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Dangerous double counting
It is becoming clear that people in the poorest parts of the world will be hit first and worst by climate change. Many leaders are promising to help people living in extreme poverty adapt to the effects of climate change and to help reduce emissions. This sounds great, but unfortunately, on closer examination, it turns out most of this money could be double counted - it’s money that has already been promised as development aid.
In other words, some governments want to stretch their much-needed development funding twice as far to try and cover the new challenges presented by climate change. This dangerous double counting needs be exposed - and it needs to stop.
We’re fighting this trend by asking Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen to take the lead as host of the Copenhagen climate change summit in December and set a standard for climate change financing to be transparent and additional to current aid commitments.
Please take action by adding your name to the ONE petition
Sadly too many times in the past multibillion dollar pledges have in fact involved double and even treble counting of pre-existing promises, leaving people in developing countries no better off. Such behaviour in Copenhagen will only compound the injustice already being perpetrated by climate change, and further question the integrity of developed industrialised nations in the eyes of the rest of the developing world. With integrity and action now, this can be avoided, and we can go on to be the generation that beats both poverty and climate change.
There are some good guys out there. For example, The Netherlands has committed to give 0.7% of their Gross National Income to development and an additional 0.1% to sustainable development, and the UK has promised that no more than 10% of the resources the UK currently offers for development will be used to help the poor fight climate change. This transparency is welcome, and hopefully we can encourage other countries to follow suit.
Jamie Drummond
ONE Co-Founder and Executive Director
Financing a global climate deal
As the Copenhagen climate change summit draws closer, the question of how to support developing countries in adapting to climate change, and to enable them to access clean technology, is becoming a make or break issue.
On 30 October, the European Union put its numbers on the table, becoming the first climate negotiation partner to do so. The EU estimates that developing countries will need € 100 billion for adaptation and mitigation by 2020. A large part of that sum would be mobilized by the private sector and developing countries’ own resources. The EU says the remaining € 22-50 billion needs to be covered by donors, and the EU is prepared to contribute its share (presumably around 30%). In addition, the EU agrees that so called ‘fast-start’ international public support (of around € 5-7 billion annually) is needed in the 3 years before any climate agreement comes into force.
This is well below the Worldbank estimate that 75 – 100 billion USD is needed annually between 2010 and 2050 for adaptation alone (20% of which is for Africa), whilst African countries are themselves calling for 67 billion USD for adaptation for the continent.
Yet, the EU proposal is the only financing option with concrete figures on the table of climate negotiators at the moment, and ONE has welcomed it as a first step to unlock the negotiations. But much more work is needed.
The final round of pre Copenhagen negotiations concluded in Barcelona on 6 November with very limited progress and hardened positions. So much so that the African delegation - who for the first time in international negotiations are represented through a unified negotiating team and mandate - walked out of the room on the second day in protest.
Elsewhere the G20 finance ministers, meeting on 7 November in St. Andrews, Scotland, focused on climate financing but could not agree on tangible outcomes. The key question remains whether these funds will be additional to both existing and promised overseas development aid levels. The British government is the most progressive saying that not more than 10% of existing or promised aid levels should be spent on climate related activities. But the fact that the UK is the only major economy with such a proposal, shows that the financing figures currently being discussed could be taken from existing programmes to fight poverty.
With less than a month now to go before Copenhagen, time is running out on achieving an agreement that will provide that best possible deal for the world’s poorest people. If Copenhagen is to be successful is critical that policymakers take special consideration of these people, especially in Africa - both to address their disproportionate need to adapt to impending climate change, but also to work with the continent as a mitigation partner going forward.
What do we want from Copenhagen?
As policy makers prepare to meet to negotiate a global climate deal next month in Copenhagen everyone at ONE will be doing their upmost to ensure the best possible deal for the world’s poorest communities, especially in Africa.
In advance of the meeting ONE has released a new policy paper ‘Africa and the Global Climate Deal’ that outlines the key elements of ‘good’ deal for Africa.
We believe that the developed world need to commit to deep and binding emissions cuts of at least 20% of 1990 CO2 levels by 2020 in order to mitigate against a rise in global average temperature of over 20C (the amount above which climate scientists agree will cause lasting, irreversible damage to the planet).
