Finance - A do-or-die issue for African negotiators at Lima COP20

LIMA, Peru 4 December, 2014 (ClimDev-Africa) – African negotiators at the on-going Lima climate talks in Lima, Peru have predicted that if any agenda item would delay agreement on a outcome statement, it would be climate finance; despite the fact that the US has committed to the Green Climate Fund.

Opposing views on this thorny negotiation issue surfaced right at the first plenary session on Monday, when Mr. Runge-Metzger ADP Co-Chair outlined sections of text on finance in document and suggested that focus should first be on the general aspects.

Sudan, for the African Group, retorted by expressing the need for developed countries to “assure leadership” and ratify the Doha Amendment; a single decision under the Durban Platform (ADP) and focus discussions on how to close the finance gap in the long term.

Africa’s chief negotiator, Mr. Nagmeldin Goutbi Elhassan of  Sudan opposed the text and proposed that “all” Parties to the Convention be called upon to mobilise climate finance through a variety of actions, insisting on a differentiation between developed and developing countries under the Convention, and the responsibility of developed countries to provide finance.

Commenting on the proposed text, the group of Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) suggested that references to the provision of finance by “parties in a position to do so” and results-based adaptation finance, be deleted.

South Africa proposed a number of specific ways on how to anchor the existing finance mechanism and Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system into the new agreement; the scale of resources required to keep temperature rise below “our goal”; who contributes and how?, etc.

The EU and Japan strongly resisted an Egyptian proposal that “adequate and predictable finance should come mainly from public sources”, to which Algeria said that “adequate and predictable funding for adaptation” also be “additional” to current development assistance. The EU and Japan believe that specifying finance as “adequate and predictable” would be problematic.

Algeria insisted on a longstanding African common position that the mobilisation and provision of climate finance be enhanced not “in coordination with,” but rather as “additional to,” official development assistance (ODA).

A fundamental dichotomy has always existed between developed and developing countries on issues of equity, transparency and accountability in adaptation finance; and this stems from what developed countries see as overly high costs of adapting to climate change. At the same time, developing countries are concerned that the financial support they need will not be forthcoming, or that if it does come, it would be at the cost of current official development assistance.
 

This is likely going to continue to affect discussions on adaptation funding, and discussions on the Durban Platform often get tiring because of this lack of shared vision.

In another development, NGOs and rural community organizations present in Lima have warned that the future Green Climate Fund would be a failure if it is set up along the lines similar to those of  must international financial institutions.

In a statement issued in Lima, the stress was on the importance of the Green Climate Fund to the citizens of developing countries who bear the brunt of the worst consequences of climate change and “therefore it is urgent that funds it provides to countries  go directly to climate change programmes”, it says.
 

“Every effort must be made to ensure that climate funding is allocated fairly and is effectively used to allow all (regardless of gender, class, religion or age) to deal with current and future impacts of climate change and to undertake systemic transformation necessary to avoid the worst disasters, stop global warming and heal the planet" they said in yesterday´s statement.

Issued by ClimDev-Africa Programme