with 5-year commitment periods
should be at the heart of the future climate regime.
The first step is to agree a 5-year timeframe for
commitments, as it will help secure stronger commitments, and this should be
clearly established in the core agreement text. Countries also need to agree
other key components of the mechanism, such as review cycles, timing of
communication and inscription, and upward enhancement processes.
Consistent 5-year intervals for all country targets will
also allow for better aggregate collective progress assessments, which will
need to be supplemented by individual country assessments. These assessments
will review existing ambition across all elements of the Paris agreement,
including finance, and ensure that global ambition is revised upwards to meet
the ultimate objective of the Convention.
A key element to the commitment mechanism is the combination
of a “no backsliding” principle and a clause requiring new commitments to
actually be more ambitious. A review
alone will not be sufficient, as it will not compel countries to develop new
commitments.
The INDCs submitted to date do not necessarily lock us in
for 10-year cycles, as Parties could agree in Paris to harmonise the different
timelines of the INDCs closer to 2020. An agreement now on 5-year cycles will
also inform the contributions of countries that have not yet submitted their
INDCs.
The current lack of agreement on commitment cycles is
causing negotiations on the issue to sink towards a lowest common denominator
outcome. ECO is concerned that we may be moving in the direction of a weak,
non-binding system of review—an unacceptable outcome in Paris.
How Long-Term is a Game Changer
ECO has joyfully watched the birth of a new vision for the
world’s economy – one where fossil fuel emissions are rapidly phased out, and
clean, renewable sources of power are phased in. Millions of citizens from the
global north and south, thousands of leading businesses, faith leaders and
health professionals are now demanding this transition.
We all passionately believe in this vision — not least
because science tells us that without it, and early deep cuts in GHG emissions,
we will not be able to achieve the ultimate aim of the Convention: the
stabilisation of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would
prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
If our global energy systems are not fully decarbonised by
2050 there would be neither equity nor fairness. It would mean a world where
hard-won development is lost to dangerous climate change. The transition must
happen in a fair, just and sustainable manner. Those with greater
responsibility and capability must act first and support others to get to a new
energy future. That means insuring that we do not neglect the challenges of
adapting to the climate change impacts happening already today.
In this spirit, ECO has some proposals:
- A long-term goal on mitigation that reflects the need for
differentiation. This means that specifying the time-scales for decarbonising
at the national level should reflect Parties’ differing responsibilities and
capabilities, and what support is available to them. Bearing this in mind, all
Parties should show clear but differentiated trajectories to phasing in 100%
renewable energy and phasing out fossil fuel emissions.
- Those with the greatest responsibility and means to must
act now by increasing their existing pre-2020 ambition obligations.
- Achieving this
transformation will require strong outcomes on pre- and post-2020 finance. Countries requiring support may want to
consider national emission reduction commitments with unconditional and
conditional components, with the latter put up for matching support.
- A long-term goal for 2050 must be combined with a robust
mechanism to increase ambition over time. Progress towards a long-term goal
should be the defining factor over each 5-year cycle.
- There also needs to be a long-term goal to enable and
support adaptation alongside the mitigation one. The Parties that are committed
to a fair and equitable outcome in Paris — and ECO hopes that this is everyone!
— should never allow the two goals to become separated and lonely.
As part of a Paris outcome that respects these five
suggestions, a long-term mitigation goal will embody the Convention's
fundamental principles and help achieve its ultimate objective.
Afraid of Compliance?
ECO is happy to see that compliance is high on many priority
lists, with many agreeing on the importance of enshrining a compliance
mechanism in the core agreement. After all, Parties must want to comply with
what they commit to when they commit to it, right? Sure.
While observing the deliberations on compliance, both by
itself and in conjunction with differentiation, ECO has come up with a handful
of thoughts on the inter-related issues of bindingness, accountability and
effectiveness.
The Paris agreement’s effectiveness depends upon it being
binding under international law, and also on adequate commitments,
participation of major emitters and effective implementation. This prompts the
question: how can the new regime ensure that nations respect and comply with
these key commitments? ECO notes that compliance mechanisms should help to
identify potential cases and causes of non-compliance at an early stage, and
then formulate appropriate responses. As such, they promote enforcement across
the board while fostering coherence in implementation.
The Kyoto Protocol has this type of compliance mechanism. It
involves a facilitative branch to provide support to Parties in their
implementation process, as well as an enforcement branch to deter
non-compliance. By contrast, the Cancun Agreements disregarded enforcement and
instead set up two parallel MRV systems for developed and developing countries.
