DOHA, QATAR—There are increasing concerns about the outcomes of the UN climate negotiations due to the major uncertainties around funding for climate financing programs. Today, campaigners from Time for Climate Justice held a silent action at the entrance of the Qatar National Convention Centre with large zero bills to represent the lack of financing given to the least developed countries from developed countries in order to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
“We need governments taking action urgently to deliver climate finance,” said Mariana Paoli, one of the event’s organizers.
Currently, developing countries are receiving money through the Fast-start Finance mechanism, a commitment from developed countries to provide up to USD 30 billion to developing countries to help with their mitigation and adaptation efforts between 2010 and 2012. This was decided at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 and is set to expire at the end of this year.
“It is what we’ve called a climate fiscal cliff at the end of this year,” said Tim Gore from Oxfam International. “The end of 2012 is the end of the Fast Start Finance period...and all what developed countries have left is a vague commitment to mobilize USD 100 billion per year by 2020 and there is no clarity on what the roadmap is between 2013 and 2020.”
According to Gore, a lot of the money in Fast-start Finance has been moved around from other previously assessed funds and was given in forms of loans instead of grants. The Green Climate Fund is set to replace the fast start finance as of 2013 to be giving this urgently needed money. However it is currently empty and while it is being discussed at COP18 in Doha, there are major concerns surrounding its effectiveness.
“The real worry is that in the next year just as the moment when climate finance needs to scale up the fast start finance levels, the real risk is that it will go down,” he added. “At the moment, it is an empty shell. Are we going to leave Doha for the third COP in a row without any money in the Green Climate Fund?”
This fund is crucial to help developing countries mitigating and adapting to the increasingly destructive climate change consequences.
“We have to put as much pressure as we can otherwise the poorest rights to adapt and develop in a clean pathway will be under threat or undermined,” said Paoli. “Climate Finance is critical to achieve climate justice.”
Canada has been playing an obstructive role in moving this discussion further. At the beginning of this week, Environment Minister Peter Kent announced that Canada is not yet committing to giving any additional funding.
“We’ve got developed countries that are resisting putting any new financial commitments on the table. At the one extreme of that is Canada that has just started saying publicly there will be no new money from Canada until we have a new agreement. Now, we don’t know what exactly they mean by that, but these are not the signals that we want to be hearing from developed countries at this stage,” added Gore.
There are major concerns that the lack of climate financing could derail the outcome of the negotiations and prevent parties from reaching a meaningful deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
Crystel Hajjar is reporting for the Media Co-op from the COP18 conference in Qatar. Stay tuned for more news over the next week.