A two-year drought – its worst in decades – was followed last November by devastating floods. The double crisis is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions more, destroyed livelihoods, and exacerbated severe hunger and water scarcity.

For the East African nation, this was not just a one-off, freak event. Cycles of drought and flooding are becoming more frequent, intense and unpredictable as civilians also come under attack by militants waging an ongoing civil war.

Channeling donor cash to help fragile countries cope with the growing impacts of climate change should be the core mission of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). But, since its creation nearly 14 years ago, barely a single dollar from the UN’s flagship fund has reached Somalia.

Its new head wants to change that. Mafalda Duarte marked her first semester as the fund’s executive director with a visit to Somalia where she promised a different approach to get more money to the world’s poorest.

“We have to be deliberate, be more proactive,” she told Climate Home in an exclusive interview. “We cannot operate like in other countries where we might just sit and wait for them to bring proposals to us. Because of low capacity [in vulnerable countries], we have to work hand in hand with government to put forward a plan.”

Current mandate “not enough”

The Green Climate Fund, which has received pledges of $12.8 billion for the next four years, finances 253 projects in 129 developing countries. It has a mandate to split its resources equally between emissions-cutting and adaptation activities – and to allocate at least half of the latter to the most vulnerable countries.

But Duarte told Climate Home that “those parameters are not enough” anymore. “Even though we are compliant, it is still not enough to get this to support countries like Somalia,” she said.

A Somali herder tries to keep his cows alive amid a devastating drought. Photo: UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene

Having listened to the priorities of ministers, business leaders and civil society in Mogadishu, the Green Climate Fund is now preparing to invest more than $100 million in Somalia over the next 12 months.

A first project – already in the pipeline before this month’s visit – should give isolated communities access to off-grid solar energy, as part of a broader pan-African effort covering 70 million people. Funding proposals to boost the climate resilience of Somalia’s agricultural sector and improve food security could be put in front of the fund’s board for approval as early as July.

Building resilience

The Portuguese executive director, who took the fund’s helm last August, said this new targeted approach would not be limited to Somalia. “You will see us do more,” she said. “We will look at the list of the most vulnerable countries, where we are doing almost nothing at the moment, and we will endeavour to do something similar.”

Welcoming the direction charted by Duarte, Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, said “pushing” the fund’s biggest partners, like the World Bank and UN agencies, to use its money for more work in vulnerable countries will be key to its success.

“A country like Somalia will depend on international access entities that often want to do the easier rather than the harder stuff, so it’s important to overcome their reluctance,” added the experienced GCF watcher.

UN climate fund axes Nicaragua forest project over human rights concerns

Duarte believes that UN agencies and multilateral development banks need to coordinate their efforts to limit the damage from future climate disasters. “We cannot keep being reactive and provide humanitarian assistance when the next mega-drought or flood hits,” she said. “We have to work collectively and build the resilience of the communities.”

The GCF’s head wants to shake up how the fund operates more widely. Setting out simpler rules and processes is the next item on her reform agenda, with the goal of moving away from “a one-size-fits-all approach”.

Poorer countries with less administrative capacity have long complained about the difficulty and time it takes to access the fund’s resources, despite a dedicated programme to help them do that.

“Whether it is a country like Somalia, or one like Brazil or India, it doesn’t matter – it is all the same [now],” Duarte said. “That, of course, does not work. We are not operating in the same environment, with the same capacity. We cannot be this onerous and demanding.”

Overcoming local challenges

Translating ambition into real dollars on the ground will not necessarily be easy, given the barriers that have traditionally kept investors away from the most fragile nations.

Conflict, weak institutions and poor governance raise the possibility of projects not achieving their objectives or, worse, seeing their precious resources squandered. For many, the risk is too much to stomach.

Is water provision in drought-hit Zambia climate ‘loss and damage’ or adaptation?

The Green Climate Fund finds itself walking a tightrope. On the one hand, it has faced criticism over the years for being too cautious. But, on the other, it recently pulled out of a forest protection project in Nicaragua over human rights concerns after a three-year complaints process.

A GCF spokesperson said the fund is now “working to better understand what the real risk is and mitigate that”. In Somalia, for example, that means learning from the World Bank which has worked extensively with local financial institutions, they added.

For Schalatek, the GCF should not be afraid of providing money to what she describes as “climate finance orphans” that have historically been ignored, working more closely in such countries with informal networks of NGOs centred on community interests.

“[The GCF] is a dedicated UN fund and not a bank,” she said, “so it needs to have the appetite to go where no one else is going.”

* This article was amended after publication to attribute the comments in paragraph 21 to a GCF spokesperson.

The post In Somalia, Green Climate Fund tests new approach for left-out communities appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nepal, Bangladesh, Senegal, Malawi, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga and Vanuatu are exploring setting up national facilities to channel resources for climate disasters response and disburse money where it is most needed.

The initiative will help communities inform governments on how to respond to future climate shocks from a local perspective.

The alliance is being supported by the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh, and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in the UK.

Ritu Bharadwaj, a researcher at IIED, said the bottom-up approach would avoid “pre-conceived solutions” and ensure countries are “ready to deploy any additional funds which might be available in the future”.

World Bank backs mega dam threatening to displace thousands in Mozambique

Money for climate victims

In a breakthrough deal at the Cop27 climate talks in Egypt, countries agreed to set up a fund dedicated to support vulnerable countries address climate-related losses and damages.

But it could be a long time before money is mobilised. A transitional committee is due to work out how the fund would operate, who will pay, who will benefit and how it will be governed and make recommendations ahead of the next round of UN climate talks in the UAE.

The 24-people committee is due to hold its first meeting in Luxor, Egypt, on the 27-29 March despite the Asia Pacific group’s failure to nominate their two representatives. Several sources told Climate Home News this was because of several countries competing for the positions.

Mohamed Nasr, Egypt’s lead climate negotiator and one of the committee members, said: “This issue is of extreme importance to everybody, so everybody wants to be sitting at the table.”

Two sources told Climate Home that nominations from the group are expected soon.

Locally-led solutions

The alliance will help vulnerable countries prepare for the handling of loss and damage funds, said Saleemul Huq, director of the ICCAD.

“Money is not going to come for a while so part of the exercise is to know how to use it when it comes,” Huq told Climate Home. “So this is a knowledge-first approach.”

Huq said the alliance will support the development of locally-led solutions, co-created with communities, which are cost-effective.

“It’s about getting a better handle on what is needed to respond to unavoidable climate impacts so countries are ready to address them when they come. People can’t afford to wait until the world wakes up and starts filling the coffers of the loss and damage fund,” he said.

Pooling resources 

To make the most of the patchwork of existing but limited funds, the alliance urged countries to create a national facility that pools funding from the private sector, development aid, philanthropies, insurance, debt relief mechanisms, national budgets and new funding opportunities under the G7-backed Global Shield.

These national entities can act as a ready vehicles to disburse any future loss and damage cash in a cost-effective, accountable and transparent way, researchers say.

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Christopher Bartlett, a member of Vanuatu’s national advisory board on climate change and disaster, said the nation was “one of the strongest allies” of the initiative.

Vanuatu is reeling from the devastation caused by two cyclones which hit the small-island state within 24 hours of each other last week.

Lubna Yasmine, joint secretary on climate change at Bangladesh’s environment ministry, described the approach as “very good”.

“It’s very important to put people at the center of the action because if we can help communities directly, they can solve their own problems and come up with innovative solutions,” she said. “There is no time for delayed action, we need to get to work immediately.”

The post Vulnerable nations set up alliance to prepare loss and damage action plans appeared first on Climate Home News.

Resource-constrained and vulnerable countries like ours – the least developed countries – do not have the luxury of time to continue negotiations and implementation at a slow pace.

Climate change related events are already causing loss of life and property, with accelerating impacts at home, affecting our fellow delegates between each subsequent round of climate talks.

We looked to Marrakech to give implementation momentum and to ensure that global businesses and political leaders remain engaged and willing to contribute in the fight against climate change and to fully implement the Paris Agreement.

COP22: News, analysis and comment from Marrakech climate talks

The climate talks made progress on several issues important to the least developed countries (LDCs).

One of those is capacity building – helping to ensure that vulnerable countries have the institutional capacity to implement the Paris Agreement and mobilise actions at the country level.

The Paris Committee on Capacity Building (PCCB) established in Paris is now operational and its first meeting in May next year should be able to make substantive progress to start implementing its activities planned for 2016-2020.

Marrakech was also able to lay the foundation for the major international work stream related to loss and damage. 

