A ten-year-old goal of raising US $ 100 billion to help developing countries tackle climate change and adapt to its repercussions is unlikely to be reached for two years . That’s the conclusion of a new report by Canada’s Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and German Environment Secretary Jochen Flasbarth presented a week before the start of COP26 climate talks. United Nations, Scotland.
Wilkinson and Flasbarth were invited by COP26 President-designate Alok Sharma in July 2021 to come up with a plan to finally meet a commitment made in 2009 to raise $ 100 billion annually by 2020. If the numbers for 2020 are not yet available, “the objective has almost certainly been missed,” conceded Mr. Sharma on Monday, during a videoconference statement to present the report, which details the means to get there.
Missing money is likely to be a source of friction when countries meet in Scotland, as developing states and small island states least responsible for global warming are urged, along with richer countries, to step back. redouble efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The pledge of climate finance, first made in 2009, was echoed at the Paris climate talks in 2015 and was one of the reasons the world’s least developed and affected countries agreed. to sign the agreement.
Ten years later, aid was only 79.6 billion in 2019, according to the latest figures released in September by the OECD. MM. Wilkinson and Flasbarth expect the target to finally be met in 2023, before climate finance pledges exceed US $ 100 billion in 2024 and 2025.
If this objective remains very symbolic, many actors and experts now consider it largely insufficient, given that the effects of global warming are accelerating, with the catastrophic upsurge of droughts, giant fires, hurricanes, floods, among others. others. “One hundred billion do not meet the needs”, said Monday Christiana Figueres, climate manager of the UN during the COP21, welcoming nonetheless a sign of “goodwill on the part of the countries of the North”. The International Institute for Environment and Development, for its part, welcomed the published plan “finally turning words into action”: “This help get COP26 back on track. “
