Mail and Guardian
International funding efforts to help poor nations cope with climate
change have been woeful, it emerged at this year’s big climate change
conference in Bali.
In a damning report released recently
development agency Oxfam said that rich nations had donated only
R469-million ($67-million) to a fund dedicated to adaptation. Oxfam
estimates that the cost to help poor nations would be R350-billion
($50-billion) each year.
“The R469-million generated so far is
less than what people in the United States spend on suntan lotion in
one month,” said Charlotte Sterrett, author of the Oxfam report titled
Financing Adaption. “It is a slap in the face for poor nations, given
that developed countries will need at least $1,2-billion
[R7,14-billion] each to meet just their most urgent adaptation needs.”
Top
United Nations climate official Yvo de Boer agreed. “Oxfam called the
spending on adaptation an insult. If it is an insult, it is a pretty
big one. Not enough money has been spent on adaptation. If we don’t act
now, it will be too late. We need resources now.”
Adaptation has
emerged as a major sticking point at the conference, with the less
developed part of the world lobbying hard for richer nations to pay for
the “damage they have caused”.
African countries, such as
Uganda, have pressed hard for developed countries, such as the US,
Canada, Australia and European Union nations, to be held accountable
and to pay for the natural disasters that have hit poor countries. “For
us it is at the top of our agenda here,” a negotiator for a Southern
African country told the Mail & Guardian. “My nation is already feeling the effects of climate change, yet our emissions are so low.”
The statistics back up his statement: total emissions for countries in Africa, excluding South Africa, are less than 3%.
“No
matter how you spin the arrow of responsibility, it always ends up
pointing at a handful of rich countries. They caused historical
pollution and got rich in the process. They can afford to adapt at home
[but] justice demands that they help the world’s poor countries cope as
well,” said Kate Raworth, senior researcher for Oxfam.
“Future
commitments to cut emissions are a must, but additional financing for
adaptation cannot wait until 2012. Here in Bali delegates from dozens
of poor countries will tell you that they need it now.”
The UN’s
human development report, released last week, found that climate
disasters are heavily concentrated in poor countries. About 260-million
people were affected by climate disasters annually from 2000 to 2004,
more than 98% of them in the developing world, the report said.
Oxfam
said that if global greenhouse-gas emissions are not cut fast enough
far more than R350-billion would be needed to help vulnerable nations.
So far rich countries have been helping through the Least Developed
Countries Fund, which is based on voluntary contributions from wealthy
countries. Despite the multiple natural disasters this year, these
countries increased their contribution for urgent adaptation needs by a
mere R301-million ($43-million), which is not nearly enough to reach
the $50-billion needed annually.
But only R182-million
($26-million) — the equivalent of one week’s worth of spending on flood
defences in the United Kingdom — has been spent multilaterally for
adaptation measures, which the development report noted is “very
unlikely to provide the scale of adaptation finance needed on a
voluntary basis”.
Despite this, compulsory adaptation taxes for
rich nations are not on the table at the Bali conference. Instead the
UN is hoping a special Adaptation Fund might be the goose that lays the
golden egg. The fund was created under the Kyoto Protocol to generate
the necessary funds to help vulnerable nations.
At last year’s
climate change talks in Nairobi negotiators envisioned that the fund
would be financed mainly through a 2% “adaptation levy”, which would be
generated by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), linked to the
carbon market, whereby businesses in developed nations fund clean
energy projects in developing nations.
De Boer said that if the
tax levy worked properly up to R2,1-billion ($300-million) could be
generated annually between 2008 and 2012. “[Adaptation] will pay for
itself then, without the need of taking money away from other
development funds,” he said.
But Oxfam believed that a solution
stretched beyond the CDM levy. “New finance should be agreed and
deployed within the first commitment period, so that adequate funding
is available for those who need it urgently,” the organisation said.
It
suggested that the US and the EU contribute more than 75% of the
finance needed, with 40% coming from the US and 30% from Europe. Japan,
Canada, Australia and the Republic of Korea should contribute a further
20% of the finance, with Japan providing more than half of that.
Chilling stats
R469-million
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