Even if we limit warming to 1.5C, we know that our people will be dealing with the impacts of climate change that go beyond their ability to adapt.

Therefore, having a strong international framework is essential to ensuring that there are adequate resources and capacities available to deal with these problems.

This was a very hard fought element of the Paris Agreement, and now the institutional basis needs to be built so that this becomes more than words on paper.

Marrakech approved the indicative framework for activities on loss and damage for the next five years and reached agreement on a regular review of the Warsaw International Loss and Damage mechanism to further enhance and strengthen it.

Marrakech #climate summit marks the start of a new era https://t.co/pN8fwqmPGZ #COP22 pic.twitter.com/eGISk1DTj0

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) November 19, 2016

The “Marrakech action proclamation for our climate and sustainable development,” endorsed at the climate talks, sets the tone for Paris Agreement implementation.

The proclamation that is inspirational highlights the importance of moving forward as a united global community in urgently addressing climate change, calling for solidarity amongst all to mobilise efforts and resources towards implementation and actions.

Beside formal negotiations, the Marrakech conference saw key concrete outcomes that included a number of ambitious initiatives, bringing together diverse stakeholders with the aim to increase climate action before 2020.

The ‘Marrakech partnership for global climate action‘ aims to catalyse and support climate action before 2020 through the joint effort of government and non-government initiatives and by increasing flows of finance, technology and capacity building.

There is much to be done through scaling up support and investment in climate solutions before 2020 to lay a foundation to swiftly move towards post-2020 actions.

Vulnerable countries also launched ambitious initiatives during the climate talks.

The Global Partnership on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency brings together five regional renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives from Africa, small island developing states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs), as well as collaboration with central American countries.

The Partnership aims to bring renewable energy to 1.3 billion people who currently lack adequate access to energy.

Least Developed Countries Launch Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Initiative, Join… https://t.co/4jhwNuLoeB pic.twitter.com/fNE5D8KbS1

— LDC Chair (@LDCChairUNFCCC) November 17, 2016

The LDC Renewable energy and energy efficiency initiative (REEEI) for Sustainable Development, also launched in Marrakech, is part of that partnership.

It aims to boost renewable energy in LDCs while promoting energy efficiency, recognising the crucial role that energy plays in rural development, industrialisation and the provision of services.

COP22 Launches Major Global Partnership on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency https://t.co/nmLCOiv8Fo

— LDC Chair (@LDCChairUNFCCC) November 18, 2016

A number of LDCs who are part of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) have also committed to 100 percent domestic renewable energy production by 2050, taking into consideration national circumstances and working together to end energy poverty and protect water and food security.

The response to #ClimateChange is #ClimateJustice and #SocialJustice in action – read @TheCVF newly adopted vision: https://t.co/Uh3B4hnQOz pic.twitter.com/wCmuyJHxSZ

— Climate Vulnerable Forum (@TheCVF) November 18, 2016

The decision in Marrakech calling for an acceleration of the work on development of the rule-set of the Paris Agreement is certainly a positive move.

Unfortunately, however, this does ensure the finalisation of work in developing the rule-set for implementation of the Paris Agreement next year, as called by LDCs.

The Marrakech decision relating to the implementation of the Paris Agreement agrees to review progress on the implementation of the work programme under the Paris Agreement in 2017 and finalise the rule-set by COP24 in 2018.

LDCs were of a view that among further work needed in the rule-making process, some work strands can be completed sooner than others.

Nevertheless, the Marrakech decisions have now stalled the final decision making of all the rule-making activities until the end of 2018.

Slow progress

The negotiations since Paris have still not entered the intensive technical discussion mode on a number of issues that were mandated by the Paris outcome. This needs to happen with urgency and energy from the next sessions in 2017 for the full Paris rule-set to be adopted in 2018.

Unfortunately Marrakesh dealt mainly with procedural issues aimed at mapping out a work programme in 2017 for different elements of the rule-set.

Whether it was about defining the nature of countries’ future nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – containing action plans and emission reduction pledges that have to be communicated every five years – or designing the architecture of the transparency and accounting system – so that we all know what each country is doing with equal clarity, the talks moved slowly.

This is hardly the result that one would have expected after a year of intense exchanges of views on these matters.  It is very disappointing that the only result is one calling for further submissions and schedule of workshops.

Such outcomes are very difficult to communicate to people back home who are eagerly waiting to see progress on implementation and actions.

Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, chair, least develop countries group lays out need to keep #climate finance flowing #ParisAgreement #cop22 pic.twitter.com/441v15Ygfm

— Global Environment Facility (GEF) (@theGEF) November 14, 2016

Mobilising finance to assist vulnerable countries with adapting to climate change impacts is the key enabler for promoting implementation and action. Climate finance was high on the agenda in Marrakech, as we expected.

While most developing countries have also submitted plans to limit their emissions in their intended or final NDCs under the Paris Agreement, many have also noted the need for support in order to carry out their commitments.

Some preliminary estimates of the total amount of finance required for developing countries to implement their NDCs exceed $4 trillion USD. Given that only half of developing countries provided estimated costs in their NDCs, the real figure is likely to be much higher.

All this stresses the urgency of NDC implementation and that finance is key to unlocking the much greater ambition required to limit temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and to foster climate resilience and low carbon development.

Marrakech should have reached a milestone in building further clarity on the roadmap for reaching the US$100 billion goal for annual climate finance and scaling up the mobilisation of support before and after 2020.

But COP22 was not able make concrete decisions on finance matters and agreed only to continue the discussions in further subsequent sessions and workshops.

The outcome from the Marrakech did not get to the point of further clarifying the methodologies on how developed countries provided their roadmap on how to reach the $100 billion, nor did it initiate a discussion on how to set a new goal prior to 2025 based which was a mandate from Paris.

The roadmap that developed countries launched in October 2016 shows that there is a great imbalance between adaptation and mitigation finance- even with a pledge to double adaptation finance by 2020 it will be only represent 20% of total climate finance.

#GreenClimateFund approves first fast-track NAP grants for Liberia (USD 2.2m) and Nepal (USD 2.9m): https://t.co/GSXZdSNYu0 #GCFund #COP22 pic.twitter.com/Nyxxlfy8W3

— Green Climate Fund (@theGCF) November 15, 2016

Still, we saw a ray of hope on the sidelines of the negotiations, when the Green Climate Fund (GCF) announced it will fund two LDCs (Liberia and Nepal) to prepare their medium and long term adaptation plans (NAPs) through the fund’s new and expedited procedure – the first countries to receive such support.

Also we are grateful for recent pledge made to the LDC Fund that will be used to finance projects that were already submitted.

In LDC Fund, still there are additional 35 projects, worth USD 231.4 million, that are technically cleared and waiting for support have yet to be funded. We look forward for additional contributions for the full implementation of short term (NAPA) and longer term (NAPs) adaptation needs.

1.5 to stay alive

Science tells us that beyond temperature increases of 1.5C, the future of our planet stands on increasingly thin ice. It is imperative for communities across the world that governments take seriously the legally binding long-term 1.5°C temperature limit in the Paris Agreement.

We heard many, including northern non-governmental organisations, describe this as an “aspirational goal”. It is not.

The Paris Agreement is legally binding, and its long-term temperature goal binds all countries to continually update the ambition of their actions to ultimately meet this goal.

The necessary, upward spiralling of actions and commitments to cut emissions to zero by around mid-century is both fair and proportionate to the challenge rising before us. It is vital and not something that can be merely seen as aspirational.

While international political progress over the past year has been significant, countries are still far from implementing actions on the scale required to steer the planet away from dangerous climate change and achieve the goals that have been set under the Paris Agreement.

For developing countries, and in particular the LDCs, it is important to continue working towards a strong and fair international response to climate change, to protect poor and vulnerable communities across the world and safeguard the planet for future generations.

Even though 2018 will be the time for final decision making to endorse the remaining work on finalising the Paris Agreement rule-set, there is much that can and needs be done in 2017.

The workshops and roundtables scheduled throughout 2017 and two formal negotiating sessions must achieve more than calling for the next round of meetings and submissions.

It is very important that as much as possible is done in 2017, as 2018 will be very busy with the Facilitative Dialogue which is focused on the aggregate level of mitigation ambition being put forward by governments in relation to the 1.5C limit in the Paris Agreement, supported by a special-purpose IPCC report on 1.5C, due in September of that year.

