Dayton Daily News

World set to miss goal of $100B climate aid to poor

- By Frank Jordans

A target for rich countries to provide poor nations with $100 billion in aid each year to tackle global warming will be missed, dealing a blow to the upcoming U.N. climate talks in Glasgow.

Senior officials from Britain, Canada and Germany, who had hoped to break a deadlock in negotiatio­ns ahead of next week’s summit, announced Monday that current data shows the goal won’t be reached until 2023 — three years later than agreed.

“The goal was almost certainly missed in 2020,” said Alok Sharma, the U.K. official who will chair the talks in Glasgow.

Failure to fulfil the pledge first made in 2009 and reaffirmed at the 2015 Paris climate talks, had “been a source of deep frustratio­n for developing countries,” he added. “I absolutely get this.”

But Sharma, who will now have to face the frustratio­n of poor nations over the funding shortfall, pointed to a projected rise in financial aid beyond the agreed threshold in the coming years.

“The plan provides confidence that the $100 billion will be met in 2023, and importantl­y, it projects that the $100 billion will be exceeded in subsequent years, with up to $117 billion being mobilized in 2025,” he said.

Over the 2021-2025 period, $500 million would likely be mobilized in public and private finance, he added.

The report was compiled by Canada’s minister of environmen­t and climate change, Jonathan Wilkinson, and Germany’s deputy environmen­t minister, Jochen Flasbarth, who drew on data provided by the Paris-based Organizati­on for Economic Cooperatio­n and Developmen­t, which tracks internatio­nal flows of climate finance.

“Not all of our conversati­ons were really (...) polite,” Flasbarth told reporters of the talks that had taken place with rich and poor nations in recent weeks.

“There is disappoint­ment and we share this disappoint­ment,” he said. “But the result we have now is not bad enough (to allow) not to be constructi­ve in Glasgow.”

But Mohamed Adow, a longtime observer of U.N. climate talks who now heads Nairobi-based environmen­tal think tank Power Shift Africa, said the plan won’t satisfy poor nations, who have insisted that the original target must be met.

“The $100 billion of climate finance is not only a lifeline to poor and vulnerable communitie­s on the front line of a climate crisis they did not cause, it’s also the bare minimum that rich countries need to do to hold up their end of the bargain at COP26,” he said

Adow warned the plan now submitted to the U.K. to take to the COP26 talks in Glasgow should not be considered “mission accomplish­ed.”

“Poor nations will not be conned and the leaders of the developed world need to ... get this money on the table if COP26 is going to be a success,” he said.

Teresa Anderson, climate policy coordinato­r at ActionAid Internatio­nal, noted that much of the financial support from rich to poor countries is still made out as loans that those on the frontlines of climate change struggle to repay.

“It is vital that climate finance comes in the form of grants,” she said.

Sharma said the upcoming talks would seek to address that issue, as well as the demand from poor countries for half of the funds to be devoted to adapting to climate change.

 ?? AP ?? A power plant fires coal in Germany. Dozens of large German companies have urged the country’s next government to put in place ambitious policies to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord.
AP A power plant fires coal in Germany. Dozens of large German companies have urged the country’s next government to put in place ambitious policies to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord.

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