Environment

Questions over CoP26 climate finance goals

Early this month, President Lazarus Chakwera announced least developed countries’ demands at CoP26 in an uncompromising mood.

“Fulfil your pledge,” he told wealthy nations both in attendance and in absentia at the UN climate change conference held in Glasgow, Scotland.

Chakwera: Africa cannot wait anymore

Since 2009, the rich nations have broken their promise to contribute $100 billion annually in aid of least developed countries (LDCs) worst-hit by climate change.

Chakwera, the chairperson of 46 LDCs and the Southern African Development Community, wanted a quick end to empty pledges.

“The money pledged to least developed nations by developed nations is not a donation, but a cleaning fee,” he said, stressing: “Neither Africa in general, nor Malawi in particular, will take ‘no’ for an answer. Not anymore.”

During the two-week climate negotiations, the Malawi leader told journalists at a Scotland Malawi Partnership side-event in Edinburgh that the worst-hit poor nations needed developed nations to own up and say: “We recognise the problem, here is monies that we promised to clean up your environment.”

“The least developed nations are on the receiving end of most of the climate change catastrophes, but they have contributed the least in terms of carbon emissions,” he explained.

However, the hugely donor-dependent nations left Glasgow disappointed as the climate change talks closed without major pledges to make good of the $100 billion unfilled promise made in Paris.

World Resources Institute (WRI) says the collective commitments made at CoP26 were not bold enough to keep global warming close to 1.5 degrees Celsius and mobilise adequate climate change financing for worst-hit developing countries.

In the Glasgow Climate Pact, the negotiators noted “with deep regret” that developed countries failed to meet that $100 billion goal in 2020. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that the total climate finance reached $79.6 billion in 2019.

The CoP26 outcome made it clear that developed countries are still on the hook to urgently fulfil this goal and must report on their progress.

The 197 countries party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change resolved to develop a more ambitious climate finance goal by 2024.

Ahead of the new climate finance goal, developed countries countries agreed to more than double funding for adaptation to at least $40 billion by 2025.

WRI welcomed the announcement as “a significant milestone to address the persisting imbalance between funding for mitigation and adaptation efforts”.

“Adaptation finance currently amounts to only a quarter of total climate finance, while needs to adapt to the increasing impacts of the climate crisis continue to grow,” the environmental think-tank states.

The Adaptation Fund reached a new high, with new pledges for $356 million, almost three times its target for 2022.

The LDC Fund received a record $413 million in new contributions though more money is needed to help these countries increase their resilience to the effects of climate change.

However, Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance director Mithika Mwenda Mituka welcomed the new funding pledges with caution.

He reckons the Glasgow climate negotiations were rigged against the expectations of African LDCs which went to Glasgow crying for climate justice.

The campaigner told The Nation: “What brought us here in Glasgow are issues such as climate finance, adaptation and special needs and circumstances region status.

“But we are leaving with a raw deal. Our issues had been expunged from the CoP 26 agenda. We didn’t have any confidence that anything worthwhile for the African LDCs would come up from these negotiations.”

The Nairobi-based organisation said African LDCs are already set their eyes on the next conference of parties to the UN climate treaty to be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, also known as New Cairo in Egypt.

“We cannot afford to get the big issues of climate financing, adaptation and loss and damage wrong on the African soil,” he said.

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