e annual meeting organized under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. STRINGER/AFP
The rich countries have not honored their financial commitments. But Africa and developing countries are calling for more money to deal with the damage.
In Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, things get serious this Monday at COP27, the 27e annual meeting organized under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with speeches by Heads of State. This peak is “an extremely important moment for all the countries of the African Unionassures Sébastien Treyer, director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI). African countries were, on the whole, quite skeptical about the results of COP26 in Glasgow” last year. Africa accounts for less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and one in two people has access to electricity, but it is the continent that suffers the most damage from climate change! Lola Vallejo, head of the climate program at IDDRI, “expects finance and adaptation issues to be central”.
“Adaptation” refers to the solutions put in place by countries to anticipate the consequences of climate change, such as dykes to deal with rising water levels or the use of seeds adapted to warmer, drier air. But this area remains the poor relation of international funding. At the end of August, the Egyptian ambassador Wael Aboulmagd, special adviser to the president of COP27 and former head of the G77+China, which brings together 134 developing countries and China, confided: “All the money goes to profitable projects for mitigation (i.e. wind and solar farms that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Editor’s note), and almost nothing to adaptation. This is no longer possible.”
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Already, the rich countries have not kept their commitments. In 2009, in Copenhagen, they had promised 100 billion dollars a year to the countries of the South from 2020. But, at the end of September, the OECD calculated that 83.3 billion had been mobilized by the rich countries in 2020, of which 28.6 billion for adaptation. Looking at this data, the NGO Oxfam estimates that climate finance is, in fact, reaching “21 to 24.5 billion dollars”i.e. 4 to 5 times below promises, after deduction of interest on loans and private financing.
Still, the rich countries have promised to double the 2019 envelope by 2025, i.e. to provide at least 40 billion dollars per year. They will give their roadmap to the beneficiary countries. Presenting the report on adaptation of the United Nations Environment Programme, Henri Neufeldt, its chief scientist, underlined the need “multiply financing by 5 or 10”, which only increase “at the rate of 4% per year”.
Creation of an alert system
To warn people of future disasters, the World Meteorological Organization, in conjunction with the World Bank, will announce on Monday the creation of a warning system for the entire world population within five years. This request comes from Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, after the devastating monsoon in Pakistan. Recently, the World Bank estimated the total cost of this disaster at $46 billion, between damage, economic loss and reconstruction.
Could these considerable amounts be covered by the new insurance system proposed by Germany to come to the aid of populations and countries that are victims of climatic disasters? This insurance mechanism should be specified at COP27, as well as the list of partner countries.
We know that African countries spend 9% to 15% of their GDP to cope with losses related to climate shocks
Bogolo Kenewendo, economist and UN special adviser
To cope with the consequences of climatic disasters, poor countries are calling for the creation of a fund to compensate for the “losses and damages” they suffer. “We know that African countries spend 9% to 15% of their GDP to cope with losses linked to climate shocks”, recalls Bogolo Kenewendo, economist and special adviser to the UN. She adds that this notion of “loss and damage” must be defined, like that of “climate finance” and aid. “Because these notions are not interchangeable”, she points out. She is in tune with Avinash Persaud, special envoy of the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley. The latter explains that “One of the challenges for developed countries is that ‘loss and damage’ seems too unwieldy, too indefinite. And so I think we have to define them.” For now, Europe and the United States do not want to create a new fund. But the negotiations have only just begun, and the issue of “loss and damage” was officially added to the negotiating agenda on Sunday after months of insistence by poor countries…
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