The
fight over who should pay for climate change
Climate
conference ends with tension over how to divide and share
responsibility.
By SARA STEFANINI
10/23/15, 8:09 PM CET Updated 10/26/15, 8:09 AM CET
BONN, Germany —
Rich world countries have been pumping greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution, and poorer
countries now want them to pay for the damage that’s allegedly
done. Who should pay and how much is one of the main friction points
ahead of the Paris climate summit.
A week-long meeting
in Bonn last week showed that even the definition of what is a
developed country is up for grabs. Richer governments like those in
the EU push for more “nuanced” guidelines on how to divide and
share the burden and responsibility for action on climate change,
while developing countries worry the rich are trying to evade their
responsibilities.
“The narrative
that we are being given is that the world has changed, and that it is
time to expand the pool of so-called donors of climate aid and to
narrow the list of eligible developing countries to receive support,”
said Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, the South African ambassador and leader
of the G77 and China group, which represents more than 130 developing
countries.
She argued wealthy
countries are trying to dodge an obligation set out in the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change.
But the EU counters
say that it’s not so simple. China, for instance, pledged in
September to provide $3.1 billion to help developing countries cut
their emissions and adapt to climate change — its first such
commitment.
“We consider it
somewhat unfortunate to see that some countries are reverting to very
rigid and somewhat outdated rhetoric which divides the world into
developed and undeveloped countries according to income levels as
they were in the 1990s,” Elina Bardram, the bloc’s chief
negotiator, told reporters Friday. “The new agreement must reflect
today’s reality and evolve as the world does.”
Negotiators from 196
governments were in Bonn trying to agree on a clear and concise draft
deal laying out options for ministers to decide on during the second
week of the COP21 in Paris, which begins November 30. The conference
ended Friday with a new 55-page version of the text, scattered with
more than 1,000 pairs of square brackets marking areas to be
revisited.
Under the section on
how to mitigate climate change, for instance, the new draft lays out
four options for differentiating country efforts.
They range from
saying nothing on the matter, to setting “absolute emissions
targets” for the United Nations’ Annex 1 list of developed
countries, while developing countries step up their mitigation work
after 2020, compared to before. The problem is that the definition of
“developed” only covers Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia,
Japan and a few others, but excludes economic powerhouses like South
Korea, Singapore, Brazil and China, as well as some of the world’s
wealthiest countries like Saudi Arabia.
The question of who
should pay is unlikely to be decided before that second week of the
COP21, Bardram said. “It’s something that cuts across all
chapters and has to be decided by ministers.”
The difference
between developed and developing worlds has started to soften over
the past year, since the COP20 summit in Lima in 2014, said Tasneem
Essop, head of strategy and advocacy at the WWF’s global climate
and energy initiative.
Some developing
countries, such as China, have a growing capacity to provide
financial support, while others with large emissions could soon be
able to start reducing their pollution without international help,
she said.
“It does seem like
they will land in a space where there will be a nuanced approach to
differentiation,” she said of the Paris negotiations.
Who’s paying?
There’s also the
issue of where the money should come from.
The EU and U.S. have
argued for widening the pool of contributing countries and
encouraging the private sector to pitch in by, for instance,
investing in low-carbon technologies. The G77 and China group has
criticized this effort.
To the EU, however,
private sector contributions will be crucial to meeting the financial
needs after 2020.
Developed countries
have pledged to provide $100 billion per year by 2020, and according
to a recent OECD study the sum stood at nearly $62 billion as of
December. But the U.N. and others estimate that trillions of dollars
will be needed over the coming decades to shift to a low-carbon
global economy.
That means the donor
base has to be broadened, said Sarah Blau, the delegate from
Luxembourg, adding that EU member states do acknowledge the need to
deliver climate finance in the future.
But other public and
private donors have to contribute, she said. “There has to be a
link between the Paris agreement and the real world that gives a
signal that when they make investments they have to take climate
change into consideration, not as a minor aspect but as a key
aspect.”
This article was
first published on POLITICO Pro.
Authors:
Sara Stefanini
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