Developing countries on climate change:
Left to fend for themselves
In the current climate change
negotiations developing countries lament the lack of financing and
support for adaptation, which would allow them to implement urgent plans
and projects to cope with climate change.
Wealthy nations are dragging their feet on committing money to help
developing countries adapt to climate change, leaving them to face the
prospect of footing their own multi-billion dollar bills for their
efforts, say delegates and activists at key climate change talks.
Effects of Global Warming |
About 2,500 country delegates and observers have gathered in the Thai
capital for the penultimate round of negotiations under the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change treaty (UNFCCC), before the UN Climate
Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, said hundreds of billions of
dollars would be needed annually, but the exact amount of money wealthy
countries agree to provide would likely only be agreed at the last
minute at Copenhagen.
“The challenge is to get money on the table to meet immediate needs
and develop coping strategies. We can then use that to understand better
how that figure will rise over time,” De Boer told a regional UN
briefing held at the sidelines of the talks on 29 September.
A lack of commitment
Delegates from developing nations lined up to complain about the lack
of financing and support for adaptation, which would allow countries to
implement plans and projects to cope with climate change.
“It is regrettable that no specific numbers have been put on the
table for finance,” said Ibrahim Mirghani Ibrahim, Sudanese chairman of
the Group of 77 plus China, which broadly represents the developing
world.
“Even worse, rich countries have shifted responsibility for
adaptation on to developing countries themselves.
Earth feeling the heat |
The costs are eating into their mainstream national budgets,” he said
during the UNFCCC’s opening session on 28 September.
The Sudanese government is already going ahead with pilot projects
costing about US$300 million to examine ways of responding to an
increase in temperature of about one degree centigrade that has brought
with it drought, flash floods and increased malaria, officials said.
“Developed countries are not willing to pay but we cannot wait for
them,” Saadeldin Ibrahim Mohammed Izzeldin, Secretary-General of Sudan’s
Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, told IRIN.
“We will start and hopefully there will be participation from rich
countries. We don’t expect all the money to come from outside,” he said.
India is already paying about 2% of its annual budget to combat the
effects of climate change, Chandrashekar Dasgupta of the country’s
Energy and Resources Institute told IRIN.
“The focus of our response has to be adaptation. A traditional farmer
lacks the knowledge, the information, the skills and the capital to
adapt by bringing in drought-proofing measures such as drip-irrigation
or switching crops, for example,” he said.
Adaptation costs
According to preliminary findings from a global World Bank study
released on 30 September in Bangkok and Washington, the costs of
adaptation to climate change in developing countries are estimated at
$75-$100 billion annually for 2010 to 2050.
Homes melting to the sea |
Billed as the most in-depth analysis of the economics of adaptation
to date, the study was financed by the Dutch, Swiss and British
governments.
“The World Bank study makes plain that taking action in favour of
adaptation now can result in future savings and reduce unacceptable
risks,” Bert Koenders, the Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation,
said in a statement. “At this point, the costs this will entail can
still be borne by the international community, to judge by the GDPs of
rich countries, but for poor countries they are unacceptably high.”
The European Commission earlier this month also estimated that by
2020, developing countries would likely face annual costs of around 100
billion euros ($145.8 billion) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and
adapt to climate change impacts.
Oxfam and environmental group Greenpeace have said that at least 40
billion euros ($58.35 billion) will be needed annually for adaptation
measures for developing countries by 2020.
Polluting the air. Courtesy Google Images |
“Developing countries, which are least responsible for emissions, are
being hit with a very large adaptation bill,” said Antonio Hill, senior
climate policy adviser with Oxfam International. He also said
decision-making about how adaptation money is spent must be firmly
lodged with developing countries, because they know best how to respond
to the localized challenges they face.
However, countries such as the US, Canada and Australia are stalling
over how the cash will be spent, he said.
“These tight-fisted governments see climate change finance as just
another form of aid and that therefore poor countries should be
accountable to them over how the money is spent,” he said.
“But this is not aid money. And aid money is unpredictable; sometimes
rich countries make pledges but the money never comes.
So we are trying to make sure Copenhagen leads to predictable cash
flows. These are real costs. It’s not just money, it’s human lives.”
(The above article is reproduced from IRIN, the humanitarian news and
analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, 30 September 2009).
-Third World Network Features |