Tag Archives: carbon trading

This Is [Not] The End

The diplomats who run UNFCCC climate negotiations are fond of doing what they call a “stock take” every once in a while. As we wait and wait for the final COP25 plenary to begin, a day into overtime, let’s do the same.

We came to Madrid with the situation in Chile in our minds and hearts. We have tried to echo the demands of the streets in the halls of power, as have many others.

At every opportunity we told the COP25 Presidency that we stand in solidarity with the movements in Chile. We supported their demand that Chile stop all repression of peaceful protestors, and take responsibility for human rights violations committed. We also supported calls for the government to establish a constituent assembly.

Chilean movements are clear in their opposition to an economic system which creates and perpetuates inequality. The same system is pouring fuel on the flames of the climate crisis – all around the world.

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COP cazeloraso

We marched with 500,000 others against such a system.

https://twitter.com/pragmactivist/status/1203060968030457864?s=20

And we took the anger of the streets into the halls of power. Because as climate justice movements we are for the many, not the few.

For this the UN security ripped our banners away, shouted at us and kettled us. Over 300 of us were pushed outside, into the cold, before finally being taken outside the venue, to a militarised police escort, before being split up and made to wait.

This all happened a matter of hours after Greta Thunberg gave a powerful speech to the conference, in which she said:

In just three weeks we will enter a new decade. This coming decade will define our future. Right now we are desperate for any sign of hope. Well I am telling you there is hope. I have seen it. But it does not come from governments or corporations. It comes from the people.

Of course this wasn’t the first or last action that we took.

https://twitter.com/ethanbuckner/status/1202619310545481729?s=20

No Ambition

Arriving in Madrid we knew that time is running out. A new decade is weeks away. We lamented the loss of the previous decade to inaction and distraction.

We hoped that when countries took stock of their climate actions prior to 2020 they would see the shocking gulf between what they’ve done what what they needed to have done. And then *do* something about it. But just like in 2014, 2016, and 2018, we sat through yet another pointless talk-shop. Neither the COP President nor the UNFCCC offered a process for this ‘stock take’ to lead to anything concrete.

Developing countries proposed to set up a work programme to properly examine the actions taken during pre-2020 period and bridge the “implementation gap.”

It’s good to see a few more people here than at the technical pre-2020 stocktake. Tellingly the room is a lot less crowded that the plenary with Greta this morning. Priorities, right?

In that plenary we heard for the umpteenth time that we have an extremely limited amount of time in which to completely transform our economy and societies.

We’ve already glimpsed the horrors that await us if we don’t – a world on fire and battered by storms. An even less equitable world, less able to react properly to this emergency.

What we haven’t seen is any serious response. Developed countries were supposed to lead but have done next to nothing since 1990. UNEP talks about a lost decade; we should actually talk about 3 lost decades.

It is very hard to build trust with broken promises. I said it at the last plenary: it is a joke that 7 years after it was agreed, Parties have still not ratified the Doha Amendment. The Paris Agreement was ratified in under a year.

We enter the Paris Agreement carrying the failings of the recent past and present. Both mitigation and finance has been wholly inadequate in pre-2020, and sets us up for post-2020 action which will be more challenging, and less fair. 

So here’s a question: How can we expect anything from the Paris Agreement if pre-2020 agreements have been cast aside? 

Here’s another: what’s the point of distant, loophole-ridden, false-zero 2050 targets such as the UK’s, when pre-2020 action has been forgotten? Today’s leaders won’t be alive, let alone in power in 2050. We know your 2050 pledges are just more lies.

For these reasons, we echo the proposal by LMDC, supported by Africa Group, Arab group, and others, for COP25 to mandate a work programme on closing the pre-2020 implementation gaps on mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, and capacity building and to close those gaps. We need more ideas like this.

We don’t need any more conversations or reflections. Do your fair share.

No Accountability

We have another potentially useful tool to assess and hold northern countries accountable for the climate action they have or haven’t taken before 2020. It’s called the 2nd Periodic Review. The last report of this kind produced language about 1.5 and 2 degrees goals which eventually made its way into the Paris Agreement.

But developed countries were aware of this and made proposals which would make the 2nd Review yet another meaningless talk-shop. The US proposed to cancel the review, and when that was not a viable option proposed to narrow the scope to just science. The EU tried to remove the words “assess” and “adequacy” from the text.

