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At Copenhagen, wealthy nations promised developing countries $30 billion in 'fast start' assistance from 2010 to 2012 to help them adapt to the effects of climate change and try to minimize their own emissions of greenhouse gases. Is the money coming? A ne
At Copenhagen, wealthy nations promised developing countries $30 billion in 'fast start' assistance from 2010 to 2012 to help them adapt to the effects of climate change and try to minimize their own emissions of greenhouse gases.
Is the money coming? A new paper by Project Catalyst, a non-profit effort to feed neutral non-government information into the climate negotiations, tries to put some numbers to what's happening.
So far, a total of $28 billion has been pledged, about a third of it in loans, the study found. A big share of the total, $17 million, is likely to be delivered directly from one country to another, rather than through multilateral organizations, particularly as countries continue to wrangle over what sort of multilateral agency is appropriate to disperse funds.
But a look at some of the projects proposed by vulnerable countries suggests that the need for funding over the three year period until 2012 could range from $21 billion to $54 billion, which indicates there may be a funding shortfall if enough projects get moving.
That means prioritizing projects is going to be important, as well as ensuring countries receiving the money have the capacity to use it effectively.
To help ensure the money does the most good, the study urges, donor countries should look to fund projects that are part of a broader development strategy that includes low-carbon growth and also projects that manage to both curb emissions and help with adaptation to climate change.
They also should look for efforts that could attract additional private financing, and that allow input from local communities and likely investors, the authors said.
Given the limited three-year time frame of the initial 'fast start' funding, donors also need to be aware that demanding quick use of the money within that time frame "is a serious threat to effective spending," the study warned.
Instead, countries should be given as much flexibility as possible to put the money toward genuinely useful projects, even if those don't manage to finish by 2012.
Given how much of the 'fast start' cash is going to flow simply from one government to another, donor countries would also do well to talk to each other and coordinate efforts, both to cut overlap in projects and to make it easier for developing countries, now faced with the daunting task of applying for help not from one institution but from a long list of individual governments.
Transparency also is key, and on more than the receiving end, the study says. Donor government promises that 'fast start' funding will be "new and additional" to existing aid will be hard to prove without the establishment of some kind of baseline and without a better definition of what constitutes "additional" funding, the study said.
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