Daily Tck: new text moves negotiations in right direction

• ‘Surgical insertions’ add 14 pages to improved draft negotiating text, moving talks into a new phase of work
  
• Additions bolster the chance for Paris to deliver a more balanced deal, with regular cycles to scale-up inadequate climate action plans
  
• More faith and business leaders add to diverse voices calling on governments to take bold climate, pledging to lead by example

Tuesday’s climate negotiations moved past the fireworks that characterized the beginning of this round of talks, with a new text that captured governments’ proposed ‘surgical insertions’ accepted as the basis of negotiations going forward. While the new text grew from 20 to 34 pages, our partners described the additions from both developed and developing countries as positive overall - bolstering the new global agreement’s potential to help realize the ambition we need, while better balancing its emphasis between mitigation and adaptation.

With the majority of national climate action plans already set and short of what’s needed to safeguard our future, our partners hosted a press conference laying out what they see as crucial elements needed for the new agreement to boost national plans and close the gap in climate action over time. Among them:

Meanwhile, governments moved their discussions into more focused ‘spin-off groups,’ where negotiators could air their positions more freely, and continue work on streamlining the options for a new global agreement before passing the job onto their ministers. Their step toward more substantive negotiations was positive, but soured by an announcement that civil society groups not be allowed in the room. A number of our partners fighting for transparency have protested, and are actively campaigning to regain access.

News, links & useful grist that caught our eye

A statement signed by 154 religious leaders from different faith groups calling for climate action was handed over to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres Tuesday morning. Faith leaders emphasized the moral imperative of climate action, calling on governments to build climate resilience, completely phase-out fossil fuels by mid-century, and ensure that Paris delivers an ambition mechanism to scale-up national action plans every 5 years.

Youth activists added to the push for an ambitious long-term goal, staging a stoic visual action demanding zero emissions by 2050. Track0, which supported the action and has worked doggedly behind the scenes to lobby countries for total decarbonization, released a briefing on which governments are moving in the right direction.

Oman became the first Gulf State to submit its national climate action plan, turning in it’s pledge alongside Caribbean island nation Antigua and Barbuda. While the number of national plans continue to grow, covering the vast majority of global emissions, plans from the majority of OPEC countries are still conspicuously missing.

The UNFCCC published an overview of recent climate finance pledges made in the lead-up to Paris. The Finance topic saw progress in the negotiations Tuesday, but remains far from resolution. A recent piece by Saleemul Huq might help you make heads and tails out of the complicated landscape.

Outside of the negotiations, attention was focused on Canada, who’s citizens ousted Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in favor of the more climate action friendly Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau. Under the former Prime Minister’s rule, Canada put fossil fuels at the forefront of the political platform, promoting tar sands development and pipeline projects, and pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol. As Canadians usher in their new leader, expectations are running high for the PM-elect to live up to claims for robust change. Pressure is now on for Trudeau to flip Canada’s reputation from a climate laggard to a climate leader. Our Tree Alert has more.

Six heads of state joined a World Bank coordinated call for carbon pricing, in the highest level intervention to date. Leaders from Germany, Chile, France, Ethiopia, Philippines and Mexico voiced support for moves to make climate polluters pay. At the same time, Bloomberg reportsthat the US is engaged in talks on setting international rules and guidelines for global carbon trading outside of the UN process, in the event that Paris fails to establish a framework for such a system.

Subnational action continued to gain momentum as dozens more corporate giants, including Walmart, Mars, and PG&E, signed onto the ‘American Business Act on Climate’ pledge. 81 companies have signed since the agreement was first unveiled in June, representing the increasing diversity of business voices and organizations throwing their weight behind climate action. In other exciting subnational action news, Oslo, capital of Europe’s largest holder of oil and gas reserves, set new green targets pledging to divest from all fossil fuels and ban cars from its city center.

In less inspiring news, new estimates from the Global Fire Emissions Database show that over 100,000 active fires have burned in Indonesia so far this year. Since September, Indonesia’s fire outbreaks have produced more daily emissions than the entire US economy.

Resources

Press conferences continued to feed updates on the state of play to news organizations Tuesday. In addition to the Climate Action Network, ACT Alliance discussed the Faith declaration and the incoming French COP President laid out his view of progress and the road ahead.

Our friends at the Climate Action Network International are publishing daily ECO newsletters, laying out their case to negotiators. Wednesday’s ECO focuses

IISD’s reporting service has high-resolution pictures from Day 2 inside the World Conference Center, and more to come throughout the next two weeks. They also have a detailed overview of Monday’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.