Daily Tck: UN Climate Talks resume in Bonn

• From the Presidents of Brazil and France, to the leading lights of the Muslim Community and beyond, there is a growing understanding that the new climate agreement must signal the end of the fossil fuel era

• This new wave of momentum comes as negotiators meet in Bonn to address the structure of the Paris deal

• September kicks off a vital few months for diplomacy and increasing mobilization for climate action

UN climate talks resumed in Bonn, Germany on Monday, with just 10 days of formal negotiations left before the climate summit in Paris later this year. Government delegates are tasked with making progress on what a new climate deal – to be signed in Paris – could look like; and many of our partners have joined them in Bonn to ensure that deal is in line with a long-term goal of phasing out fossil fuels and keeping warming well below the internationally agreed 2DegC danger threshold.

A new text, released last month to help create a “clearer picture” of the new agreement, separates the issues and elements of a potential Paris outcome into three main sections. The first contains text pertaining to the core legal agreement. The second contains elements likely to be incorporated into a supporting (COP) decision. The final section contains a number of important elements that haven’t yet received enough support to find a home in the legal agreement or accompanying decision.

This final section includes many of the more ambitious proposals that are essential to the Paris deal’s integrity - such as on a long-term goal to phase-out greenhouse gas emissions; a toolkit to allow government’s climate action plans to be regularly reviewed and scaled-up over time in line with this goal; and mechanisms that will allow communities to build resilience and ensure vulnerable countries are given the support needed to take action. Many of our partner’s will focus on moving these essential options into the first two sections, as the text is whittled down into a manageable menu for ministers to engage later this year.

While work in Bonn focuses on the agreement’s structure and streamlining, much of the heavy lifting will happen outside of formal negotiations. September marks the start of an intense and vital few months of climate diplomacy, with a ministerial hosted by the French and Peruvian presidencies immediately following the Bonn talks. Ministers are due to discuss how finance and adaptation will be included in the agreement, and are expected to map out how they can deliver the $100 billion a year in climate finance promised by 2020, which is a prerequisite for poorer countries to sign on to the new agreement in December. The ministerial and a host of other high level events in the coming months, will give ministers the opportunity to dig into substance and provide clear instructions toward further shaping the Paris agreement ahead of the December conference.

At the same time, it’s increasingly clear that the UN Climate Talks are only part of a larger transformational agenda - from high to low carbon economies. In June, the leaders of the world’s largest economies signaled game-over for fossil fuels when they called for a global decarbonisation during the course of the century. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff became the first leader from a major emerging economy to do the same, joining German Chancellor Angela Merkel in committing to decarbonising their countries’ economies. French President Francois Hollande made similar signals acknowledging a “viable” Paris agreement would see 80 per cent of fossil fuel resources stay in the ground, while Anote Tong, President of the republic of Kiribati, has called for a global moratorium on new coal.

News, links & useful grist that caught our eye

The latest political momentum is a direct result of growing demand for climate action, coming from almost every direction. In recent weeks, Islamic leaders urged the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to to make climate change a priority issue. Their call comes mere months after the Pope addressed a similar call to 1.2 billion Catholics - many of whom are taking part in the first ‘World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation’ as this message lands in your inbox. Others are acting in solidarity September 1st, with a climate justice fast.

In July we saw 13 of the world’s largest companies announce goals to cut their emissions up to 50%, moving toward 100% renewables in their power supply. The announcement totaled up to $US 140 billion in low-carbon investment. That came on the heels of an unprecedented mobilization of over 6.5 million companies from 130 countries, joining the global call for a zero emissions future. Even those companies that traditionally rely on fossil fuels for their fortune are waking up to the threat of dirty energy and the need to change their business models - last week the French giant Total become the latest energy company to turn its back on coal.

Cities, institutions, and funds are increasingly moving away from dirty energy; with Newcastle, Australia – home to the world’s largest coal port – becoming the latest to join the divestment movement. To date, 350 institutions around the world have pledged to divest from fossil fuels - and the number is on the rise.

Meanwhile, energy at the heart of the climate movement is growing along with its numbers.Leading artists, journalists, scientists and academics have called for a mobilisation on par with slavery’s abolition and anti-apartheid movement - and those plans are well-underway. Many of those mobilization plans will kick off when government’s meet in New York later this month to launch a set of global Sustainable Development Goals, and acknowledge for the first time that we cannot solve poverty without solving climate change.

Even with political momentum, important acknowledgements and climate action on the rise, we’re seeing increasing reminders that it’s not fast enough. The island nation of Dominica served as the latest example, with at least 40 people presumed dead in the wake of Tropical Storm Erika. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit described the impact of this latest extreme weather event as setting the nation’s developmental progress back by 20 years.

Resources

Many of the previous paragraphs were lifted from our Bonn Tree Alert: Fossil fuels on the backfoot as UN climate talks resume in Bonn. Click through to find a whole library of additional links to resources that will deepen your understanding of the state of play. You can find additional Tree Alerts in English, French and Chinese at TreeAlerts.org.

Our colleagues in from the Climate Action Network International - including Alix Mazounie of RAC France, Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace, and Tasneem Essop of WWF - shared expectations for this week’s negotiations and how it fits with the wider, quickly evolving, world of climate politics. Here’s a link to the video.

WWF campaigner Jaco du Toit published a blog about how the efforts we’re pouring into the UNFCCC are aimed at building a bridge to the future. The Pandas also released a series of infographics on what’s needed to ensure Paris delivers a fair and transformational outcome.

Our friends at the Climate Action Network International are publishing daily ECO newsletterslaying out their case to negotiators.

We have a small team of Climate Trackers in Bonn, blogging at AdoptaNegotiator.org and writing for a few newspapers around the world (ES, DE, PH).

They’re also hosting a series of webinars throughout the week - the latest focused on efforts to ensure the Paris Agreement includes an ambitious long term goal, including perspectives from SustainUS, Track 0 and Avaaz. Tuesday’s Climate Tracker webinar host members of the International Federation of Medical Students working to get health included in the UN Climate Negotiations agreement.

IISD’s reporting service has high-resolution pictures from Day 1 inside the World Conference Center, and more to come throughout the next two weeks. They also have a detailed overview of Tuesday’s negotiations.

Useful hashtags for tracking the negotiations in real-time are #ADP2, #UNFCCC and #COP21. We’ll join the conversation on twitter via @tcktcktck.

We’ll also keep you abreast of developments in the wider world of climate activism and action at tcktcktck.org.