Helping Developing Nations Tackle Climate Change Meaningless Unless…
EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE
Some world renowned academics have warned that the industrialised world’s promise of billions of “new and additional” dollars to help developing nations tackle climate change is meaningless without a baseline from which to count new funds.
Expressing this view in a briefing paper published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the academics, Saleemul Huq , senior fellow in IIED’s climate change group; Martin Stadelmann, researcher at the Centre for International and Comparative Studies in Switzerland; and J. Timmons Roberts, director of the Centre for Environmental Studies at Brown University, United States, outlined two workable options for defining a baseline that would balance the demands of donor and recipient nations.
Authors of the paper, which was formally launched on 5 June, 2010 at a side event during the UN climate-change negotiations in Bonn have also called for a UN-based system to define baselines and monitor pledges and payments. They say this must happen if developed nations are to regain the trust of developing nations and that it is essential for a global climate deal.
According to them, last December, the industrialised nations committed to provide developing nations with US$30 billion of “new and additional” funding between 2010 and 2012, as well as US$100 billion per year by 2020.
They however maintain that developing nations fear that to meet this promise, the developed countries will simply rename existing aid budgets or count previous pledges of climate finance.
“Funding from developed countries to help developing countries tackle climate change has the potential to re-build the lost trust between the two sets of countries — but only if it is done properly,” said Saleemul Huq, who added that “Agreeing on baselines for assessing ‘new and additional’ climate funds is key.”
Co-author J. Timmons Roberts, for his part said: “When is a promise not a promise? When there's no specified baseline that would allow anyone to know if the promise has been fulfilled. That's the case with the Copenhagen Accord's climate finance promise, and that's why this issue needs immediate attention to get the negotiations back on track."
Martin Stadelmann on the other hand said; "Can you imagine the EU pledging to reduce its emissions by say 30% by 2020 without saying if this is 30% below the 1990 or 2005 levels? Yet this is what rich nations did with their funding pledges in Copenhagen when they made a pledge without a reference point and, therefore, without a clear meaning. For mutual accountability, we need an international rule that any pledge has to be accompanied by a baseline."
Some world renowned academics have warned that the industrialised world’s promise of billions of “new and additional” dollars to help developing nations tackle climate change is meaningless without a baseline from which to count new funds.
Expressing this view in a briefing paper published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the academics, Saleemul Huq , senior fellow in IIED’s climate change group; Martin Stadelmann, researcher at the Centre for International and Comparative Studies in Switzerland; and J. Timmons Roberts, director of the Centre for Environmental Studies at Brown University, United States, outlined two workable options for defining a baseline that would balance the demands of donor and recipient nations.
Authors of the paper, which was formally launched on 5 June, 2010 at a side event during the UN climate-change negotiations in Bonn have also called for a UN-based system to define baselines and monitor pledges and payments. They say this must happen if developed nations are to regain the trust of developing nations and that it is essential for a global climate deal.
According to them, last December, the industrialised nations committed to provide developing nations with US$30 billion of “new and additional” funding between 2010 and 2012, as well as US$100 billion per year by 2020.
They however maintain that developing nations fear that to meet this promise, the developed countries will simply rename existing aid budgets or count previous pledges of climate finance.
“Funding from developed countries to help developing countries tackle climate change has the potential to re-build the lost trust between the two sets of countries — but only if it is done properly,” said Saleemul Huq, who added that “Agreeing on baselines for assessing ‘new and additional’ climate funds is key.”
Co-author J. Timmons Roberts, for his part said: “When is a promise not a promise? When there's no specified baseline that would allow anyone to know if the promise has been fulfilled. That's the case with the Copenhagen Accord's climate finance promise, and that's why this issue needs immediate attention to get the negotiations back on track."
Martin Stadelmann on the other hand said; "Can you imagine the EU pledging to reduce its emissions by say 30% by 2020 without saying if this is 30% below the 1990 or 2005 levels? Yet this is what rich nations did with their funding pledges in Copenhagen when they made a pledge without a reference point and, therefore, without a clear meaning. For mutual accountability, we need an international rule that any pledge has to be accompanied by a baseline."
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