Handover ceremony!
Congratulation & all the best to #Ethiopia for LDC Group Chairmanship at the #UNFCCC for 2017 & 2018 pic.twitter.com/gRue1LVtFy

— Manjeet Dhakal (@manjeetdhakal) November 18, 2016

The LDC Group at the UN climate change negotiations will be led by Ethiopia for the year 2017 and 2018. Ethiopia has led by example with mobilisation of tremendous efforts at home in promoting climate action and particularly initiatives on renewable energy.

The LDC Group will continue to engage in future subsequent negotiating sessions in a constructive manner and leading by example.

We do not have the luxury of time to continue negotiations without concrete outcomes and we look forward to these outcomes serving the expectations of the poor and vulnerable back home.

LDCs returned home from Marrakech with mixed feelings, but with a confident expectation that the international process will steer towards recognising the urgency of climate action for the planet and its people.

Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu is the Chair of the the least developed countries (LDCs) Group at UN Climate Change negotiations.  Manjeet Dhakal is Advisor to the Chair of the LDC Group.

The post Did Marrakech climate talks deliver for world’s poorest? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Adaptation finance is not keeping pace with the needs of countries increasingly exposed to droughts, floods and sea level rise. Work to address loss and damage faced by the world’s poorest still lags behind.

“I think that this COP was branded ‘the African summit’ just to make Africans feel good, but nothing is being done to salvage the interests of the continent,” said Nnimmo Bassey, former chair of Friends of The Earth International.

“I personally don’t think Africa will have anything to celebrate after this meeting. There might be an agenda for discussion in the future, but the real action will not happen this year.”

As delegates review the progress made in adaptation finance last week, it becomes apparent that the chasm between the needs of vulnerable nations and what developed countries are prepared to give is increasing instead of reducing as it was hoped last week.

While the G77 group, which represents developing countries, asks the parties to quadruple adaptation finance, developed countries are sticking to a 50-50 balance between adaptation and mitigation in their recently published roadmap, which sets out the practical steps to deliver US$100 billion of climate aid per year by 2020.

#Marrakech mail: sign up here for your daily #COP22 update

But according to the latest UNEP Adaptation Gap report, the cost of adapting to climate change in developing countries could rise to between US$280 and $500 billion per year by 2050.

“The $100 billion roadmap is a step forward, we have been asking for it for a long time,” said Armelle Le Comte, advocacy officer at Oxfam. The plan projects that public climate finance will reach US$67 billion by 2020. When private finance is included, developed countries estimate they will mobilize between $77 billion and $133 billion total by 2020. “But what the roadmap projects is nowhere near enough what is needed in terms of adaptation. The G77’s request is more in line with reality,” said Le Comte.

To bridge the gap, “we need political will from the head of states who will come in this week, and governments need to take the lead on adaptation. Private finance has a role to play but at the moment 90% of it goes to mitigation,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the least developed country (LDC) group, the chair Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu said that a lack of ambition and slow progress on climate adaptation and finance is having an impact on vulnerable nations. “Climate finance is a matter of survival and we still do not have a clear roadmap for the $100 billion. Unfortunately we see many developed countries still blocking progress.” he said.

Report: Africa flying blind as continent tips into climate crisis
Report: Republicans plan multi-billion dollar climate budget raid

On loss and damage, a big sore point in the conversation between rich and poor nations, African countries are unsatisfied: “A review was planned, but we haven’t even started to conduct it,” Mpanu-Mpanu said.

The detail oriented, all-or-nothing approach taken by negotiators means that on these matters “nothing will be agreed until everything is agreed. But countries have different strengths and weaknesses, and this means that some issues are held hostage,” he said.

African countries also worry about the future of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the flagship UN initiative to deliver aid, in the face of the new US presidency. The GCF receives 20% of its funding from the US, and so far of the US$3 billion it pledged it has only delivered $500 million. Should the incoming Donald Trump administration scrap climate aid altogether, Africa would be one of the first casualties.

Mpanu-Mpanu refused to rush to conclusions: “I can only go for an optimistic approach. When the president takes office, he will be surrounded by capable officers.” But should Trump decide to abandon the Paris agreement, he said: “I don’t think that a single party would be able to stop the unparalleled momentum, no other agreement has seen such a degree of ownership. Guess what, we’ll do it anyway.”

Lou Del Bello’s series of reports on Africa and climate change is funded by CDKN

The post Africa forgotten amid global climate battle between rich countries appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nearly 200 countries approved the Paris Agreement on climate change last December, which aims to limit warming to “well below 2C” from pre industrial levels.

Under that deal, the world’s largest and smallest economies set their own emission targets, but analysts say this will not be enough to keep temperatures within safe limits.

In a statement sent to media, DR Congo envoy Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, who leads the 48-strong Least Developed Country group, said the group planned to call for greater carbon cuts before 2020.

“Even if current pledges are fulfilled, the world is on a path to over 3C of warming, well above the global goal of 1.5C set in Paris; and that is without considering that developing countries need support to the tune of $4tn to meet these pledges,” he said.

Comment: World’s vulnerable must be at the heart of low carbon transition

The UN plans to review progress towards the 2C goal in 2018, but so far few countries have announced new carbon cutting plans since the Paris Agreement was finalised.

On Thursday, the US unveiled rules to slash methane leaks from oil and gas wells, part of a wider plan to cut emissions 40-45% on 2012 levels by 2025.

Elsewhere, action is thin on the ground. Canada also plans to slash methane emissions, but weak federal powers mean prime minister Justin Trudeau is relying on provinces to raise their game.

Meanwhile moves in Brussels to get the EU’s 28 member states to ratchet up planned cuts from 40% on 1990 levels to 50% have been blocked by Poland and other eastern European governments.

Patricia Espinosa: Who is the UN’s incoming climate change chief?

That, said Mpanu Mpanu, is insufficient given the scale of the challenge facing vulnerable countries.

“The earth’s oceans are rising, disease is spreading, our land is no longer producing the food we need to survive,” he said.

“The world must adapt to meet the unavoidable impacts of climate change head on, or face the consequences.”

On Wednesday, the UN Environment Programme released its latest “adaptation gap” report, which suggests the annual costs of coping with rising seas, floods and droughts could hit $500 billion by 2050.

That’s a significant rise on the $70-100 billion estimated in a 2010 World Bank study. Finance flows to help developing countries prepare for extreme weather may have to increase tenfold by 2030, UNEP said.

“It is vital that governments understand the costs involved in adapting to climate change,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, UNEP deputy executive director.

“This report serves as a powerful reminder that climate change will continue to have serious economic costs.”

Analysis: How to bring the Paris Agreement in this year

France’s top climate diplomat Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris deal, warned this week against complacency in the wake of that agreement.

“We have to be realistic – it’s nice and a big achievement but nothing is done,” she said.

“We have to do everything. We have to translate the contribution of countries into proper public policy and investment plans and organise the financial community.”

So far 177 countries have signed and 16 ratified the Paris Agreement. To come into force, 55 countries covering 55% of global emissions must formally join the treaty.

The post Ahead of UN climate talks, world’s poorest urge early action appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mangroves provide a natural buffer against cyclones (Flickr/Hemanshu Kumar)

By Ed King

The world’s poorest scored a significant diplomatic hit at the Paris climate talks in December.

Nearly 200 countries agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit global warming to below 1.5C above pre industrial levels as part of a new global deal, the result of fierce lobbying from a group known as the Climate Vulnerable Forum.

The target marked a shift in gears – in ambition – at the UN climate talks, a sense that finally governments recognised how much suffering warming well below 2C will cause poorer nations.

The deal included further pledges to boost funding flows, help with extreme weather early warning systems and a commitment to prioritise adaptation.

And there was also a promise from wealthier nations to deliver at least US$100 billion a year in climate funds by 2020, a key demand from many NGOs yet a tiny amount compared with the trillions organisations like the International Energy Agency say are required.

And it’s the funding that will be critical – and challenging – if new aid figures from the OECD are to be believed.

While overseas development aid (ODA) hit a record high of $137.2 bn in 2014, the share enjoyed by the world’s poorest fell – for the second year in a row – and is now down to 2006 levels at $43.7bn.

The reasons for this are mixed. Some funds were diverted to tackle the vast refugee crisis sparked by the Syria conflict, while key funders like Japan and Canada surprisingly cut support for poorer nations.

It may be just the tip, according to Adrian Lovett, director of the anti-poverty ONE campaign.

“These figures are for 2014, before the huge peak in refugees we saw last year. We expect that when preliminary aid figures for 2015 are released in April, the problem will have got even worse,” he wrote in the Guardian this week.

