Fianance Obstacle

Finance now threatens to become the main obstacle to securing a global climate deal at Copenhagen, writes the Guardian.

The Guardian has read confidential papers from the EU negotiating team indicating that the EU will not guarantee new additional funds to help developing countries to adapt to climate change.

Existing overseas aid might be channeled away from its original purpose to climate aid, and that would not be satisfactory for the developing countries, says Rob Bailey, Senior Policy Adviser of the NGO, Oxfam:

“No developing country will sign up to an agreement that could give them no extra money at all. The EU and other rich countries must provide new and additional finance, otherwise there will be no deal at all,” he says to the Guardian.

Developing countries want a minimum of 400 billion US dollars a year by 2020 for adaptation to climate change, the developed countries have proposed less than the half.

History shows that even though rich countries promise funding for climate adaptation it is not always going to happen. According to the Guardian, in 2001 the EU, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and New Zealand promised 410 million dollars a year from 2005 to 2008 for that purpose. Barely 10 percent of the money has been delivered so far.

Source: cop15.dk