Instead the text includes a very watered down phase, “aggregate effect,” which could mean individual country’s commitments can’t be singled out. So there’s no way to hold polluters to account.

“Article 6”

The main course for the past 2 weeks, leaving us all with indigestion, was a re-heated dish called “Article 6.” Or, as it has come to be known, “how to pollute more and get away with it” (for background, read above).

Article 6 emerged from negotiations on how countries could work together to reduce emissions. But many polluting countries have fixated on carbon trading and offsetting. Which is frustrating, as these approaches have failed to reduce carbon emissions, and have detrimentally impacted human rights while simultaneously commodifying nature.

These discussions are highly contentious and highly complex. This issue nearly scuppered the COP24 last year in Poland and could potentially do so for real this time. Under pressure to reach any agreement, countries risk landing on a bad agreement. In such a case we think that no deal is better.

Some of the main issues of contention, still unresolved at 4am on Sunday 15 December, are:

  • whether or not to include language about respecting human rights, indigenous rights, and gender safeguards
  • whether or not to carry over carbon credits from a previous trading scheme
  • whether or not to allow for carried credits to be sold or used by the country that generated them
  • how to conduct “corresponding adjustments” to countries emissions’ data after a trade, in order to avoid “double counting” of emissions reductions
  • whether or not to include metrics other than reductions in greenhouse gases in the mechanism
  • whether or not to allow for all forms of greenhouse gas removal, rather than merely “removals by sinks”
  • how to take the conversation forward on “non-market approaches” to collaboration
  • whether or not some “share of proceeds” from profit generated by the new mechanism would go towards the Adaptation Fund
  • whether or not some of the emission reductions generated through the mechanism remain unused by any entity to compensate other emissions, to achieve “overall reduction in global emissions.”

On Friday night the “landing zone” for these questions resembled a sort of crash-site. Human rights are probably in, but in an annex. We think that either carry overs or double counting will make it in. But the countries basically do not agree at all and everyone is saying they won’t back down.

Loss and damage refers to how we deal with the impacts of climate breakdown that are already happening and cannot be avoided. Sudden disasters and slow onset events like droughts lead to loss of lives and livelihoods, but also loss and heritage and culture.

Negotiators disappeared behind closed doors early on and stayed there. Developing countries were very active and put forward their ideas in writing. This directed discussions more towards concrete implementation than ever before. Many civil society groups also advanced the idea of setting up a loss and damage finance facility.

However, rich countries repeatedly blocked loss and damage finance. The US in particular played a lead role in wrecking this lifeline plan for the world’s poor. They proposed to insert a no liability or compensation clause into the Paris Agreement. This would give historical polluters blanket protection against any liability and compensation claims.

The proposal was too hot to leave to technical negotiators and so went to the COP25 Presidency to sort out at a higher level.

The small islands made a rather weak proposal which didn’t include a finance facility. Instead they asked for a ‘window’ under the Green Climate Fund (one of the UNFCCC’s multilateral funding mechanisms). Other proposals watered down demands for “new and additional” finance from the historic polluter countries – seemingly in exchange for getting sort term relief on the ground.

Eventually they produced a draft text that would:

  • Establish a long-overdue “Expert Group” by 2020
  • Establish a “Santiago Network” to catalyse technical assistance
  • Contain no language on new and additional finance
  • “Urge” developed nations to “scale up” finance
  • Refer to available finance rather than generating new and additional finance
  • Ask for loss and damage finance to come from the Green Climate Fund (GCF)

This last point is a problem because it “cuts the same cake into more pieces”. Diverting money from the GCF also means eating into adaptation finance and ultimately exposing more people to climate disasters.

Developed countries persisted in opposing the need to have a discussion on long-term finance. As far as they are concerned it ends in 2020 even though the Paris Agreement extends it to 2025. Developing countries made a big stink towards the end of COP and made frequent mention of finance in the plenaries.

Total Breakdown

All of the above issues were unresolved by the scheduled end time. The talks rolled on to Saturday amid a subdued atmosphere. No glimpse of an agreement was on the horizon. Scheduled closing plenaries disappeared from screens. The Presidency announced a final stock taking session for Saturday morning. Then Saturday evening, then midnight, then 3.30am Sunday. None of them were followed by a closing plenary.

https://twitter.com/wirereporter/status/1205826374952538113?s=20

The mood turned sour and those civil society who were left issued ever more alarming soundbites to the even fewer remaining journalists.

The blame is clear.