Raised houses in Bangladesh protect inhabitants from rising flood risk (Flickr/Nasif Ahmed/UNDP Bangladesh)

This has potentially catastrophic implications for the 48 countries that make up the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) include Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kiribati, Nepal and Tuvalu.

While civil society routinely call for climate funds to be separate from development aid, they generally come from the same pot of developed country budgets.

The LDC group is already suffering from a huge shortfall in climate-related funds, according to analysts at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Climate plans presented to the UN by LDC countries ahead of the 2015 Paris summit will need $93.7 billion a year from 2020.

Report: $1 trillion funding gap for poorest countries’ climate plans

But according to analysis from the IIED, finance available is around $11.8 billion the mark at present.

“These also include credit based instruments which will have to be repaid,” says the study. “Most of this (US$10 billion) goes towards supporting mitigation projects, with just US$1.8 billion allocated each year to support adaptation.”

To put this in context: Brazil, China, India, Morocco, South Africa and Turkey receive more aid than the LDCs combined.

“There’s an argument to guide money to where you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck… that’s often direct aid to big emitters,” says Andrew Norton, head of the IIED – by way of explanation.

Comment: Time for a reality check on adaptation finance?

A solution is not straightforward, admits Romily Greenhill, team leader development finance at the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Overall ODA levels have held up well, she stresses, but middle income countries are often more attractive to donors.

The ODI – among others – had pushed for the LDCs to receive 50% of aid during the UN’s development finance summit in Ethiopia last July, a move that failed.

This was a “minimum that was needed for leaving no-one behind,” says Greenhill.

The problem is that middle income countries usually have better transparency systems in place, so it’s often easier to demonstrate the results and visibility of aid succeeding, she says.

That’s important given value for money is becoming increasingly important to donors.

For instance, new UK development aid guidelines published in November 2015 stress aid flows should offer value to taxpayers, and “strengthen UK trade and investment opportunities”.

And from a climate perspective, poorer nations are often more concerned with preparing for extreme weather events, rather than more lucrative clean energy projects that investors prefer.

In focus: What next for the Green Climate Fund?

One investment vehicle that was meant to solve the LDC funding dilemma is the UN-backed Green Climate Fund, a development bank that came online in 2015.

Backed with $10 billion of pledges from rich and emerging economies, it’s supposed to split funding 50-50 between clean energy and climate adaptation funding – a key ask of poorer nations.

An initial raft of eight projects – valued at $168 million – focus heavily on adaptation in countries like Malawi, Senegal, Bangladesh and the Maldives.

A new tranche are set to be unveiled in the first half of 2016, but the reality, says Norton, is that longer term it may struggle to achieve that aim.

That’s simply because adaptation (planting mangrove trees, investing in irrigation or heat resistant seeds) offers fewer fast financial returns to investors, so generally needs to be grant-based, as opposed to the loans that Greenhill and Norton say are increasingly common.

“I think it’s going be hard to meet (50-50) unless they do more grant funding than it appears they are going to do,” he says.

Thousands of livestock have perished as a result of erratic rains in Ethiopia during 2015 (Pic: Abiy Getahun/Oxfam)

In a warming world where scientists say extreme events will occur more often, the implications for fragile states are worrying.

One factor in the ongoing Syrian conflict was a severe drought that first struck in 2006, according to one of Dasmascus’ top climate experts.

A UK government sponsored climate risk study out last year warned heatwaves and food price spikes linked to climate change in poorer nations will spark conflict, economic collapse and migration.

Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years, triggered by El Nino and exacerbated, say experts, by global warming.

In 2015 200,000 animals died, with 450,000 expected to follow in 2016. UN agencies say the country will need $1.1 billion to buy wheat for 18 million people after harvests failed.  Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia have also reported failed crops.

Back to Lovett in the Guardian. As some developed countries accept more refugees, they are using ODA budgets to pay for the costs incurred.

That, he argues, is just tackling the symptom rather than the cause of the problem, and could exacerbate an already dire problem.

“They should start by pledging half of aid to LDCs. These countries have the fewest resources to lift themselves out of poverty, and the greatest need, and will require significant external support for some time to come. Donor countries must target their aid to the world’s poorest.

“Only then will we stand a chance of reaching the lofty goals leaders agreed to last year, goals that billions of people are counting on.”

The post Aid slump for world’s poorest is bad news for climate fight appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: CAPRA Initiative

By Sophie Yeo

The deadline for countries to deliver new pledges on how they will tackle climate change is “too late”, according to the world’s least developed countries (LDCs).

In a document submitted to the UN’s climate body today, the world’s 49 poorest countries said that all countries need to move fast in declaring how they will contribute to a new climate change treaty to be signed off in Paris, 2015.

“The deadline and the process for delivering pledges agreed in Warsaw is too late and does not allow sufficient time for review,” they write. Countries have yet to establish a formal process to review these pledges, which compounds the problem, they add.

At the UN’s annual climate conference in Warsaw last November, a last minute decision was made to set a deadline of the first quarter of 2015 for these pledges to be submitted.

But LDCs, which include Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda and the Gambia, are concerned that this does not leave enough time for these pledges to be examined and, if necessary, ramped up. They say that “preferably” these contributions should be submitted by the end of this year.

Prakash Mathema, chair of the LDC group, told RTCC: “Any delay in global climate action will lead to greater adverse effects, increased needs for adaptation as well as more serious residual and permanent loss and damage in LDCs and other vulnerable countries.”

But so far it looks unlikely that pledges will arrive much before the UN deadline, with the US prevented from moving any earlier by midterm elections in November this year. Of the developed nations, only the EU has given any significant indication of how its final submission might look.

A summit hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains the focus for any early pledges, with heads of state invited to attend the gathering armed with ambitious new commitments to tackle climate change.

Contributions

Parties have agreed that the Paris treaty, when it is signed off at the end of next year, is likely to consist of a series of “intended nationally determined contributions” put forward by each country on the basis of what they consider fair and equitable.

This is to be assessed on a number of factors, including historical responsibility for the problem of climate change and current capacity to deal with it.

But despite ongoing discussions, there is not yet a blueprint on what exactly these contributions should involve, and how the UN can ensure that country’s individual contributions will be ambitious enough.

As well as speeding up the process, LDCs have called for these contributions to be more precisely defined – a call that was echoed by both developed and developing countries during talks last week in Bonn.

Fierce divisions over the exact elements of these contributions prevented much progress from being made, with rich countries such as the US arguing that they should only have to put forward mitigation commitments, while other poorer countries argued that they should also encompass finance, adaptation and technology commitments.

The Paris treaty aims to keep the world below 2C of warming. Scientists have calculated that there is a finite amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted if this is to be achieved.

In their submission, LDCs push for an even more ambitious agreement that aims to keep warming below 1.5C. A combination of geographical and economic factors means that poor countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal will suffer the most due to the impacts of climate change.

“These processes must be resolved quickly,” they write. “We sacrifice the survival of our countries and our people through continued stalling and lack of decisive action. For the LDCs the question at hand is their direct survival as the most vulnerable countries.”

The post World’s poorest call for UN climate process to be accelerated appeared first on Climate Home News.

Gambia’s climate envoy Pa Ousman Jarju (Pic: IISD)

By Ed King

Rich nations cannot buy their way out of taking tough greenhouse gas emission cuts, a leading diplomat representing some of the world’s poorest countries has warned.

Last November Japan slashed its carbon targets for 2020, but increased climate finance contributions to $16.1 billion, a move the government said proved its commitment to controlling global warming.

The move was widely condemned at last year’s UN climate summit, but recent negotiations within the EU over its own climate ambitions illustrate the deep divides between developed countries over the level of carbon cuts they should adopt. Some have suggested they pay poorer countries to make the cuts for them, while maintaining energy systems based on fossil fuels.

Pa Ousman Jarju, Gambia’s climate envoy and an influential member of the Least Developed Countries negotiating team, said the evolving influence of the UK in the EU’s energy and climate policy is of particular concern.

The UK holds one of the EU’s top climate negotiation posts and is a leading climate finance contributor. The Conservative-led coalition supports deep carbon cuts at EU level, but has so far refused to commit to tough domestic decarbonisation targets, and recently outlined plans to exploit its shale gas reserves.

“They have contributed immensely towards climate financing …. so we want that to continue,” Pa Ousman told RTCC. “But at the same time we don’t want it to be like the Japanese, who put money here and backtracked on emission reductions.”

