International
Additionality
In the second of his posts looking at the issues being discussed in Copenhagen, Jo Powell looks at the question of additionally…
Of all the complex climate change speak it is ‘additionality’ that is the word most on the lips of the developing country negotiators at Copenhagen this week. They are worried that aid, which has already been pledged to help them reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), is now being re-allocated to spend on adapting to the effects of climate change. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has described this as ‘phoney money’, the result of underhand double-counting and not a genuine commitment to assist those least responsible for the emissions that are already causing such great harm.
It is because of this that we at ONE are pushing the principle of additionality so hard at Copenhagen, and are calling on the negotiators to include the following sentence in any agreement:
Climate financing specified in this agreement will be new funding, additional to existing and promised aid flows. Development promises will be kept in full.
Just this week we handed over our petition of more than 80,000 signatures to the Danish government (as chair of the Copenhagen meeting) and US delegation, calling on them to ensure that this happens.
ONE Executive Director Jamie Drummond describes the situation as follows: “We need guarantees that longer-term climate financing will be firmly additional to both existing and promised money for the MDGs. Without such a pledge, governments will be ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’, and undermining partnerships with the developing world precisely when trust is needed most to get a positive deal in Copenhagen.”
In short, the results of increased aid have been plain to see in Africa: more children in schools, fewer people dying from preventable diseases, and a reduction of extreme poverty. If a deal in Copenhagen comes at the cost of support for the MDGs it would compound the injustice of climate change for world’s poorest people.
You can read more about ONE’s policy on additionality in our document Africa and the Global Climate Deal.
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