Developed countries could raise more than $50 billion each year to help poor countries adapt to climate change if they auctioned off emissions rights that will be allocated under a new global climate pact after 2012, aid agency Oxfam said in a report issued on Tuesday.
Rich nations would need to sell only 7.5 percent of their greenhouse gas emission allowances to meet this target, according to Oxfam. An additional $29 billion could be generated by establishing emission limits for their aviation and shipping sectors and auctioning off 100 percent of these rights, Oxfam said.
The report, "Turning Carbon into Gold", was launched at U.N. climate change talks in Poznan, Poland, bringing together around 187 countries over the next two weeks. The meeting marks the half-way point in negotiations to agree by the end of 2009 a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
"With a global financial crisis unfolding, these mechanisms could raise enough money from polluters without governments having to dip into national treasuries," said Heather Coleman, senior climate change policy advisor for Oxfam and author of the report.
"Many negotiators agree this is one of the more practical approaches. Billions of dollars can be raised and invested to prevent future climate change and to help poor people adapt to the negative impacts of global warming."
Estimates of how much it will cost for developing countries to deal with the impacts of climate change are on the scale of tens of billions of dollars.
Oxfam says at least $50 billion per year is needed, but that would rise if a new climate change deal does not succeed in keeping global warming to below 2 degrees centigrade.
Contributions to U.N.-backed funds to finance adaptation total only around $300 million so far. The report argues that developed countries are not living up to their responsibilities under the U.N. convention on climate change.
The aid agency says poor countries need urgent cash to pay for measures that will build their resilience to increasing floods and droughts, more intense storms and rising seas, as climate change becomes a reality.
"Helping vulnerable people cope with the effects of climate change is desperately needed today because they already face increasingly severe and ever-worsening climate change impacts," Coleman said.
Ziaul Hoque Mukta, a programme coordinator for Oxfam in Bangladesh, told AlertNet that this year high tides have regularly flooded coastal zones in the southwest and centre of the country for the first time. And a large number of storm warnings in 2007 prevented fishermen from going to sea, leaving them short of money to pay back lenders, he said.
"Infrastructure development since the 1980s has caused displacement in Bangladesh, and climate change is now making that worse," Mukta said.
Important adaptation measures in Bangladesh include rebuilding clay embankments using concrete, developing and disseminating new rice and vegetable crop varieties and strengthening public health systems, Mukta explained.
The Bangladeshi government is seeking around $5 billion from the international community for its climate change adaptation plans over the next five years, and has set up a national trust fund to encourage rich countries to make individual donations. So far Britain is the only donor nation to have promised money, announcing a package of £75 million in September to help Bangladesh fund its response to climate change.
Oxfam said the fairest and most effective way of raising the money needed is to link into the emissions-reduction system that will form a core part of a post-2012 agreement. Under the deal, "international emissions units" will be allocated to control the overall level of greenhouse gases.
The agency estimates that around $52 billion could be raised each year by 2015 by auctioning 7.5 percent of rich countries' allocations at a carbon price of $45 per tonne. Norway and the Netherlands support the idea, it told Reuters at Poznan.
The aid agency believes this is a fair system because it would ensure that those countries most responsible for emissions - and that can afford to pay - would shoulder most of the obligations.
On Tuesday, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the University of the South Pacific, published a report in Rome saying that climate change-related disasters are already imposing serious constraints on development in Pacific island countries, which appear to be in a "constant mode of recovery".
"Climate projections for the Pacific island countries are bleak and indicate reduced food security, especially for households," said Alexander Muller, FAO assistant director-general, in a statement.
The report says predicted rises in sea-levels and changes in sea surface temperatures are likely to cause a decline in fishery production. As fish consumption in Pacific island countries is very high this could make it harder for families to feed themselves.
"Countries will have to assess how vulnerable their food systems are and how they can adapt agriculture, forestry and fisheries to future climate-related disasters. There is a need to act urgently," Muller added.
While the Poland meeting will not end in concrete decisions about how to raise money for adaptation and clean technology, campaigners and developing countries hope consensus will start to emerge around a set of options that could generate billions of dollars from 2013, if not earlier.
"It is extremely important for negotiators in Poznan to reach a broad understanding about how best to raise adaptation money because they have paid lip-service to the issue for too long," Oxfam's Colman said. "It is a vital part of the overall deal Â? a litmus test of how serious rich countries are in tackling the problem."
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