“We know the Conservatives are sort of backtracking on the position they had in the coalition, but the UK has played a key role in EU climate policy with France, Denmark, Norway and others. So joining Poland along with the laggards in the EU would be disappointing from the British Government.”

The UK Government maintains it is strongly committed to reducing its overall carbon footprint, but says it reserves the right to work out its own energy mix.

Officials also point out the UK has pushed for the EU adopt a 50% carbon reduction target if countries agree an ambitious emissions reduction deal next year.

UN process

This next two months are critical for the development of a global climate change deal, which could be signed in Paris late next year, and come into force by 2020.

Leading European ministers meet in March to discuss the bloc’s 2030 climate targets, which are seen as a benchmark for other leading emitters such as China and the USA.

UN envoys are set to gather in Bonn the same month, with the task of starting work on a text for the 2015 deal, which will outline how warming can be limited to below 2C.

In September world leaders will gather in New York for Ban Ki-moon’s climate leadership summit.

Ousman Jarju says this will be an opportunity for the EU to formally submit its 40% emissions reduction target.

“If that is confirmed in September in form of a proposal, or a declaration by the European Union in the UNSG high level summit, that would be a big boost and a demonstration of the EU’s leadership role in climate change,” he says.

2014 should be a BREAKTHROUGH year for #ClimateAmbition & #ClimateAction.

— LDC Chair (@LDCChairUNFCCC) January 30, 2014

Draft texts are expected to be presented to delegates at a UN meeting this December in Peru, and will likely reveal that any new agreement will not be in the form of a legally binding treaty.

A legally-binding pact is favoured by the EU, LDC bloc and Pacific Island states, but there appears to be a growing recognition that a more nuanced agreement will be needed to accommodate the USA and China.

“We have come to realise that if you want broader participation you have to have some form of flexibility in terms of bringing the national perspective,” says Ousman Jarju.

He adds: “But we also want something that is effective, and we want something that is within a rule-based multilateral system.”

“So if nationally countries determine something within the range of what we call an ambitious target, it should be acceptable internationally based on a multilateral rules-based agreement.”

US ambition

This looks like a mechanism that could allow a US President to bypass a hostile Congress, basing targets on domestic actions enforced by federal agencies.

And flexibility from other countries appears to have been matched by a growing willingness by the USA to engage, says Ousman Jarju.

“I think they have changed. The attitude has changed. In Warsaw the US played a very positive role. They had some red lines, but they have been compromising, and maybe reflective of the Obama administration pursuit to be positive and try and play a bigger role in climate change.”

Obama’s final play is likely to take into account similar measures taken by China.

But unlike Copenhagen in 2009 when President Wen Jinbao was accused of sabotaging negotiations, a John Kerry sponsored dialogue between the countries aims to develop an understanding ahead of the 2015 summit.

“Climate change is a trade issue now. It is a security issue,” says Ousman Jarju.

“If the US wants to address the trade imbalance between them and China, and China and the EU, then China will have to play ball…and China has realised that it is a big player. It is an economic power, and it would have to contribute, and this is why we are expecting China to come forward with something that is going to play a key role in the final outcome.”

Finance as ever remains a constant concern for LDC diplomats, aware that previous pledges by rich countries have not always been fulfilled, and poorer countries are sceptical of private sector involvement.

However, Ousman Jarju sees a potential breakthrough with the UN-backed Green Climate Fund, which is open for business this year.

Its ultimate aim is to raise $100 billion a year for low carbon infrastructure investment, although climate economists including Lord Stern say the figure needed is closer to trillions.

Ousman Jarju says a $20 billion capitalization this year would represent a small success, enabling plans for a loss and damage mechanism, technology transfer and clean energy investments to be scaled up.

These he says are evidence of “incremental steps”, adding  that the world is in a better place to agree a climate agreement than it was in 2009, year of the ill-fated Copenhagen climate talks, which he attended.

“I am a bit optimistic, because at least we are solving the issues.”

The post UN climate talks: rich nations need to deliver in 2014 says Gambia envoy appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: UNFCCC/Flickr)

By Pa Ousman Jarju

For the past decade I have travelled to meeting after meeting of the UN climate change talks as a national negotiator for The Gambia, as chair of the Least Developed Countries group, and now as Gambia’s Special Climate Envoy.

This journey has taught me that diplomacy is the key that can unlock the treasure chest of ambition we need to tackle climate change.

The talks, now in their 20th year, are meant to lead to a new international climate treaty for all nations to adopt in 2015. But they are going nowhere fast. Negotiators are entrenched.

These civil servants work to defend national interests at all costs, and so progress towards an effective agreement remains woefully slow. What’s lacking is political leadership.

In November 2013, it was Warsaw’s turn to host the talks. It was a grim meeting. The atmosphere of suspicion was so severe that I thought we would leave without conclusions.

ANALYSIS: What was agreed at COP19 in Warsaw?

While some nations backtracked on their commitments to reduce emissions or provide poorer countries with finance, other nations’ efforts to reduce emissions went unacknowledged. Clearly so fractured an environment does not catalyse compromise – the necessary foundation of any UN agreement.

In a speech I gave in Warsaw’s national football stadium, I explained that the talks can only succeed if there is trust between developed and developing countries. Trust – plain and simple.

Sadly, any news headlines about the Warsaw talks that mentioned trust preceded the word with “lack of”, “mis” and “dis”. Despite the trials of Warsaw, I continue to believe that trust can end the stalemate. Building it however requires engagement on a political level – and that’s where climate diplomacy comes in.

While negotiations are an attempt to reconcile conflicting positions into an agreeable outcome, diplomacy is the art of moving the political boundaries that define what outcomes are possible. Climate diplomacy then is the art of influencing what is politically possible.

REPORT: 2014 a ‘critical year’ for politics of climate change

If my years as a negotiator at the UN climate change talks have taught me anything, it is the power of political will.

President Obama proved this last year in enacting through executive order his Climate Action Plan, which will reduce emissions in the country that has historically put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other.

Political will is also the key to ambition on the international stage. Without it there is little hope of global agreement on a climate treaty that all nations can take home and ratify. But to increase political will we must first build trust.

Over recent years, I have watched the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) gain the ability to build trust in the international climate arena. The LDC Group brings to the UN two powerful catalysts for trust, which as Gambia’s Special Climate Envoy I hope to take to the diplomatic stage:

• First, proactive domestic political conditions that support ambitious climate action. The Gambia has mainstreamed climate change into our 5-year development strategy and identified actions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, 12 LDCs have drafted mitigation policies, even though their emissions are insignificant compared to those of other nations.

All 48 LDCs have developed programs to address their urgent adaptation needs. Nine LDCs are at the forefront of enacting low-carbon resilient development strategies. By walking the walk of ambitious climate action, the LDCs can openly engage in dialogue with other nations in a spirit of leadership. Leading by example is a powerful element of trust building.

• Second, a demonstrated willingness to compromise and engage at the political level. The LDCs see climate change as an issue of the highest political importance.

At the UN, the LDC Group can translate this into a style of negotiation that no longer merely defends its own positions, but one that actively seeks common ground among the key players of climate talks. The Group is also an enthusiastic force in generating solutions and outcomes that are commensurate with the scale of the climate problem.

My country is the first, and so far the only member of the 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to appoint a full-time climate change envoy. As Gambia’s Special Climate Envoy I hope to use these catalysts for cooperation to build both trust and understanding.

I see climate diplomacy as an opportunity to continue dialogue with partners and civil society in developed and developing countries both during and outside the UN climate negotiations.

2014 will present several opportunities to engage in climate diplomacy. Events such as the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in September will pave the way toward the all-important meeting in Paris in 2015, when nations aim to establish an effective climate agreement.

Having spent years at the climate change negotiations, it is time to take my message to a higher political sphere.

Over the coming years my aim is to try to build trust between nations by showing other diplomats and political leaders what forward-looking countries in the LDC Group are already doing to tackle climate change.

I want to promote better understanding, encourage compromises and build convergence around various positions. Because it is clear that diplomacy is what’s needed.

The post Pa Ousman Jarju: we can still talk our way out of climate chaos appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Susannah Fisher

As the world waited for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to release its latest report last month, the climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern emphasized that: “It cannot be a case of either achieving growth or tackling global warming. It must be both.”

In rejecting a trade-off between addressing climate change and securing growth and development, Stern supports a low-carbon resilient development approach, which brings together three traditionally separate goals: the reduction of climate change emissions (climate change mitigation), adaptation to the effects caused by climate change and economic and social development.