On helping developing countries cope with the effects of climate change, we agree that at least the World Bank estimate that between $75-100 billion will be needed annually. This should come from a mixture of private and public finance sources, with contributing countries ensuring that the money is truly additional to pledges that have already been made on development assistance.
In short, climate change is not a crisis of Africa’s making, yet it is Africans, especially the poorest, who will suffer the first and the worst. Not only does it add yet another challenge for those struggling to combat extreme poverty and disease by exacerbating the conditions of poverty, but it threatens to erode the gains that have been made in recent years.
We need the negotiators at Copenhagen to simply know that they cannot afford to fail.
Book Launch: Climate Change in Africa
Last night ONE was lucky to attend the launch of Camilla Toulmin’s new book Climate Change in Africa, which provides a timely reminder of the damage being done to the continent by shifts in climate. The direct impacts include a rise in harvest failures in recent years as unpredictable water cycles and expanding drylands make the life of African farmers harder. In the Horn of Africa for example there have been 3 crop failures in the last 4 years, meaning in Ethiopia alone 6.2 million people are now in need of food assistance.
Toulmin highlighted the likely rise in conflict as resources such as water become scarcer, and the devastating impact that rising food and fuel prices can have on the poorest sectors of society. More indirectly the global demand for biofuels has seen large tracts of prime African farmland bought up by companies growing non-food crops.
Of course much of the recent debate has been around how Africa can adapt to climate change and that was also high on the agenda. Toulmin suggested realistic interventions such as diversifying farm production and argued that “it is absolutely vital to reach a deal at Copenhagen”. She estimated that anything up to $130 billion may be needed for adaptation costs in Africa alone and that the financing of this will be central to a good agreement.
Discussing the book, former Chief Scientist from the UK’s Department For Overseas Development, Sir Gordon Conway stressed that climate change would affect agriculture more than any other sector, with clear implications for the majority of sub-Saharan Africans. As a development issue, he argued, there will be little of greater importance over the coming decades.
As policy makers prepare to meet to negotiate a global climate deal next month Toulmin’s book provides a powerful case for ensuring that they keep the poorest in mind and take special consideration of Africa. Not only does climate change add yet another challenge for those struggling to combat extreme poverty and disease by exacerbating the conditions of poverty, but it threatens to erode the gains that have been made in recent years.
A starting position from the EU
The European Council has just wrapped up this afternoon. One of the aims of this European Council was to firmly establish the EU’s position ahead of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December and the conclusions from the meeting have now been published.
At a time when some of the press coverage around the potential of a global deal being struck in Copenhagen has been a bit negative, momentum can now roll on from this meeting through to the finance ministers in Scotland next week and onwards to Barcelona and a pre meeting of negotiators, and finally (in theory) to Copenhagen itself .
There are some really important messages coming out of the European Council, with strong language on all aspects of climate change and also a conditional offer from the European Union to do more if other countries/blocs step up to the plate.
Here are a few highlights and extracts from the Presidential conclusions:
- The European Council emphasise the need for a legally binding agreement for the period starting 1 January 2013 based on the Kyoto protocol and includes all of its essential features
- They call upon all Parties to embrace the 2°C objective and to agree to global emission reductions of at least 50%, and aggregate developed country emission reductions of at least 80-95%, as part of such global emission reductions, by 2050 compared to 1990 levels
- They also agree that by 2020, the mitigation and adaptation costs to developing countries could be around 100 billion Euro a year and that this should be met though a mixture of private and public finance. The EU Member States are ready to contribute its fair share of these costs
- All international parties should commit that climate financing would not undermine or jeopardize progress towards the Millennium Development Goals
This means the EU will be heading to the December summit with a strong negotiation position. African and other developing country negotiators in Copenhagen will be looking for more, but some participants in Copenhagen coming from other industrialised major emitting nations may be looking to do less. And so the negotiations on financing finally begin in earnest. The European Council taking place on 10 – 11 December (half way through the UN climate summit) will be able to review the early stages of Copenhagen in order to make any necessary decisions. Keep checking back for further updates.
