Thank you co-facilitators.

I am Victor Menotti of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice speaking on behalf of Environmental NGOs.

ENGOs were asked to address the topic of international cooperation, an idea in the Paris Agreement‘s Article 14, which says, “in the light of equity and the best available science…the global stocktake SHALL inform Parties in…enhancing international cooperation“, thus making it integral for action going forward.

One main principle for effective cooperation is everyone doing their fair share, which is consistent with equity, in any collective effort. If major players shirk their responsibilities, then trust deteriorates, cooperation collapses and we fail to meet our common goal.

Economists call violators of this principle “free riders“ because they benefit from doing disproportionately little, while letting others bear the burden of caring for common goods. Even President Biden pushes for all Americans to pay their fair share of taxes.

Yet at yesterday’s NDC Roundtable, we saw considerable comment, and some confusion, not on aligning actions with 1.5C, but on how countries can do it equitably.

While NDCs might be, by definition, decided domestically, they must also be informed by international realities. If not, we will fail.

Since the Paris Agreement, civil society has used a climate equity calculator that shows, according to each country’s historical responsibilities and respective capabilities, its equitable contribution to the global effort of – not dividing a blown carbon budget – but actually achieving 1.5C equitably.  It includes the level of international cooperation required, because it is integral to getting to our goal equitably. 

Several Parties have also developed methodologies to quantify equitable contributions, beginning with Brazil from 25 years ago, as well as Switzerland, India, China, and who knows how many others. That‘s why ENGOs are urging Parties to use the GST Dialogue to discuss these methodologies, to debate their merits, and to urge countries to use them in developing their NDCs.  It’s not too late, so we again ask Parties to take up this discussion, formally or informally, but before you determine your contribution, and urgently.

GST outcomes also need cooperation to advance COP28‘s headline outcome of “transitioning from fossil fuels,“ since 60% of today‘s developed reserves must remain in the ground to stay within 1.5C. But doing this equitably, orderly and responsibly means cooperating on a level that is still unimaginable for many people today, yet the survival of our planet and its peoples depend on it; not in the future, but now. 

Cooperation on fossil fuels, to be fair, requires the largest historical polluters who are still major producers to be the first and fastest to phase out. For example, the US “pause“ on new LNG export permits must be made permanent, and put into its NDC. And its record oil output rapidly reduced so it stops undercutting stable prices that other oil-producing countries need to finance their own transitions.

Cooperation on finance means not only agreeing at COP29 on a quantum, its quality, etc., but delivering on that deal through updated NDCs with non-mitigation elements of finance and technology.  For the largest historical polluters to cut their emissions by merely the global average is one form of free riding, but then failing to provide the finance and technology they committed to provide further degrades trust and deepens the crisis.

Cooperation can also advance non-market approaches for forests and land to mobilize Means of Implementation for GST‘s goal of reversing deforestation by 2030, recognizing that carbon finance is not climate finance.

As ES SImon Steill noted at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, NCQG outcomes also depend  on what happens outside UNFCCC, from reforming MDBs to mobilizing private finance. That’s why NDCs could also incorporate actions resulting from other arenas of international cooperation, including:

– Debt reduction in ongoing restructuring talks;

– Tax justice through a new UN Tax Convention;

– Relaxing monopoly patents for intellectual property rights

– Reforming discriminatory world trade rules against developing countries

– Shifting fossil fuel subsidies toward energy sufficiency, efficiency, and renewables

– Redirecting military budgets toward climate finance while reducing military emissions.

All of these areas will provide more fiscal space to developing country budgets and significantly lower the overall bill for NCQG.

International cooperation must take many forms to fit the purpose of protecting our planet and its peoples, so see this as just a beginner’s list to get us going on what must become a new era of diplomacy that delivers climate justice.