This approach has been pioneered by nine of the least developed countries (LDCs) — Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Laos, Mozambique, Nepal and Rwanda — over the past four years.

These ‘early adopters’ offer important insights into how low-carbon resilient development works in practice, providing lessons for other countries that may develop such strategies in the future.

This is something I have been looking at  through IIED’s work on Drivers for low carbon resilient development, whose first findings we have just published.

The assumption that drives low carbon resilient development is that addressing two or three policy areas together can produce successes across the three agendas and be more cost effective.

However, efficiency is just part of the approach’s appeal. The LDCs value low-carbon resilient development for many other socio-economic and political reasons, including the way they can use it as a moral weight in encouraging developed nations to curb their own emissions.

It bolsters the approach of the LDC group at the international level to move from following other countries to asking other countries to “follow us”.

Adopting different approaches

Countries have treated low-carbon strategies and resilience in different ways. For example, in Bangladesh they are separate policy areas; in Ethiopia and Rwanda they have been brought into one overarching policy framework.

There are different options available for bringing policy areas together or finding synergies between them:

-One single policy. For example, a policy to build new schools on boats using decentralised, renewable energy sources, such as solar panels, could bring about benefits in all three areas. This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and help communities to not only adapt to more severe weather patterns, floods and rising water levels, but also develop through their increased access to education.

-An overarching policy objective within which different policies in each of the three areas help a country or community become more low carbon resilient. For example a national policy objective of low carbon resilient development that is achieved through a policy on low carbon agriculture in one ministry, resilient housing in another and development policies on education and health.

-Establishing a special climate change fund or financial mechanism that supports all these policy areas. Departments or other actors can usually apply for funding for a specific programme or intervention that addresses one or more of the policy objectives, but this does not necessarily imply links in implementing the policies beyond a general political will to support all three goals.

It is not yet clear, however, how these different approaches affect the extent to which governments can meet goals to develop, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to climate change. This is a crucial issue, but one which policymakers tend to overlook in their enthusiasm to bring the three agendas together.

Trade-offs and costs

Everyone involved in planning low-carbon resilient development must also address other challenges, which include costs, local contexts, and how these affect the potential benefits.

While some policies create ‘triple wins’, as in the school boats mentioned above, others will bring benefits in only one of the three areas — or strong benefits in one but only weak benefits in the others.

Using this three-way analysis to look at low-carbon resilient development strategies can help assess where a policy, sector or programme might fit.

This in turn helps determine the appropriate policy approach and level of policy-making. It also helps policymakers to recognise that there may be trade-offs between agendas and possible extra costs.

For example, research on coastal management in Belize, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam shows how some policies are able to produce benefits in all three areas, yet others are ‘creating development losses, mal-adaptation, and worsening emissions’.

Learning by doing

While there is no evidence yet of these costs or losses in what the LDCs have planned and implemented, governments there must monitor these risks. And as they search for synergies and win-win strategies, it’s important they don’t overlook climate justice and people’s rights to development.

Governments and development partners must also be prepared to change direction when it becomes clearer which strategies yield the best results.

It is critical then that the least developed countries – and others that follow their lead – learn from the evidence that is beginning to emerge from their experiences of adopting new strategies and approaches to climate-resilient planning.

Policymakers and analysts still know very little about the advantages and disadvantages of bringing together these agendas in practice. A learning-by-doing approach will generate robust evidence about where to find, and how to support, ‘win-win’ strategies and plans from which we can all learn.

Susannah Fisher is a researcher in IIED’s climate change group.

Download Susannah Fisher’s new paper: Low carbon resilient development in the least developed countries.

The post Green growth: lessons in climate resilience from world’s poorest appeared first on Climate Home News.

Contributions will be channelled through the Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund (LDCF/SCCF), which are managed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

According to the GEF this takes total international commitments for investment in climate change adaptation programs in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions to more than $1 billion.

The news came on the same day the LDCF and SCCF approved $44.83 million in grant funding for Cameroon, Haiti, Namibia and the Andes region.

“The donors are stepping up to the adaptation challenge, and this is absolutely critical given the state of our climate, and we are truly grateful for the support of these nations as well as their vote of confidence in the LDCF and SCCF,” said Bonizella Biagini, Head of the GEF Climate Change Adaptation Program.

Haitians cross a flooded street in Léogâne, 30 km southeast of Port-au-Prince during intense rains in 2010 (Pic: UN Photos)

The LDCF and SCCF are targeted at adaptation financing for the poorest countries in the world and for climate-vulnerable countries including small island states.

“We now experience major economic costs due to unsustainable practices, and we can no longer exclude catastrophic tipping points,” said GEF CEO Naoko Ishii.

“Evidence around the globe calls for concerted action on mitigation, but also on adaptation and preparedness.

“The adaptation program of the GEF, financed under LDCF and SCCF, addresses these challenges through concrete adaptation actions that contribute to poverty alleviation, build resistance in all development sectors including food security, and build capacity for disaster risk management and prevention.”

Climate change adaptation programs aim to help regions deal with the impacts associated with global warming, including water scarcity, rising sea levels, floods, and weather extremes.

Previously the bulk of climate finance has been targeted at mitigation efforts, such as clean energy projects, but in recent years adaptation has become more urgent.

Increasing finance flows is likely to be a major topic at this November’s UN climate summit in Warsaw.

The presence of senior finance figures would please poorer nations reliant on aid.

In their closing statement ay the UN talks in Bonn two weeks ago, the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) called on nations contributing climate finance to provide details on the size of those pledges before the end of this year.

Governments have committed to provide $100bn a year of climate finance by 2020 via the Green Climate Fund.

The post Least Developed Countries climate adaptation fund gets $200m boost appeared first on Climate Home News.

Concrete plans to deliver finance, technology and capacity building to combat climate change are still woefully inadequate, 83 developing nations have warned in a statement at the United Nations climate negotiations.

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) groups, which represent over 920 million people, say UN talks in Bonn over the next two weeks must focus on short-term efforts to address rising levels of carbon emissions.

They argue that if developed countries do not “take the lead in examining untapped domestic mitigation potential” they will face a far larger bill from climate-vulnerable nations if rising sea levels start to submerge countries.

“We hope to see this process leading toward more closely identifying concrete plans to mobilise the finance, technology, and capacity building needed to unlock mitigation reductions in line with scientific recommendations,” the statement reads.

“Unfortunately, more frequent, extreme and intense climate impacts, such as droughts, floods, cyclones, storm surges, and sea level rise, have already taken a toll on our people, so adaptation and Loss and Damage must be integral to the discussions at this session so an international Loss and Damage mechanism can be established in Warsaw.”

The cost of compensating countries for climate related disasters could outweigh the price of cutting carbon emissions now

In the first instance AOSIS and the LDCs want all signatories to the Kyoto Protocol extension agreed in 2012 to ratify their obligations, and collectively aim for “more ambitious targets” in 2014.

European Union members expect to ratify the extension later this year, ahead of the COP19 Warsaw climate summit in November.

Both groups maintain countries at the UN climate talks should be aiming to keep global warming below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. This level of ambition is likely to be contested over the coming days.

A German study published ahead of the latest round of discussions in Bonn argued a goal to prevent 2C of warming is “no longer feasible”. USA lead climate negotiator Todd Stern voiced doubts over the target’s usefulness last year, and it is likely there are other larger nations who would be happy to see it quietly dropped.

But it would likely meet fierce resistance from the UN Climate Secretariat, poorer nations, the EU and civil society groups around the world.

“It’s just one think tank and it’s not a widely accepted view. They are right in saying it’s difficult to avoid 2C, targets and actions will need to be changed drastically. But it needs all different kinds of action,” Ulriikka Aarnio, Senior Policy Officer at the Climate Action Network told RTCC from Bonn.

“2C is too dangerous, it’s not acceptable and means passing the tipping points. But we can’t fool ourselves that the little cosmetics that we are doing would help ourselves. It’s really getting late and communication needs to change.”

Russian roulette

Efforts to inject urgency into the UN negotiations ground to a halt in the first major session of the two-week gathering, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI).

A move from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to discuss ‘Procedural and legal issues relating to decision-making by the Conference of the Parties’ proved unpopular with other delegates.

The East European trio’s gripe relates to the way decisions are reached at the UN climate talks – in particular those relating to the Kyoto Protocol in Doha last year – which Russia delegate Oleg Shamanov condemned as approaching ‘legal nihilism’.

While regarded as a valid concern by many observers, many were left frustrated that a point of procedure had effectively stopped negotiations on how to generate effective climate action on day one of the conference.