‘A New Global Order’
A panel including UK Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander and Director of the Millennium Development Campaign Salil Shetty assembled at St Paul’s Cathedral in London on Tuesday evening to discuss the hope for ending global poverty in this generation.
Alexander told the audience that the top priority was now to agree a global deal on climate change at Copenhagen in December, suggesting that it could have an even greater impact than the Gleneagles aid commitments of 2005. The UK position is that the developed world must commit to substantial emissions cuts and provide genuinely new and additional sources of finance. He also stressed the need to conclude a Doha trade agreement and talked powerfully about the role that individuals and NGOs can play in pressuring governments to meet their commitments on international development.
“It’s not the banking system that’s too big to fail, but the Millennium Development Goals” Shetty told the audience to applause. 2010 will see the UN General Assembly meet to come up with ideas on how to accelerate progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) so that the 2015 target looks more realistic. ONE has committed itself to be part of this push for a new MDG plan of action and it was encouraging to see that so many of the audience members had this on their minds.
Paul Vallely, associate editor of The Independent, looked at what lessons could be learned from the Gleneagles G8 Summit negotiations in 2005 and suggested that closer cooperation between environmental and development NGOs is essential to influencing the political process. This was backed up by Alexander who extolled the benefits of a united NGO front entering Copenhagen. Vallely also offered praise for the way high profile individuals such as Bono and Bob Geldof can raise awareness on development, and play a key role in the lobbying of political figures.
The event concluded with a reminder that change ultimately comes not from government or other leaders, but from the people themselves. It is through millions of individual actions, like the remarkable demonstration of solidarity in the Stand Up Against Poverty day, that the hope of a world free of extreme poverty can be kept alive.
Ethiopia: 25 years on
It’s now 25 years since the world learned of the famine in Ethiopia that was to leave a million people dead and millions more destitute.
In October 1984, the BBC reports of Michael Buerk and Mohamed Amin brought images of biblical suffering into living rooms across the world.
A massive international response was launched. ONE advisor Bob Geldof formed the group ‘Band Aid’ whose single topped the charts from its release in November 1984, and was followed by the ‘Live Aid’ concerts in July 1985. Together these efforts raised £150 million for emergency relief.
The famine touched a generation and laid the ground for the future anti poverty campaigns in the UK and beyond.
A quarter of a century on, hunger is still stalking the Horn of Africa. More than six million people are now in urgent need of food aid in Ethiopia; 23 million in the region as a whole.
And yet, the crisis is nowhere near the scale of 1984-85. Much has changed for the better in Ethiopia, although new threats – especially the effects of climate change – threaten to derail this progress.
In coming weeks ONE will be looking at the causes of enduring hunger in the Horn of Africa, but also the progress that has taken place and potential solutions for the future.
Read our Questions and Answers to find out more.
The cost of climate change
By 2050, the global temperature is expected to rise 2°C above pre-industrial levels causing, among other consequences, more intense and frequent rainfall and droughts, floods, increases in epidemics and water availability. For the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, adapting to these changes will be costly. However, almost no specific estimates of just how costly exist. To fill this gap, the World Bank launched the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC) study in 2008. Last Wednesday, the third day of the climate change talks in Bangkok, the World Bank released initial results from this study, revealing that adaptation costs will indeed be significant.
The initial report found that the cost of adapting to an approximately 2°C warmer world will be between $75 billion and $100 billion a year. This estimate falls in the upper range of existing estimates, which are between $4 billion to $109 billion annually. According to the report, impacts on agriculture and fisheries, health, water availability, flood management and infrastructure will be the most severe. According to the report, sub-Saharan Africa will bear 20-22% of the annual costs of adaptation across sectors. Sub-Saharan Africa also bears by far the highest costs for water supply and flood management and by 2050, will shoulder more than 80 percent of adaptation costs in the health sector.
The report also emphasizes three main points. One, it is necessary to take measures for both mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Adaptation financing, while vital to minimize the impacts of climate change, will not prevent future consequences. Adapting to an even warmer world would cause more costs, including coastal flooding, more malnutrition and disease, and extinction of half of the world’s species. Secondly, development must take on a new form to include adaptation efforts. Development and adaptation goes hand-in-hand, and one cannot be achieved without the other. Lastly, because of the large uncertainties about the future of climate change, flexible policies and more research are needed. These measures and considerations are vital to preventing an increasingly costly world due to climate change.
