December 2019, Madrid, Spain – The Asia Climate Change Consortium (ACCC), a regional body of climate advocates, participated in the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP) supposedly in Chile but was held in Madrid, Spain. Some the members at COP25 were Wanun Permpibul of Climate Watch Thailand, Rodne Galicha and John Leo Algo of Living Laodato Si (Philippines), and, Titi Soentoro of Aksi (Indonesia).
Amidst the crack down on the civil society organizations, ACCC members continue to advocate and lobby for positions of the group. Several of them spoke in the side events on women empowerment, scaling up of climate ambitions and solidarity in the face of great climate challenge. They also networked with fellow advocates in order to find common ground in the issues they lobby with government representatives.
ACCC called on governments, especially from the more developed ones, to explicitly and, therefore, publicly state in their respective NDC’s their commitment to 1) have higher ambitions for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions; 2) legislate and finance the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energies in a manner that do not sacrifice climate justice and well-being of communities and ecosystems and do not promote false climate solutions; and, 3) enhance action and provide public finance on co-beneficial nature-based solutions for mitigation, adaptation, and resilience to avert losses and damages.
The group likewise called on Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and private banks to stop supporting projects that increase GhG emissions and worsen climate risks. It made the case to shift all their investments to mitigation efforts through renewable energy as well as to resilience and adaptation efforts.
Despite the failure to pass important measures to advance climate action, the Parties in Madrid were still able to:
- revisit their climate pledges in 2020;
- enhance ambition in 2020;
- hold pre-2020 roundtables, the outcomes of which will be reported in 2021, which will in turn feed into a review on progress towards meeting the Paris Agreement’s “well below 2C” goal;
- continue talks on the carbon market; and,
- implement the new Gender Action Plan as well as a work plan for the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform.
Meanwhile, there were still several items that were not finalized as Parties were not able to agree, such as:
- Loss and Damage mechanism;
- Overall Mitigation;
- Adaptation Share; and,
- Social & Environmental Safeguards.
COP26 will be in Glasgow, United Kingdom in November 2020.#
c/o Rice Watch Action Network