“We showed flexibility believing that our views would be taken into consideration but decisions were taken without that consideration,” said the Belarus representative.

Fiji’s delegation argued that it was “not in interest of parties to engage in an agenda fight on the first day”, but with no consensus on how to resolve the issue the chairman had to adjourn the session just over an hour after they had started.

“It’s not unusual for Russia to do something like this. They have often delayed the progress, and usually it is at the end not at the beginning,” said Aarnio.

“This comes from when the decision in Doha was hammered without their agreeing to it. It was a surprise for everyone when the decision [in Doha} was made, and someone might consider they have a reason to be upset, but this is not a nice way to stall the whole process.”

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“The time is gone to think of this whole thing in terms of aid. I am one of those who argues the age of aid is over”.

Not the words of a right wing politician, but Dipak Gyawali, a former government minister from Nepal, one of the poorest countries on the planet.

They illustrate the growing sense of confidence among the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and a belief that the past 60 years of ‘development thinking’ has not worked.

It is leading many of them to ask rich nations to keep their money and instead focus on ensuring their own economic goals do less damage to the planet.

Gyawali was speaking at the offices of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), which is supporting a new LDC expert group aimed at influencing the UN’s proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Chaired by former Haiti Prime Minister Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis and made up of delegates from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eritrea, Gambia, Mali, Nepal, Uganda and Senegal, the group can claim to speak for a wide section of the developing world.

Political interference and corruption in poverty relief efforts in Nepal mean much aid never reaches its intended targets (Pic: UN)

Like their LDC colleagues at the climate talks, they are tired of ‘broken promises’ from rich nations. And in an interesting twist, their fear of losing development cash appears to be receding.

“Aid is an instrument of foreign policy to influence southern governments,” said Gyawali. “It might be OECD aid needs to go to targeted sectors like medical drugs, but standard development has to be done by working out how LDCs use their own money.”

Despite calls for the UK overseas aid to be slashed, British Chancellor George Osborne recently announced the budget will be fixed from 2013 at the international target of 0.7% of national income.

But whether the billions that have been transferred from the Global North to South have been effective is hotly contested.

Some say it’s a waste of money and funds kleptocratic third-world rulers, others argue it’s simplistic to argue that the failure of some projects, negates the need for aid.

Leadership

Leaving those to one side, what is revealing is that representatives from poorer parts of the world feel in a strong enough position to start dictating terms and setting the agenda at high-level UN negotiations.

If this group is indicative of a wider policy change, these countries appear to be getting to the point where they will suffer without foreign cash donations – while calling for greater North-South dialogue and targeted assistance.

“We should rethink international cooperation, of which we need far more in this globalised world, and rethink it in terms of something other than north giving aid to south,” said Gyawali. “That should not be the driving force anymore.

“Shortage of money is not the problem. Most of these LDCs, there’s tonnes of money being spent in the wrong places. The land price in [parts of] Kathmandu is higher than New York.”

Expert group member Youba Sokona of Mali talked of reframing the message: “We want to jumpstart a sustainability path – instead of selling desperation we want to sell hope,” he said.

Forthcoming SDG and climate negotiations offer two forums for LDCs to try and change current development thinking – but their emboldened status does not hinge on the success of these two sets of talks.

“In the past with the Millennium Development Goals the framing was getting poor people out of poverty – it was about developed countries funding that,” says the IIED’s Saleemul Huq.

“The next era is much less in our view about that paradigm continuing – it’s not about the rich giving money to the poor. That remains an unfinished but minor part of the agenda.

“A bigger part is the whole world reaching sustainability, in which the rich are over-consuming and over-polluting. It’s not about them sending money to the poor. It’s about them doing something at home. It’s about their own profligacy.”

Exploitation

The impact of high consumption levels on developing nations were rammed home when a factory building collapsed in Bangladesh two weeks ago, killing 1,100. Leading retailers Benetton, Mango, Primark, Matalan and Bonmarche have since admitted buying products from the factory.

Some European retailers say they will sign an accord to improve safety conditions in factories in Bangladesh, but this was not the first factory collapse, and is unlikely to be the last.

There is a growing anger among all levels of the establishment at the way workers are treated, and the pathetic wages they are paid – albeit many are higher than average salaries in South Asia.

The LDC bloc do not just have the traditional ‘developed’ countries in their sights. They also want the emerging economies of China, India, South Africa and Brazil to think carefully about their resource use and soaring output of greenhouse gas emissions.

Recent experience at the UN climate talks suggests they may have greater powers of persuasion with these countries, particularly through forums like the G77, which are bound by a sense of solidarity.

Huq says the days of viewing the LDCs as “victims” are gone, arguing that the “rich have a lot to learn from the poor”, particularly learning how to live without a “high pollution lifestyle”.

Their influence is limited, economically they are weak, and aid payments are likely to continue for some time to come. But the world’s least developed countries are finding their voice, and they don’t seem too fussed if they ruffle a few feathers along the way.

The post World’s poorest set to assume leadership role at UN talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

The world’s poorest countries say they are now prepared to commit themselves to binding cuts in their emissions of greenhouse gases.

The move has the potential to quicken the pace of the glacially-slow UN negotiations, which have for years been trying to agree an effective way to cut emissions in order to avoid runaway climate change.

The Group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is a major negotiating bloc at the UN talks, with its member states including 12% of the world’s people.

Whether its willingness to accept cuts will in fact hasten the birth of a new and comprehensive climate agreement will now depend largely on the good faith and commitment of the richer countries.

Negotiators hope greater ambition from the world’s poorest could shame richer countries into taking action to cut energy consumption

LDC group climate negotiator Quamrul Chowdury told the Climate News Network: “Prakash Mathema, the current Chair of the LDCs in the climate negotiations, has a new mantra: ‘Follow us’.

“That means the 49 LDCs under his leadership are set to act in the process as a very pro-active group. They will lead by example – by doing. The LDCs are no longer waiting for others to act.

“I think the LDCs are now for low carbon pathways for all. They are even ready to go first in helping to cut back global greenhouse gas emissions, though they are the ones least responsible for increasing those emissions.”

Asked whether this meant that the LDCs now accepted the need for binding emissions cuts by all signatories to the international climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, and not just by industrialised countries, Chowdury said it did.

“All countries should commit [to accepting cuts], but developing countries’ National Appropriate Mitigation Actions [NAMAs] should be supported”, he said.

Differentiated responsibilities

NAMAs are policies and actions which countries undertake as part of their commitment to reduce emissions.

The term, developed by the UN negotiators,  recognizes that different countries may act in different ways based on equity and on their shared but differing responsibilities and abilities – in other words, the contribution they have made to climate change.

NAMAs do not involve governments making the sort of binding commitments which the LDCs say they will now accept. They do stress the importance of financial help from developed to developing countries to help them to reduce emissions.

“Major emitters need to scale up their efforts. They also need to do more to stabilise the global temperature well below 2°C…”

Mr Chowdury’s statement that the LDCs now accept that all countries should make binding emissions cuts is a significant diplomatic step forward.

It has been the developing world’s refusal to accept that it is responsible for helping to solve a problem it did not cause that has allowed some industrialised countries, notably the US and Australia, to refuse to commit themselves to internationally-agreed cuts.

Chowdury added: “The LDCs are for raising ambitions over climate change mitigation, because mitigation is the ultimate adaptation. And adaptation has its limits.

“The cost of adaptation is also rising every day as the most industrialised countries are not slashing their emissions, except for some of the European good boys. But that is not enough.

“Major emitters need to scale up their efforts. They also need to do more to stabilise the global temperature well below 2°C [a widely accepted global threshold].

“LDCs are also doing some adaptation, and they are showing global leadership here. Bangladesh, Nepal and Mozambique are shining cases of successful on-the-ground adaptation.

“Those cases should be scaled up and replicated. Others can learn from the LDCs how to face climate adversities day in and day out.”

Mr Chowdury’s statement goes to the heart of one of the most divisive issues in the negotiations: who should move first by cutting emissions?

A number of developed countries argue that they will make cuts only when the LDCs do so, despite the fact that it is industrialisation and development that have largely caused the human contribution to climate change.

Until now the LDCs have insisted that they should not be asked to accept binding cuts because they have contributed so few emissions to the total now in the atmosphere.

Prakash Mathema’s mantra, urging the LDCs to set an example others can follow, could alter the terms of the entire debate.

This story was produced by the Climate News Network

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The planet’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) say they have lost patience with the glacial pace of the UN climate change talks and plan to set their own agenda.