We held a space to represent the views of the people of the world. Not the governments.

At the time of writing (4am Sunday morning) the negotiations are still ongoing. Countries are hell bent on avoiding a no-deal. None of them want to deal with the fallout. Copenhagen has traumatised them as it traumatised us.

But the agreements are hard to come by. Finance, loss and damage, article 6, and the COP decision itself are all stuck. The Presidency keeps drafting new texts based on inputs but when the inputs are contradictory, trust is at an all-time low and the diplomacy skills are weak, what chance is there of success?

We will present the final decisions, if indeed Parties arrive at any, and explain what they mean as soon as we can.

Statement on COP25

Big Polluters and Northern countries are throwing gasoline on the fire of the climate crisis, knowingly paving the way for even more fossil fuels

To endorse this statement, sign on here. **Español abajo**

Before COP25 even began, it was clear that Big Polluters — including the fossil fuel, agriculture, forestry, and carbon market industries — plan to lock the world into catastrophic warming in the next few years.  Intended fossil fuel expansion by 2030 is at least 50% beyond a 2C target and 120% beyond what may be compatible with the global commitment to limit heating to 1.5C. The vast majority of this expansion is projected to come from the U.S. and Canada.  

Big Polluters brought their agenda straight to the halls of the U.N. at COP25. With the help of governments like the U.S., EU, Australia, Canada, and others historically most responsible for the climate crisis, these polluters are strategically advancing rather than protecting against this deadly agenda:

  • They want to use carbon markets to “offset” rather than cut emissions, by commodifying nature and shifting burdens through carbon trading to the South — burdens that will be disproportionately forced onto and violate the rights of women, youth, indigenous peoples, and frontline communities. 
  • Polluting countries and corporations are pushing so-called “nature-based solutions,” which could be a euphemism for large scale biomass burning, carbon storage technologies, the commodification of the ocean, and carbon trading and offsets, that will displace food production and force continued deforestation.
  • Seemingly innocuous language on metrics could open the door to the most dangerous geo-engineering technologies by spraying sulfur into the Earth’s atmosphere to block some sunlight from reaching the planet. 

The result of all of this is that food security and the integrity of biodiverse ecosystems would simultaneously be threatened by climate change, by carbon trading projects, and by large-scale geo-engineered disruption of the planet. All this so that Big Polluters can continue digging up, burning, and profiting from fossil fuels.

These polluters know they are wreaking havoc on the planet but seek to extract as much profit as possible in the near term with the vain idea that their wealth will protect them from the impacts of planetary breakdown.

That’s why, in addition to all the above, they are seeking to avoid any liability for this deliberate destruction by attempting to expand a waiver against liability and block compensation and finance in discussions that are designed to protect the communities on the frontlines from harmful impacts: loss and damage.

If these proposals – being rammed through by polluting governments and the corporate interests they are serving – are packaged into a “deal” at the close of this COP, it will surely be a deal only for the corporate elites, while damning people and the planet. Such a deal would completely disregard best agreed science, including that presented by the IPCC.  It would condemn those on the frontlines of the climate crisis, while hiding the crimes of polluters. And it would lead to increased inequality with no increase in ambition, no real emissions reductions, and no pathway to 1.5. 

Experts have now assessed that the existential threat of climate change impacts surpasses that of weapons of mass destruction. We need bold, transformative and immediate action: We must prevent the proliferation of fossil fuels. We must fast track a just and peaceful transition to a safe, healthy and sustainable future for all. We must make Big Polluters pay for the damage they’ve caused.

It is not too late for governments to change the outcomes of COP25. In these final hours, it is not too late for developing countries to stand strong, to resolutely refuse the agenda of polluters. The need is clear: Advance real solutions, not carbon markets. Ensure developed countries provide funds and technology to help avert and minimize the worst impacts of climate change. Respect gender, youth and human rights, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples. And, recognizing that these polluters have known full well the harms they’ve caused, protect the right of sovereign nations to hold them liable. 

From the Amazon to the Arctic, our world is on fire. Allowing expansion of coal, oil and gas production at this moment of history is throwing gasoline on the fire. 

