Bipolar on Climate Change at COP24

Posted on December 17, 2018 by christashute

Choose one word to describe the results of COP24 and the state of climate change today. Bipolar … dramatically bipolar. We find ourselves torn between despair and hope, between optimism and realism, between real progress and a Paris rulebook with no rules. Though Polish officials declared success, really the Paris rulebook that came from COP24 is an agreement to disagree and try again later.

The good news is that after weeks of marathon, overnight negotiating sessions the parties came to a 133 page agreement reflecting years of work since the Paris Agreement. What the agreement does do is affirm the Paris Agreement and allow parties to move forward. What it purports to do, but really does not do, is establish the framework, the rulebook as it is called. Yes, there is progress in the agreement, but to call it the rulebook it was supposed to be – that just stretches too far.

The World Resources Institute identified four key elements needed for a Paris Agreement rulebook: 1) common timeframes; 2) reporting and accounting methodologies; 3) transitioning to the new transparency framework; and 4) effective peer review processes. On common timeframes the agreement states that they agree there should be common time frames, they should discuss it in June 2019, and then approved by the COP with even a reference to what year it should be approved by deleted from the final text. The development of a registry that would hold all the NDCs is critical to transparency and access by the public which helps hold Parties accountable. Here again the agreement agrees to have the UNFCCC work on a prototype, but it is subject to confirmation at the COP in November 2019 – another indicator that there were a couple of issues, particularly regarding a search function, that the parties could not agree on. Parties could not agree on the features each NDC should have and pushed consideration of further guidance out until 2024. The Parties did agree (per the Paris Agreement) that they would submit the NDCs based on common information in Annex I and be held accountable via common information in Annex II. However, they could not agree on how “target” should be defined and so the final text simply states – “general description of the target.” Still these Annex’s do call for the information required to at least have a skeleton framework for transparency.

The real big failure at COP24 was a complete breakdown on Article 6. All of the work on cooperative approaches and Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes, (see my earlier blog posts here and here) the work that enables the investment by developed countries into developing countries that is needed to accelerate progress, all of these sections were tabled until next year. They will use the progress in negotiations as a starting point, but without some agreement we cannot begin to create global markets that investors will trust enough to invest in.

Fundamentally, they agreed – thus moving the Paris Agreement forward – to disagree – thus hampering acceleration and progress. As the Assistant Secretary General Elliot Harris quoted Vermont’s Bill McKibben: “If we don’t win very quickly in climate change, then we will never win. … Winning slowly is the same as losing.”

Despair and Hope: Throughout the week there was an endless stream of somber information regarding the reality we are facing. The new UN Emissions Gap Report indicates the gap between what is being done and what is needed has grown significantly while countries fail to perform to their commitments. From estimates that climate change will drive 140 million people to move within a little over 50 years as projected in the World Bank Group Report to entire countries and cultures being obliterated in the Marshall Islands. From the Unites States government report of a 10% impact on the economy double that of the recent great recession that will exacerbate environmental, social and economic inequalities – to the sad reality that we most likely cannot save our coral reefs and arctic ice is disintegrating at a faster pace that scientists had ever predicted. AND YET, we must have hope to move forward – we cannot be crippled by despair. Climate change action is also predicted to yield direct economic gains of $26 trillion according to the New Climate Economy Report.

Frankly that is the world we face now. One where we must simultaneously face the extreme consequences of our apparent failure while maintaining hope that if EVERY ONE OF US does our part we might, just might, avoid catastrophic failure.

“Once you choose hope, anything is possible.” Everyday we will face and experience despair, and every day we must be bipolar and choose hope.

Coaland and the Colossal Fossil

Posted on December 13, 2018 by bencanellys

A true consensus government, the COP leaves the most progressive at the mercy of the most obstinate. In this system, science deniers and climate activists battle it out, yielding ground, gaining concessions, and, often, feeling like they’ve gotten nowhere. As the world burns and our chances to halt the irreversible slip through our fingers, every small victory reminds us that winning slowly is still losing. So what do you do when a coal-loving country holds the gavel? Can observers only wring their hands as an understaffed Polish Presidency sets regressive agendas and embraces corporate polluters?

The answer, of course, is to mock them.

A hero of satire has emerged to hold the worst members of the COP accountable: Climate Action Network and their “Fossil of the Day” awards.

Each day of negotiations, CAN has chosen a deserving winner. Those who, through obstinacy, ignorance, or plain greed, continue to obstruct global climate action, all earn a place on the podium.

The list of daily finalists includes:

Poland;
A rare tie between Brazil & Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Arab Group;
Kuwait, carrying the Arab Group to back-to-back victories;
Germany & Switzerland, finishing one-two respectively;
The United States of America, who took a bold stance, denying the inclusion of Human Rights in the preamble of the Paris Agreement in the Paris Agreement Rule book;
Austria & the Developed Country Members of the ExComm on the WIM;
Egypt;
The Down-Underdogs, Australia; and
Finishing strong after a promising start and clinching the coveted “Colossal Fossil,” our hosts, Poland.

A Polish victory has been brewing all COP. President Andrzej Duda opened his remarks by stating: “There is no plan to fully give up on coal. Experts point out that our supplies run for another 200 years, and it would be hard not to use them.” They’ve followed this up by cozying up to large polluters, filling the venue with single-use plastics, and holding events advertising “clean coal.”

However, most disturbing has been Poland’s battle against climate activism at the COP. At least twelve members of civil society groups and one COP Party delegate were turned away at the Polish border, including CAN Europe’s Zanna Vanrenterghem.