Representatives from the 49-strong LDC group met in Kathmandu over the weekend to discuss a response to the ‘Doha Gateway’ agreed at the last round of UN talks in December 2012.

LDC nations, who include some of the world’s most climate vulnerable states, repeated their concerns that the emission reduction and financial pledges from developed nations are unsatisfactory.

In the aftermath of the 2012 Doha climate negotiations chairman Pa Ousman Jarju told RTCC the status quo was “inadequate”, while Nauru Minister of Foreign Affairs Kieren Keke said it was “difficult to see how the process could continue”.

The group’s new chair Prakash Mathema says they will now take a more assertive stance at the next round of talks, scheduled to start in Bonn at the end of April.

“The adoption of 2015 treaty will prove daunting. However, it is my belief that in meeting these challenges, we should adopt a new mantra in the international climate arena,” he said.

“In our quest to secure a future of climate safety, we must move from an ‘after you’ mentality to a perspective that says, follow us!”

Gambia negotiator Pa Ousman Jarju expressed frustration at the glacial pace of climate talks during the 2012 Doha summit

While the LDC’s individual nations boast little economic or political muscle, collectively they act as the conscience of the UN climate process together with the small island states – a point Mathema alluded to in his closing speech.

“The LDCs occupy a unique position in the climate negotiations: we are amongst the most vulnerable; we are amongst the least responsible; and despite this we have already started to put in place some of the most ambitious climate change policies,” he said.

“We should, therefore, use our position to change the international focus and perception of climate change.”

Mathema added: “We can no longer wait expectantly with the attitude of ‘after you.’  Instead, we must stride boldly forward with the mind-set of ‘follow us.’

“It is time the LDCs became the deal makers. It is time we shaped the agenda and the decisions, instead of having them shaped for us.”

The EU alliance with the LDCs during the 2011 talks in Durban was viewed as critical in forcing India, China and to an extent the USA to commit to signing a new deal on climate change in 2015.

UK climate minister Greg Barker told RTCC it was “extremely powerful” in terms of keeping up the pressure for “high ambition”.

European nations had hoped to see this continue in Doha, but a combination of broken finance promises and low ambition emission levels saw relations become increasingly frosty.

Today’s LDC statement appears to suggest the group are now determined to take matters into their own hands, leading to speculation they may work more closely with leading developing nations.

Lack of urgency

Concerns over the sluggish nature of the UN talks are not restricted to LDC representatives.

Last week UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told an audience from the Pacific island of Tonga the process “lacked urgency” and was simply “too slow”.

“The last three intergovernmental climate negotiations held in Cancun, Durban and Doha have been successful inasmuch as they have achieved what they had to achieve to move theclimate regime forward,” she said, “however, this directional move forward continues to be too slow.”

Figueres added: “Further integration of all three levels, international, national and private sector will also help to reach the low carbon economy that we need to ensure the response to climate change. And respond we must.

“We cannot have a Plan B because we don’t have a Planet B.”

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The world’s most climate vulnerable countries have demanded that the ‘developed world’ submits legally binding emission reductions at COP18 in Doha to ensure the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol is upheld.

In a joint statement to the final plenary in Bangkok, the Least Developed Countries and the Alliance of Small Island States came together to call on developed countries to raise the ambition of their reduction commitments and submit legally binding QELROS (Quantified Emissions Limitation and Reduction Obligations) for a second period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Aligning themselves with the final statement delivered by the African Group at the conference, they said this represented the view of 100 countries and over a billion people most vulnerable to climate change.

The statement read: “We are concerned that the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only international treaty that legally binds developed countries to lower emissions, and thus our lone assurance that action will be taken, is eroding before our eyes.

“This will require action in Doha that prioritises reducing emission that is in line with the latest scientific recommendations.”

In a statement released to the final plenary in Bangkok LDCs and AISOS joined together to call on higher ambition from developed countries (Source: UNFCCC/Flickr)

Speaking to RTCC during the conference, LDC chairman Pa Ousman Jarju said talks over the Protocol had been “positive” and that there had been some signs of “movement.”

But he also said the LDC bloc was increasingly unhappy over the lack of ambition from developed countries.

“We cannot use the economic crisis as an excuse for not acting on climate change,” he said.

He warned states that were planning not to be part of KP2 that they would be denied access to CDM carbon credits, which make it cheaper for them to meet their domestic goals.

The  talks ended yesterday with the release of an ‘unofficial draft’ of the Kyoto Protocol which will form the basis of discussions at COP18 in Doha. The Protocol, agreed in 1997, set out legally binding emissions cuts for developed nations.

Outstanding issues – such as the length of the second commitment period and what is to be done with surplus units  are set to be key topics for continued discussion, although Bangkok made some progress in the discussions.

The LDCs and AOSIS also called for the second commitment period to be five years – rather than eight years suggest by some countries – to prevent “insufficient ambition” being locked in.

They also called for the use of surplus units from the first commitment period should be curbed to ensure the effectiveness of the new period, to begin 1 January 2013.

They said parties must affirm that the systems built under the Kyoto Protocol will be applied to the second period and that any amendments should not hold up the implementation of second period commitments.

Finally the group called for countries not under the Kyoto Protocol to make their own commitments under the LCA negotiations.

Related Articles:

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Bangkok 2012: Civil society react to latest round of UN climate talks

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The countries met to talk about raising the levels of ambition on the road to Doha (© europa.eu)

The European Union and the world’s poorest nations joined forces again this week to call for more ambitious measures to reduce global carbon emissions  and finance the fight against climate change.

Hosted by EU Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard and the Danish EU Presidency the informal ministerial aimed to build on agreements made at the Durban Climate talks.

It was here the unlikely coalition between the EU, the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) first formed.

30 countries including representatives from the LDCs and the AOSIS as well as developed countries including Norway and Australia and next year’s conference hosts Qatar met in Brussels (7-8 May) to discuss up the game ahead of December.

“It is very clear that we are all in agreement,” said Hedegaard. “No backtracking. On the contrary it is more ambition not less ambition that we need. Not only for those who are already ambitious but also for those who might not have been so ambitious so far. It is very important to get more people on board.”

She said the informal meeting gave the countries a chance to “test the waters” and called on countries worldwide to step up to their emissions-reduction efforts and deliver their pledge at Doha to iron out by 2015.

Other countries present at the informal meetings this week gave stark reminders of the price of inaction.

“If we do not control the emission of pollution in the air in the next few years to the level which was already agree in Durban and in other forums,” warned Tony de Brum, Minister in assistance with the President of the Marshall Islands.

“The Marshalls, the Gilberts and some of the other island of the Pacific will be the first to go. They will go under water. So for us it is a matter of survival, not just a matter of clean air or clean water. But it is about the actual survival of a people.”

He said the coalition with the EU had thrown a lifeline to the most vulnerable countries worldwide.

Issues discussed over the two days ranged from energy to agriculture, to oceans and fisheries. They also discussed the Rio+20 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development coming up in Brazil next month.

Commitment to finance

One of the main focuses on the informal meetings was the gap existing in climate finance. But with the acute economic crisis still taking focus in the Euro zone, the EU has come under some fire themselves to fill their section of the Green Climate Fund.

While the EU has committed to provide 7.2 billion Euros ($9.4 billion) for the fund over 2010-12, as agreed at the Copenhagen climate talks, after this point how much money will flow into the fund remains unclear.

The Green Climate Fund aims to provide $100 billion globally per year by 2020 to help those most vulnerable to climate change, but a lot of questions around how this could be raised remain.

Martin Lidegaard, Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Building has said both new countries and new private methods of finance will be needed to ensure targets are met.

“This recognising that we need to move on several avenues on both the mitigation gap and the finance gap is what has gathered us here today,” he said.

One such method of finance has been the inclusion of aviation in the current EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) which has faced huge criticism since its adoption in January this year.

Despite this, however, the EU remains confident that such schemes could go some way in helping to raise the types of finance that they predict will be needed in coming years.

Hedegaard said there are many options to consider including levies on aviation bunker fuel, carbon markets, and a solution to shipping emissions – both to help lower emissions and help raise finance.

The EU’s position was supported by the other countries present at the informal meetings and Hasan Mahmud, Bangladeshi Minister for Environment and Forests praised Europe for being “advanced in delivering their responsibilities” in financial pledges to date.

RELATED VIDEO: Former head of the UNFCCC Michael Zammit-Cutajar talks about the countries needed to be involved in successful climate deal…

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