ActionAid International
Aksi! Indonesia
Alliance for Future Generations – Fiji
ALTSEAN
Les Amis de la Terre Togo
Arctic Youth Sweden
Articulación de Movimientos Sociales de Nicaragua
Artivist Network
ASEED Europe
Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development
Asociación Cubana de las Naciones Unidas
Asociación Cubana de Producción Animal
Asociación Cubana de Técnicos Agrícolas y Forestales
Asociación filosófica de artes marciales songahm, Uruguay 
Asociación Nacional de Economistas y Contadores de Cuba
Athens County Fracking Action Network
BankTrack
Center for Biological Diversity
Centre for Environmental Justice, Sri Lanka
Centro Ecosocial Latinoamericano 
Centro Félix Varela
CIET-Uruguay
CLEAN (Coastal Livelihood and Environmental Action Network)
CLEAN Kulna Bangladesh
Climate Justice Edmonton
Climate Justice Programme
The Climate Reality Project América Latina
Climate Watch Thailand
CliMates
Coalición México Salud-Hable
Colectivo Pro Derechos Humanos, PRODH-Ecuador
Colectivo Viento Sur
Collectif Breakfree – Switzerland
Collectif Senegalais des Africaines pour la Promotion de l’Education Relative a l’Environnement (COSAPERE)
Comisión Nacional Permanente de Lucha Antitabáquica – COLAT
Consejo de Iglesias de Cuba
Corporate Accountability
Corporate Europe Observatory
CUBASOLAR
Dakota Water Walk and Ride
Diko Bigas Institute Nepal
Earth in Brackets
EarthWorks
Eco Justice Valandovo
Ecologistas en Acción
Educar Consumidores
Energy and Climate Policy Institute for Just Transition
ENLACES por la Sustentabilidad
Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria
ETC Group
FIC Argentina
FESAR-Ecuador
Fiji Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Alliance (FYSA)
Foro de Salud Pública, Ecuador
Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Friends of the Earth Europe
Friends of the Earth International
Friends of the Earth Scotland
Frontera Water Protection Alliance
Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Argentina)
Fundación Ellen Riegner de Casas
Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer 
Fundación Salud Ambiente y Desarrollo, FUNSAD, Ecuador
Fundeps-Argentina
Gastivists
GenderCC-Women for Climate Justice
The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice
Global Forest Coalition
Global Justice Ecology Project
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance 
Green Course
Health of Mother Earth Foundation
Indian Social Action Forum
Indigenous Environmental Network – International
International Centre for Climate Change and Development
International Economic OrganizationWorld Distribution Federation
Karavali Karnataka Janabhivridhi Vedike
Krisoker Sor Farmers’ Voice
Landesa (Rural Development Institute)
LEDARS Bangladesh 
March for Science
Mesa Colombiana de Incidencia por las Enfermedades Crónicas (MECIEC)
MOCICC-Peru
Mom Loves Taiwan Association
National Association of Professional Environmentalists
National Hawkers Federation India
NGO Defensoría Ambiental
Oil Change International
Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica de Puerto Rico, (CLOC – LVC, Caribe)
People’s Coalition on the Right to Water Indonesia (KRuHA)
Planète Amazone
Plataforma Boliviana frente al Cambio Climático
El Poder del Consumidor, México
Proyectando un Ambiente y Sociedad Verde A.C.
Redhawk Native American Arts Council
Red Uruguaya ONGs Ambientalistas
Redrum Motorcycle Club
RENATA-Costa Rica
Sacred Stone
Salud Justa Mx- México
Schaghticoke First Nations
Seeding Sovereignty
Semilla Warunkwa
SERUNI Indonesia
Servicios Ecuménicos para Reconciliación y Reconstrucción
Sierra Club BC
Sociedad Amigos del Viento (Uruguay)
Sociedad Cubana para la Promoción de las fuentes renovables de energía y respeto ambiental
Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries
Südwind
Sukaar welfare organization Pakistan
SustainUS
Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services
UKYCC
United Confederation of Taíno People
La Via Campesina
War on Want
What Next Forum
Women Engage for a Common Future
Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)
Women’s March Global
World March of Women – Switzerland
World Peace and Prayer Day
Young European Greens
Young Friends of the Earth Macedonia
Youth Volunteers for the Environment
350.org

Declaración conjunta de la sociedad civil sobre la COP25

Los grandes contaminadores y los países del norte están arrojando gasolina al fuego de la crisis climática, abriendo deliberadamente el camino para aún más combustibles fósiles.

