Civil society organizations (CSOs) such as the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) said its time for rich countries to deliver on their commitments for climate finance.
APMDD noted that pledges to the Green Climate Fund, the main finance mechanism under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), remain at a very low average of $10 billion every three years even after seven years of its full operations.
Further, finance for adaptation has also been overlooked, with only $1 billion pledges mobilized for the Adaptation Fund in its 14 years of operations.
“The failure of the rich countries to deliver their $100 billion annual target contributions to climate finance as agreed in 2009 has greatly damaged the trust of the Global South peoples and movements,” APMDD Coordinator Lidy Nacpil said.
Nacpil explained that the world’s 20 richest economies account for 80 percent of the world’s emissions and were primarily responsible for the climate crisis.
According to the Climate Transparency Report, carbon emissions from the world’s 20 richest nations rose rapidly in 2021 due to the continued use of fossil fuels.
The latest Emissions Gap Report suggests the world is on course to warm around 2.7 degrees Celsius and national plans to cut carbon emissions fall far short of what’s needed to avert a climate catastrophe.
Given this, Nacpil said countries with the largest share of carbon emissions should not only aim to meet the $100 billion collective pledge, but also fully deliver on their climate debt.
She said the climate finance needs of developing countries for loss and damage — the effects of climate change which cannot be avoided or adapted to — are predicted to run up to $1.2 trillion per year by 2060.
“Climate finance is an obligation by most of the G20 member countries based on their huge share in historical and continuing emissions and, therefore, their responsibility for the climate crisis,” Nacpil said.
“The time is now for developed countries to deliver climate finance to cover adaptation costs as well as loss and damage in developing countries. Climate finance is urgently needed now,” she added.
In 2009, APMDD said rich countries agreed and promised to contribute $100 billion annually by 2020 to developing countries to cover the cost of their climate change mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage needs due to climate change impacts.
Nacpil explained the $100 billion was politically derived and is nowhere near the actual climate needs of the developing world, which the UNFCCC suggests to be $6 trillion by 2030.
To date, public subsidies for fossil fuels are several times bigger than climate finance delivery. G7 governments provided at least $200 billion to support fossil fuels from 2020-2021.
G20 governments and their public finance institutions are still backing fossil fuels in the amount of at least $63 billion per year in oil, gas, and coal projects.
This was 2.5 times greater than their $26 billion a year in support for renewable energy in the same period, and several times bigger than the climate finance delivered by the developed countries among the G20.