Climate talks in Marrakech fail to deliver
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TALKS in Marrakech may not deliver a substantial boost to international funding to help poorer countries cope with the effects of climate change, negotiators and development charities fear.
A ministerial dialogue at the talks yesterday yielded little beyond a few pledges from European countries to adaptation funds set up under UN negotiations, they said.
Developing countries have made consistent and impassioned pleas in Marrakech for more financing to help them adjust to intensifying climate shifts — but so far those pleas have largely fallen on deaf ears, representatives said.
Frank Bainimarama, prime minister of Fiji, spoke of the “terrifying new era we face because of climate change.” A powerful cyclone this year wiped out a fifth of his country’s GDP.
Fiji needs access to finance so it can adapt to climate change by strengthening homes and infrastructure, burying power lines and relocating people, he said.
He said the current level of international finance for poorer nations was “woefully inadequate.”
According to a recent “roadmap” from wealthy nations outlining how they will mobilize the annual US$100 billion in overall funding they have promised by 2020, the amount allocated for adaptation in 2013 and 2014 was almost US$10 billion per year, or around 16 percent of the total.
The donors’ roadmap projects that the amount of international funding for adaptation will at least double by 2020. But that would still fall well short of the “balance” in funding between adaptation measures and emissions-cutting steps recommended in the accord crafted in Paris last year.
“Doubling is not enough,” said Lutz Weischer, of thinktank Germanwatch. “We need to scale it up much more aggressively.”
Developing countries want a quadrupling of adaptation funding, and had hoped rich states would respond to that call at the talks in Morocco, which end today.
Negotiations on the issue continued yesterday, amid disagreement over the strength of the commitment developed countries are prepared to make on adaptation finance.
On Wednesday, Zambian President Edgar Lungu said the least developed countries were being left “with far too little support, and adaptation needs continue to be neglected rather than prioritized.” The difficulty such countries have in attracting private-sector investment makes matters worse, he added.
Fiji is doing what it can to tackle climate change with its own resources, its prime minister said, improving building codes and better equipping communities to withstand shocks. But it needs more money, he added.
“It is high time to rearrange global spending priorities in the direction of those nations that are most at risk,” he said.
Civil society experts at the talks welcomed a 50 million euro (US$53.7 million) pledge from Germany and a smaller contribution from Sweden to the Adaptation Fund.
But experts say tens of billions of dollars are already needed each year — and that could rise to between US$140 billion and US$300 billion per year in 2030, according to the UN Environment Program.
“This adaptation finance gap was unfinished business back in Paris, and the Marrakech talks seem to be just kicking it down the road once more,” said Jan Kowalzig, of Oxfam Germany.
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