Developed countries fail to commit funds at CoP25
Developing countries walked out of the just-ended climate negotiations CoP25 in Madrid, Spain disappointed as developed countries refused to commit on loss and damage.
This deals a fatal blow to the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for loss and damage meant to benefit developing countries.
The WIM is seeks to implement appropriate approaches to address loss and damage particularly where they push society to re-examine current ways of thinking and managing climate risks.
In an interview, Department of Disaster Management Affairs director of risk reduction James Chiusiwa said if WIM was working according to the expectation of developing countries, Malawi could have benefitted from the financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
He, however, said this has not been possible as there is money under the mechanism to assist developing countries that have been affected by disasters.
For example, Chiusiwa said after the 2015 floods, the World Bank provided $80 million (about K59 billion), half of which was a loan to support recovery efforts.
After the 2016 drought in the country, the World Bank also provided $104 million (about K76 billion) while after the 2019 floods, the African Development Bank has provided $27 million (about K20 billion) to support recovery and reconstruction efforts, but the money is not enough.
“If you consider the recovery and reconstruction requirements, you will see that the provided funds fall far short of the requirements. This means that the country has not been able to fully recover from the 2015 and 2016 floods and drought and will not fully recover from the 2019 floods,” he said.
Commenting on the issue, Care International regional advocacy and partnership lead for southern Africa, who was also a negotiator at CoP25, Vitumbiko Chinoko said the conference ended with little commitment to increase finance for climate adaptation despite developing countries announcing their long-term plans.
“That makes CoP26 a terribly packed agenda. We are calling on the parties to reach out to each other and the Chilean presidency to collaborate with the CoP26 on the next CoP.
“We can’t repeat what happened in Madrid. We are failing the vulnerable people,” he said.
WIM was established in 2013 at CoP19 in Warsaw, Poland, to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in developing countries.