Incluso antes de que comenzara la COP25, estaba claro que los grandes contaminadores, incluidas las industrias de combustibles fósiles, agricultura, silvicultura y mercados de carbono, planean condenar al mundo a un calentamiento catastrófico en los próximos años. Los planes de expansión de la industria de combustibles fósiles para el 2030 nos llevaría al menos a 50% por encima del objetivo de 2˚C y a 120% más de lo compatible con el compromiso global de limitar el calentamiento en 1.5˚C. Se prevé que la gran mayoría de esta expansión provenga de los EE.UU. Y Canadá.

Los grandes contaminadores trajeron su agenda directamente a los pasillos de la ONU en la COP25. Con la ayuda de gobiernos como Estados Unidos, la Unión Europea, Australia, Canadá y otros históricamente responsables de la crisis climática. Estos contaminadores en lugar de proteger, están avanzando estratégicamente esta agenda mortal :

  • Quieren utilizar los mercados de carbono para “compensar” en lugar de reducir las emisiones, mediante la mercantilización de la naturaleza y através del comercio de carbono hacia el Sur, mecanismos que se traducirán en violaciones desproporcionadas de los derechos de las mujeres, los jóvenes, los pueblos indígenas y las comunidades en primera línea.
  • Los países y corporaciones contaminantes están impulsando las llamadas “soluciones basadas en la naturaleza”, que puede ser un eufemismo para la quema de biomasa a gran escala, las tecnologías de almacenamiento de carbono y las compensaciones para el comercio de carbono, que competirán con la producción de alimentos y fomentarán la deforestación.
  • Quieren ir aún más lejos y abrir la puerta a las peligrosas tecnologías de geoingeniería para rociar azufre en la atmósfera de la Tierra para evitar que el calor del sol llegue al planeta.

Como resultado, la seguridad de alimentos y la integridad de los ecosistemas biodiversos se verán amenazados simultáneamente por el cambio climático, por los proyectos de comercio de carbono y por la disrupción de la geoingeniería a escala planetaria. Todo esto para que los grandes contaminadores puedan continuar extrayendo, quemando y haciendo lucro de los combustibles fósiles.

Estos contaminadores saben que están causando estragos en el planeta, pero buscan extraer la mayor cantidad de ganancias posibles a corto plazo con la vana idea de que su riqueza los protegerá de los impactos del colapso planetario.

Es por eso que, además de todo lo anterior, buscan evitar cualquier responsabilidad por esta destrucción deliberada al fomentar una exención contra la responsabilidad y bloquear la idea de compensación y financiamiento en las discusiones de Daños y Perdidas, que están diseñadas para proteger a las comunidades en la primera línea de los impactos destructivos.

Si estas propuestas, producto de la captura corporativa de los gobiernos, se materializan en un “acuerdo” al finalizar esta COP, será, sin lugar a duda, un acuerdo solo para las élites corporativas, mientras que condenará a los pueblos y al planeta. Tal acuerdo ignoraría por completo las recomendaciones de la ciencia, incluida la presentada por el IPCC. Condenaría a los que están en la primera línea de la crisis climática, mientras oculta los crímenes de los contaminadores. Y conduciría a un aumento de la desigualdad y no a un aumento de la ambición climática, sin reducciones de emisiones reales y sin un camino hacia 1.5˚C.

Los expertos han aseverado que la amenaza existencial que el cambio climático representa, supera la de las armas de destrucción masiva. Necesitamos medidas audaces, transformadoras e inmediatas: debemos evitar la proliferación de los combustibles fósiles. Debemos acelerar una transición justa y pacífica hacia un futuro seguro, saludable y sostenible para todos. Debemos hacer que los grandes contaminadores paguen por el daño que han causado.

No es demasiado tarde para que los gobiernos cambien los resultados de la COP25. En estas últimas horas, no es demasiado tarde para que los países en desarrollo se mantengan firmes y rechacen decididamente la agenda de los contaminadores. La necesidad es clara: avanzar en soluciones reales, no en mercados de carbono. Asegurar que los países desarrollados proporcionen recursos financieros y tecnología para ayudar a evitar y minimizar los peores impactos del cambio climático. Respetar los derechos de género, jóvenes y humanos, incluyendo los derechos de los pueblos inígenos. Y, reconociendo que estos contaminadores conocen bien los daños que han causado, proteger el derecho soberano de las naciones a responsabilizarlos.

Desde el Amazonas hasta el Ártico, nuestro mundo está en llamas. Permitir la expansión de la producción de carbón, petróleo y gas en este momento de la historia es arrojar gasolina al fuego.