Rich Countries Only Delivering Half of the Pledged $40 Billion in Climate Adaptation Funding
According to new research, rich countries are only delivering about half of the $40 billion per year they promised to less rich countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.
According to research from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), developed countries and multilateral organisations are on track to channel $21.8 billion in climate adaptation finance per year by 2025, which is more than $18 billion short of the amount promised at the COP26 climate talks last year.
Clare Shakya, IIED's director of climate research, said:
"You only need to look at heatwaves in India and Pakistan, and flooding in South Africa and Bangladesh, threatening the lives of millions, to see that providing the means for developing countries to adapt to the now inevitable changes in climate is vital."
According to IIED's analysis of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data, two countries, France and Sweden, have pledged more than their fair share, while five others, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Germany, are at least halfway there.
Advanced G7 economies such as the United States, Italy, and Japan, according to the IIED, are falling short of their fair share.
It comes as negotiators gather in Bonn to assess progress since COP26, and just before the G7 leaders' summit, where the UK, which holds the COP presidency until November, hopes to exert pressure on other wealthy nations.
The pledge to double adaptation funding made during the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow in November was hailed as a major achievement.
According to a COP26 spokesperson, "Urgently ramping up finance is critical for global climate action,"
Climate financing has long been a problematic issue in climate diplomacy, as it is the means through which affluent polluting countries fund climate measures in less rich countries, which have traditionally polluted the least.
Developing countries fell short of a goal set in 2009 of donating $100 billion per year by 2020. They also fell short of allocating 50 per cent of the cash to mitigation (steps to reduce emissions) and adaptation (measures to cope with climate impacts). Only about a quarter of the $80 billion in climate money pledged in 2019 was set aside for adaptation.
Because some climate-vulnerable countries have low emissions, they stand to profit more from adaptation measures, which might be difficult to obtain owing to bureaucracy.
Improvements in reporting uniformity and transparency, according to the UK's COP26 team and the IIED, would at the very least help assess how much money was spent on adaptation.
Source: Sky News
