Rich Nations Failing to Meet Climate Aid Pledges
World’s richest countries have pledged nearly $18bn to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, but less than $1bn has been disbursed. Written by John Vidal of the Guardian and shared with EcoWorldly as part of the Guardian Environment Network.
Developing countries have received less than 10% of the money promised by rich countries to help them adapt to global warming, an analysis by the Guardian has found.
The failure is fostering deep distrust between rich and poor nations and is seriously undermining key negotiations on a global climate deal.
The world’s richest countries have together pledged nearly $18bn (£12.5bn) in the last seven years, but despite world leaders’ rhetoric that the finance is vital, less than $0.9bn has been disbursed and long delays are plaguing many funds.
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The lack of action is causing growing concern among diplomats and UN climate talks negotiators who have warned that a global agreement on climate change to succeed the Kyoto treaty is at risk if rich countries do not make the money available.
“It’s a scandal. The amount the developed countries have provided is peanuts. It is poisoning the UN negotiations. What [the rich countries] offer to the poorest is derisory, the equivalent of one banker’s bonus. It’s an insult to people who are already experiencing increasingextreme events,” said Bernarditas Muller of the Phillippines, the chief negotiator for the G77 and China group of developing countries.
The analysis has found that the poorest countries have received the least help from the rich. The UN’s Least developed countries fund has disbursed only $47m in seven years. The analysis, based on data collected by the independent Overseas Development Institute in London and confirmed by the UN, has also found:
• Britain has pledged nearly $1.5bn but has so far deposited under $0.3bn
• Africa, the poorest continent, has received less than 12% of all the climate fund money spent in the last four years
• It can take poor countries more than three years to access money
• Most of the money promised for climate change comes out of official aid budgets, leaving less for health, education and poverty action
According to the UN, $50-70bn a year needs to be invested immediately to help the poor countries adapt to extreme floods, droughts and heatwaves, with much more needed later. “I recognise the frustration. Contributions to funds have been disappointingly low and the least developed countries have received very little. Without significant finance you will not get developing country engagement [in negotiations]. Funding is key to unlocking an outcome for the talks,” said Yvo de Boer, head of UN Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCC), which oversees the talks.
Rich countries have accepted their moral responsibility for global warming, and are legally obliged by the Kyoto protocol to provide finance to poor countries to tackle climate change - but there is no enforcement or targets. “The situation is becoming very serious. The sums are ridiculously small and whole system has broken down. The financial commitments are weak and there is a great gap between the promises and the reality. It is very risky for the UN negotiations and for mankind,” said the Juan Lozano Ramirez, the Colombian environment minister.
So far 12 rich countries, led by the UK, Germany, Japan and the US, have pledged $6.1bn to two climate investment funds administered by the World Bank. But no money has been deposited in them and any money available will be in the form of loans, not grants, with stringent conditions on how the money is spent. A pilot project for eight countries has been announced but no money is likely to be disbursed for nearly a year.