These two systems relied on transparency: reporting, technical review and peer
review. Transparency of action has become one of the six core elements of the
Durban Platform despite the current widely diverging views on whether the Paris
agreement should rely on MRV alone or also include a robust compliance
mechanism.
The debate needs to include a discussion of the role of
civil society, which can foster compliance by disseminating information,
driving awareness on national commitments, promoting participation around
meeting goals, and enhancing public scrutiny. Meaningful public participation
should be recognised as critical to the effective operation of a compliance
regime in the Paris agreement.
Don’t be afraid of the compliance mechanism in the Paris
agreement, the only people that need to be are those unwilling to be held to
their commitments.
Finance: A Three Part Act
As negotiators prepare their last-minute assessments of the
finance section, ECO doesn’t think that it’ll be too hard to guess which
Parties will be rather happy with how the finance section of the Geneva text
was distributed across the co-chairs’ tool.
Part One (to become the core agreement) contains useful
language on some aspects. Yet, it fails to include any constructive proposals
to organise the mechanics of future financial support. For some reason, these
were thrown into Part Three. ECO is puzzled, because what would go into a
treaty if not the mechanics? This needn’t frustrate delegates, since ECO has
been assured many times, Part Three is not a dumping ground of any kind.
ECO will be looking out for suggestions to move some of the
key ideas from Part Three into Part One. For example, the countless references
to needs assessments to ensure climate finance is matching The needs would
logically be placed in Part One. Also, counting the number of paragraphs that
suggest setting (and regularly updating) some form of targets for the provision
of financial support should also belong to the core mechanics of future
support. For instance, by setting collective targets every five years, based on
above-mentioned assessments of support requirements, with separate targets for
adaptation. Obviously, developed countries, but also countries with comparable
levels of responsibility for the problem and capability to act, would
contribute to meeting those targets.
Part One is not completely empty, of course: a general
commitment for certain countries to provide support can be found in quite a few
variations. Similarly, ECO spotted useful language that at least 50% of
financial support should be allocated to adaptation. And there is a reference
to the role of innovative sources of finance which, if tweaked, could get us
exploiting the potentials to generate new and additional public finance. We
have something to start with, but only if mixed with some of the {strong}
ingredients from Part Three will we get a decent Article $: Provision of
Financial Support.
Technology: The Final Frontier
It’s heartening that many Parties (though by no means all!)
are pushing hard to get the right amount of climate finance on the table in
Paris. It should be clear to all that without it, there will be no
intergenerational equity.
Equally important is how that money is spent. With growing
angst that the Kyoto Protocol’s Joint Implementation mechanism has fallen far
short in promised emissions reductions, we must likewise make sure that any
technology deployment provisions in the new post-2020 agreement are held to a
high standard. Let’s talk frankly about how we can make that happen.
The legal agreement must include a Global Technology Goal
that ties Technology Transfer to success in meeting the pathway to the
temperature goal accepted by the agreement. At present, this provision
(paragraph 70) is relegated to Section III, where the Co-Chairs have placed
text needing further clarity.
We need to reference the existing Technology Mechanism in
the Paris agreement and keep open the opportunity to include other such efforts
into the agreement as they come online; there is no time to reinvent the wheel.
That said, we should also make the improvements needed to ensure excellent
outcomes as part of COP decisions. These would include:
Strengthening of the Technology Mechanism to include special
circumstances in Africa, the LDCs and SIDs, emphasising the most marginalised.
Addressing R&D barriers to Technology Transfer,
including collaborative R&D prioritised for the most vulnerable countries
and communities.
Ensuring appropriate Technology Assessment with inclusive
CSO participation, a gender perspective, and integrated, multilateral, independent
and participatory evaluation of technologies for their social, economic and
environmental impacts.
Finally, all of these safeguards above need to be respected
and fully implemented by the GCF-certified bodies that do project funding.
Wheels Up, Emissions Down
Did you have a safe flight into Bonn? Even if there were no
complaints and your flight was uneventful, ECO doesn’t doubt that delegates
would have preferred a plane that emits less GHG, uses the best energy saving
technologies and generates funds to support the most vulnerable among us.
Delegates, you’re in luck—this could be made possible this week through
supporting the text that asks the International Civil Aviation Organisation and
the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to have shipping and aviation do
their fair share on climate action. The sector could also contribute to climate
action by having ICAO’s new Market Based Mechanism designate a share of the
proceeds towards efforts on adaptation and loss and damage. No sector can be
left out, as the LDCs and the EU have noted in their support for action on
international transport emissions. Now it is up to the Parties here to call on
the aviation and shipping industry to do their part.
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