Such estimates on adaptation costs and research on the future of climate change are especially pertinent now as world delegates look toward the December Copenhagen conference, where leaders will attempt to formulate a global deal on climate change. Check out the full report here.
ONE’s Reaction to the Pittsburgh G20 Communique
Overall, the Pittsburgh G20 Summit appears to have made some progress towards reshaping global power structures to make them more representative, but it still has some way to go before it becomes a truly representative global decision making body.
I spent the summit with our US Government Relations Director Tom Hart, who said:
“Moving from the G8 to the G20 is a seismic shift: it brings many more of the world’s people to the table, but the new expanded world body must now start addressing the needs of the poorest countries, especially in Africa. For nearly a decade now, Africa has been squarely on the G8’s agenda, even if delivery on their commitments has been mixed. During this transition time, African development must not fall through the cracks. One way to show the world will not forget Africa would be to hold an upcoming G20 summit on the African continent.”
As I posted earlier here, we passed our petition, in which 75,000 ONE members worldwide call for a G20 Summit to be held in Africa, to the US delegation at the summit.
Below are some key points in the summit’s communique that are relevant to Africa:
- Agriculture - The G20 called on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund, as a way to implement the G8’s food security initiative announced at the L’Aquila Summit in Italy in July. This multilateral fund will support the set of principles championed by the White House to make aid for agriculture more effective, coordinated and geared towards the strategies developed by poor countries themselves.
- Climate change – The G20 failed to call for resources to help the poorest countries adapt to the harmful impacts of climate change, and tackle its causes. It was disappointing that there was no mention of the urgency of addressing these needs.
- African Development Bank – The G20 have reaffirmed the commitment to make sure the multilateral development banks have enough finance, especially the World soft loan arm, the International Development Association (IDA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). The African bank has increased its lending to respond to the financial crisis by as much as US$4bn and now needs support to replenish its coffers. ONE welcomes Canada’s announcement of an extra US$2.8bn in loan guarantees for the Bank.
- World Bank and IMF- Both International Financial Institutions took steps towards increasing representation of developing countries.
The G20: A Chance to Address Climate Change
Climate change is more firmly on the global agenda now more than ever, not just because the final round of the UN Climate Change Conference is taking place this December in Copenhagen, but because we are increasingly seeing the effects of climate change. ONE is also calling for the G20 to address climate change this weekend at the Pittsburgh G20 summit, but we’re keeping with our theme looking at it from the perspective that ‘Africa can be a part of the solution.’
Despite contributing only 3.6% of total global carbon emissions, sub-Saharan Africa will feel these effects—through droughts, floods, erratic rains that disrupt growing seasons—both first and worst. Any deal brokered in Copenhagen later this year must include the impact that climate change will have on the world’s poorest—and take into account the potential that developing countries hold to address climate change. The G20 meeting in Pittsburgh is the perfect place to get ahead start by working to do the following:
•Ensure that any global climate deal mobilizes funding to support the response to climate change in developing countries. In the short-term, agree on a down-payment to help developing countries deal immediately with the impact of climate change and build trust in international negotiations;
•Agree on principles to ensure that climate financing is spent predictably, effectively and through transparent governance structures;
•Ensure that a global climate deal considers Africa’s potential contribution toward reducing global carbon emissions, particularly in regard to carbon markets.
Not only will Africa bear the brunt of the climate change impact, but sub-Saharan African countries have the potential to help reduce global carbon emissions. The development of robust carbon markets, the adoption of low-carbon and leap-frog technologies, and the institution of carbon-offsetting programs like re-forestation projects can all flourish in the developing world—without sacrificing development, and maybe even encourage it.
ONE’s message at Pittsburgh is that no global recovery can be constructed in a stable manner if it excludes Africa, and the same goes for any discussion on climate change. We’ll be bringing you the latest from Pittsburgh as the week progresses, so keep an eye out here on the blog.
-Beth Adler
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The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
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