Climate Short-Changed? Green Groups Seek Funds for Poor States

As global climate change talks entered their wind down in the German city of Bonn on Wednesday, environmental justice groups and underdeveloped countries are expressing concern that rich countries will not honor pledges to provide funds to protect against the effects of global warming.

The Bonn conference, June 1-11, is the first formal negotiations to work over the draft text that has been prepared in view of December's Paris Climate Summit, an event that itself will represent several critical deadlines. Among these limits is developing a new agreement 'with legal force' to apply to all countries from 2020 onward over action on catastrophic global warming.

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"We call on the developed country governments to own up to their responsibilities and include loss and damage as a distinct part of the Paris deal, with clear funding streams," said  Gita Parahi of Friends of the Earth.

The demand is echoed by other climate and development groups, who point out that developed countries are delaying and resisting significant commitments that they have already pledged several years ago

"In Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries promised US$100 billion climate finance per year for developing countries. This amount is still short of what is needed, but even then the Green Climate Fund has gotten only US$10 billion in actual pledges for the next three years," said Lidy Nacpil of the Asian Peoples' Movement on Debt and Development.

"Here in Bonn, we are angered to see the continuing refusal of developed country governments to include clear commitments of finance in the Paris working document, she added.

The Green Climate Fund is a kitty set up to provide means for vulnerable and undeveloped countries, such as many Caribbean islands, who will suffer most from the volatile weather phenomena caused by global warming like tropical storms, to build infrastructure and safety nets to recover from disaster when it hits.

In recent days, some environment groups have expressed frustration towards this defensive strategy, subscribing to the idea that prevention is better than cure. Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance called on wealthy states to not focus just on mitigation but on prevention, honoring their commitment to raise their 2020 pollution targets only to the levels required by science and justice, approximately 50% of 1990 levels.

“Priority, whether in pre-2020, post-2020 or Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), is biased towards mitigation, repeating the same pattern that has been defined and determined by countries wielding the biggest power, and those which bear the biggest responsibility on climate crisis,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA general secretary.

"G7 leaders talk climate but continue to pollute," agreed Asad Rehman of Friends of the Earth (EWNI). "Their promises to cut emissions run hollow, they are dragging their feet on cutting their pollution but also hand over more than US$18 billion a year to planet wrecking coal and other dirty energy companies."

Several factors are pointing to the failure of the Bonn conference, according to the groups. Another cause for frustration has been the complete failure of countries to form a coherent strategy and the lack of consensus going into Paris.

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“One day to the close of official negotiations, and just 10 days of negotiations before COP21 in Paris, consensus on key elements of the new climate change package seems to be a mirage, leaving us the people at the frontline of climate change impacts in Africa - indigenous peoples, women, small-holder farmers, hunters and gatherers, fisherfolk, women and youth - at the mercy of nature which has become hostile due to the limitless pursuit of comfort by those who have caused the climate change crisis,” Mwenda added.

Furthermore, the target driving climate talks of stopping temperatures rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, looks set to be abandoned as it is not longer a realistic goal.

"Paris will be a funeral without a corpse," said David Victor, a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego, who predicts the 2C goal will slip away despite insistence by many governments that is still alive.”

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