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Lack of a plan for climate aid between 2012 and 2020 may be a big stumbling block at Durban
By Megan Rowling
One of the biggest bargaining chips in the hands of developing nations at the U.N. climate summit, which starts in South Africa next week, is the patchy performance of richer countries when it comes to climate aid.
Not only have they been slow to deliver the $30 billion in "fast start" funds promised between 2010 and 2012, but there's the glaring issue of what they plan to do about a looming seven-year finance gap from 2013-2019.
So far, it appears, not much.
At the 2009 U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, besides pledging the fast-start money, developed countries agreed to "mobilise" $100 billion per year by 2020. But they did not say what they would offer in climate funding in the intervening period, nor how they would scale it up ten-fold by 2020.
This ambiguity is a growing concern for vulnerable nations and could turn into a sticking point at U.N. negotiations if no clarity emerges.
A briefing released this week by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) calls on ministers at Durban to define annual targets for scaling up finance to help poorer countries adapt to the impacts of climate change and set themselves on a path to low-carbon development.
It notes that texts adopted at the end of the 2009 Copenhagen and 2010 Cancun summits did not contain any language discussing a plan for the crucial years between 2012 and 2020 - which the briefing describes as a "blind spot" in climate finance negotiations.
The paper's authors - three academics from Brown University in the United States and a professor from the North South University in Bangladesh - argue that developed nations need defined goals for each year and mechanisms to keep the expansion of funding on track.
"Only then will they develop systems capable of generating the amounts committed by 2020," they write. "Without annual targets regularly met, cynicism will replace any goodwill created with the Copenhagen and Cancun pledges."
CRISIS-HIT DONORS
Clifford Polycarp, a finance expert with the Washington-based World Resources Institute, agrees that the climate finance gap is going to be an important issue at Durban. But he doubts whether firm commitments for the interim period will emerge from this year's talks.
Instead, he told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday, the summit is likely to launch a process in 2012 that will enable donors to clarify the $100 billion goal and outline how they're considering reaching it.
Polycarp said some least-developed countries have proposed that richer nations should make submissions through next year on their planned contributions, and hold workshops presenting scenarios on ways to boost climate finance.
"But there will be resistance from some developed countries," he warned.
The question of what's going to happen after the fast-start money ends has become even more pressing due to the economic and financial troubles that are squeezing government budgets across Europe and North America.
Some developing states have argued that the large majority of the annual $100 billion commitment should come from public coffers. Most analysts, however, regard this as an impossible demand on public finances.
"(The) normal source of development assistance - national treasuries raising tax revenues - seems unlikely to provide adequate and predictable funding," the IIED briefing says, urging Durban negotiators to work out a series of financing mechanisms that are "international, constant and substantial in size".
"A small levy on international airline travel, bunker transport fuel or international financial transactions, for example, would go far to close the adaptation finance gap," it adds.
RELIABLE FUNDING SOURCES ELUSIVE
According to calculations in the report, fast-start donors have pledged between $4.8 billion and $6.3 billion to adaptation, which amounts to 19 to 25 percent of total climate finance and is "only a minor improvement" on the 11to 15 percent pledged a year ago. This contrasts with their stated aim of "balanced allocation" between adaptation and mitigation.
"Money has yet to flow to meet even the most urgent adaptation needs of the Least Developed Countries," says author David Ciplet of Brown University. "Without adequate and predictable funding, developing countries most vulnerable to climate change cannot respond effectively. All of the talk about adaptation in Cancun will mean little unless reliable funding sources are established in Durban."
But it's still far from clear whether that will happen.
Another stumbling block is ongoing disagreement among countries over how to run the fledgling U.N.-backed Green Climate Fund, which is regarded as a key channel for future finance. The United States does not want it to be too closely aligned with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and would rather the World Bank took the reins. And Saudi Arabia is pushing for compensation for loss of oil revenues if the world cuts its consumption.
Both U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Brazilian climate negotiator Luiz Alberto Figueiredo have warned that the Green Climate Fund must not become an "empty shell".
"It is important to have the structure in place, but it is also important to have a clear commitment for funding," Figueiredo told Britain's Guardian newspaper this week.
"A key tension is that developed countries don't want to be told how to mobilise (the money), but developed countries want assurances the funds will flow in uncertain economic times," said WRI's Polycarp.
This suggests that the issue of how to bridge the climate finance gap could be a thorny one for negotiators at Durban and probably beyond.
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