Oxfam: Time For Climate Negotiations To Get Back On Track

UN climate negotiations re-open in Bonn today for the first time since last year’s summit in Copenhagen. Contrary to popular belief, the negotiations have not collapsed – representatives from nearly every nation on Earth will meet over the next two weeks to continue working on the key issues of limiting global warming pollution and helping poor countries protect themselves from climate change.

“The need for a strong international climate change agreement certainly hasn’t faded. Copenhagen didn’t get us to where we need to be, but the train is still moving,” said Oxfam New Zealand’s Executive Director, Barry Coates. “It’s vital that we ensure it’s heading in the right direction – a global deal that stops further climate change in its tracks and adequately deals with the unavoidable effects, which are well-known to be hitting poor countries first and worst.”

New Oxfam report:

Oxfam warns that the US$100 billion a year pledged in Copenhagen by rich nations to help fight climate change could fail the poorest people if recent moves to deliver climate cash as loans, instead of grants, continue. Oxfam’s new report ‘The $100 billion questions’ recognises the need for some limited cut-rate loans to help poor countries develop in a low carbon way, but the international agency strongly opposes the use of loans to help communities adapt to climate impacts.

“At a time of economic emergency, when many poor countries are slashing critical health and education budgets, rich countries are trying to saddle them with more debt for a situation they did not cause and are worst affected by.

“It’s like crashing your neighbour’s car and then offering a loan to cover the damages,” said Coates.

The report lays out a clear road map for how rich countries can not only meet their US$100 billion a year promise, but also double it to US$200 billion by 2020, which is what is actually needed. It suggests new and innovative sources from which to raise the cash, to ensure that governments do not raid it from aid budgets. These include:

• US$100 billion a year from a global Financial Transactions or ‘Robin Hood’ Tax.

• US$20-$30 billion a year from international aviation and shipping.

• US$75 billion a year from rich countries according to their historic responsibility for carbon emissions and ability to pay.

The report highlights the need for public sources of climate funding to ensure that projects designed to help poor people protect themselves from climate change, such as developing irrigation systems and planting mangroves, are not reliant on market forces.

The UN meeting in Bonn:

“Rich nations, including New Zealand, need to inject trust back into these negotiations,” said Coates. “Showing they are willing to put their money where their mouth is will go some way to healing the deep rifts forged at last year’s climate summit, as well as helping to alleviate the plight of those living on the front lines of climate change.

“The most immediate question is, ‘Where is the money that was promised in Copenhagen?’ It is still not clear from the recent budget announcement where New Zealand’s share of the US$10 billion per annum that was agreed in December is going to come from,” added Coates.

The Copenhagen Accord, agreed by John Key last December, was a fragile deal, cobbled together at the last minute by a handful of mainly rich country leaders. It is important that developed nations bolster what little trust is left in the negotiations by implementing our commitments. Oxfam calculates that New Zealand should be paying $47 million per year for the next three years as a fair contribution.

“This money should not be diverted from the aid budget. That would be hijacking critical funding for health, education, clean water and economic development in poor countries to pay for a problem that we and other industrialised nations have created,” Coates concluded.

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Notes to Editors:

Oxfam’s report ‘The $100 billion questions’ can be found at:

http://www.oxfam.org.nz/resources/climate-finance-post-Copenhagen-May2010.pdf

Oxfam is coordinating a photo opportunity in Bonn today: ‘Don’t increase the debt’. A giant ‘loan shark’, with head and fins, carrying bags of ‘climate loans’ will be accompanied by protestors warning against increasing third-world debt. Please contact Jason Garman for images, which should be available tomorrow.

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