These activities appear to be the product of a new law banning unplanned protesters from Katowice, the COP venue. This barrier to a free and involved public directly belies Poland’s professed commitment “to providing access to information, access to participation, and remedy on environmental matters.” This has had a chilling effect on participants. Coupled with an unambitious conference agenda, the activities of the Polish government have cast a pall over the proceedings that match the one in the air.

What’s cooking in the COP24 kitchen?

Posted on December 13, 2018 by torihellwig

The Polish Presidency addressed observers this evening about what remains to be negotiated on the Paris Agreement Implementation Guidelines before their impending deadline. As the second week of COP24 comes to a close, tensions are high as the remaining items to be hashed out by high level Ministers run late into the evenings. This comes as no surprise, given the existential crises certain Parties are facing as a result of our changing climate. In the words of the Presidency, “discussions continue to happen in silos, as they try to ‘cook’ a balanced text” that is fair in the eyes of all Parties.

The remaining items to be negotiated include: Financial matters; Modalities, procedures and guidelines under the Paris Agreement (PA); Adaptation; Cooperative instruments under Article 6; Matters relating to technology; Response measures; NDC registries; and the Talanoa Dialogue and IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C. This is no small feat, given the mounting social, environmental, and economic pressures. A few prominent observer groups felt strongly about these items, and when invited by the Chair of the session did not hesitate to voice their opinions and confront the Presidency about their concerns.

The Environmental Non-Governmental Organization (ENGO) felt that responses in NDCs to the IPCC report remained inadequate, and feared that trading and compromise would not end favorably for “non-PAWP” related items. The Women and Gender group echoed these concerns, stressing most about the preamble of the pending 1/CP.24, because anything that does not reflect these principles “would be a fraught to humanity.” The Indigenous Peoples Organization responded to the Presidency by admiring the fact that while the COP is trying to “cook a balanced package,” they are concerned about human rights issues, and the IPCC 1.5 Report. YOUNGO called attention to the lacking mandate around enhancement of NDCs, and fears that the Talanoa Dialogue will not be preserved in the final process. Trade Union-NGO (TUNGO) group wanted clear recognition of the IPCC report as well, because “this is why we are here.” The IPCC report is the “why” and the “how” to address our climatic conundrum.

The Presidency responded to everyone’s concerns by reiterating what was said in the plenary earlier that day, and what he outlined in his introduction to this session. He directed observers to the Talanoa Call for Action that called for a rapid mobilization of a variety of social actors to respond to the climate goals agreed upon in the PA, and expects most of these issues to be preserved in the final text as well. While the Presidency hoped to console observer’s concerns, we all still wait in anticipation to see what the head chefs in the Convention kitchen have cooked up for the finale of COP24.

Day 1 (?) at COP24

Posted on December 3, 2018 by tbach

Today began with the typical pomp and circumstance of a climate change Conference of Party (COP). Cultural symbolism, music, and speeches dominated COP24’s official opening ceremony and “high level segment,” where heads of government and state gave national statements about their achievements and aspirations. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres challenged the Paris Agreement parties to find the “political will to compromise: let’s start today doing the work to make the world we want.” The President of Nauru emphasized the intergenerational accountability of everyone in the plenary hall, asking them to think about youth activism on climate change taking place around the globe and the impact of the Parties’ inaction on this generation’s legacy. Remarks by the Captains Regent of San Marino and the President of Slovenia took aim at some current political leaders’ negation of the Paris Agreement. The former observed that “narcissistic politicians” can only see the short term and hunt votes accordingly, and called for “bold and expensive political choices very quickly.” The first sentence of the Slovenian leader’s speech put it bluntly: “The Paris Agreement is not a contract.”

Amidst the hoopla, the Vermont Law School Observer Delegation got to work. We started the morning at the RINGO coordination meeting, meeting delegates from universities, think tanks, and research centers from around the world. Some of us then attended the opening ceremony and high level segment, catching Sir David Attenborough launching the #TakeYourSeat campaign. Others peeled off to join the first ever Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture workshop, the multilateral assessment of four developed countries’ and “facilitative sharing of views” on four developing countries’ reports on progress made on their climate change goals, and sessions on the Paris Committee on Capacity Building and Africa day. Check out today’s posts on this potpourri of COP24 issues.

Tomorrow the Parties will get down to negotiating the nitty gritty of the key outcome of COP24: the Paris Agreement Implementation Guidelines, more colloquially referred to as the Paris “rulebook.” Without these, the Paris Agreement cannot really function as designed. The VLS delegation will focus on five key negotiation issues this week: adaptation (Amanda), AFOLU (Liz), loss and damage (Brian), NDCs (Gabriela), and transparency (Charlie). Tuesday is filling up with “informal consultations” in which the Parties work together on each separate issue to wrestle the current 307-page Paris Agreement Work Program (PAWP) into a more manageable set of rules.

Oh, and the question mark in the title? It challenges the concept of opening day at this COP. Normally COPs start on a Monday with the ceremonial welcome and speeches. So in many ways, today looked like usual practice. But in fact the COP, CMP, CMA, SBI, SBSTA, and APA held their opening plenaries yesterday – a change announced only in early September, well after many participants had made their travel plans. Sunday was a quiet day at the Spodek culture venue in Katowice, punctuated by only a couple of agenda disagreements (e.g. Russia counting Ukraine emissions as their own and Turkey asking yet again to be delisted as an Annex 1 or developed country). Although the atypical start day caught many off guard, in the end it achieved its goal: opening COP24 early so that the high level segment could take place today without slowing down the negotiations. Tomorrow we will be in the thick of the specifics. Stay tuned.