17 November, 2016IndustriALL's director for sustainability Brian Kohler blogs on day 10, 16 November, of the twenty-second Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22), in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Civil Society observers conducted an action in support of the USA staying in the Paris Agreement. Needless to say, there is considerable anxiety on this point and not just from outside of the USA. An interesting aspect of the Paris Decision is a protection against liability – the agreement that loss and damage due to climate change (as defined) “does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation”. Exiting the Paris Agreement may open the USA and USA-based corporations to some interesting – and massive – lawsuits.
One of the important provisions of the Paris Agreement is to have a regular global stocktaking of nationally determined contributions to assess (taken in total) what pathway they place the world on with respect to limiting global warming to less than 2 Celsius degrees. This stocktaking is to start in 2018 with a so-called Facilitative Dialogue, with stocktaking meetings at five-year intervals thereafter.
Here in Marrakesh some of the difficult meetings have concerned the structural and administrative details of how this Facilitative Dialogue and subsequent stocktaking, will take place. Trade unions hope that the process will be inclusive and transparent.
In other discussions, there is still a funding gap, there is still disagreement on how to qualify project eligibility under the funds, and there is still no clear pathway for capacity building. Just starting are discussions on how to frame the overall outcome of COP22.
An interesting side event coordinated by Sharan Burrow with the participation of Australian government representatives and others, focused on Just Transition in the context of Port Augusta, Australia, a community that had been economically reliant on a coal-fired power plant but plans to become a leader in solar energy.
State of Ratification: Patricia Espinos, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC reported that as of 16 November 2016, 110 nations had ratified the Paris Agreement.