Feeling the heat in developing countries

Billions of dollars are needed to help poor countries deal with climate change, writes Judith Crosbie.

The consequences of climate change are being felt across the world but the most dramatic effects are occurring in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, often in Africa. The UN’s top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, recently warned that tens of billions of US dollars would be needed to help developing countries adapt to the effects of global warming by 2030. At present this level of funding is not forthcoming.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali next month will discuss the adaptation fund - a fund set up under the Kyoto Protocol which is linked to the clean development mechanism (CDM) but has yet to be implemented.

The CDM allows industrialised countries to set up projects in developing countries, which reduce their carbon emissions, as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions at home. Under Kyoto, a 2% levy on such projects was to go towards a special adaptation fund to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change.

In Bali, delegates will discuss the practicalities of the fund, such as which body should be in charge of it and how to give access to the money. But a separate political issue will be how such a fund could be increased.

Given the stark warnings by de Boer about the need for increased investment, much will have to be done to alter the way money for adaptation to climate change is generated. "The fund needs to be massively boosted if it’s going to be more than just a fund with a name," says Mike Shanahan, of the International Institute for Environment and Development, a research group.

Earlier this month the European Commission and the Portuguese presidency of the EU organised the second set of ‘Development Days’ focused on climate change and developing countries. The main message from the conference was that "the rich must pay for climate change effects", said one EU official. "Wealthy countries are the main creators of climate change, therefore they must take responsibility," the official added.

Addressing the conference, Louis Michel, the European commissioner for development, suggested a "global fund" to help off-set climate change effects.

"Let’s come up with a creative way to design this global loan which would allow us the resources to deal with these climate issues," he said. "Climate change was seen as an environmental issue but now 200 million Africans may see their water supplies threatened and there could be food shortages due to reduced harvests," Michel added.

Though the idea of a global fund might be in its early stages, discussions in Bali will explore further the notion of bankrolling developing countries’ necessary adaptation to climate change effects. Ideas for how money could be generated include linking it with the EU’s emissions trading scheme since "isolated funds will generally have only a limited amount of money", said one UN official.

The CDM will also be discussed at the Bali conference with an examination of how the scheme is working and how more countries can be brought into it. At present most industrialised countries invest in large-scale projects in China or India, such as renewable energy projects. Africa, apart from South Africa, has been losing out on this scheme. "This is a major problem since these countries are excluded from projects that would help reduce emissions and also given that the poorest have the greatest capacity for adaptation," said Shanahan.

The CDM should be simplified to allow rich countries to include low-scale projects more easily in carbon emission off-setting, he adds.

The conference is also likely to look at ways of helping African governments to attract investment.

Africa and climate change

• Estimates show that Africa has warmed by 0.7ºC during the 20th century, with the highest temperatures recorded towards the end of the century.

• Scientists forecast that by 2100 mean surface temperatures in Africa could increase by 2-6ºC. Sea levels could rise by 15 to 95 centimetres by 2100, according to some estimates.

• The number of people at risk from coastal flooding in Africa will rise from one million in 1990 to 70 million by 2080. An estimated 30% of Africa’s coastal infrastructure could be at risk, including coastal settlements in the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, Gambia and Egypt.

Source: United Nations

Billions of dollars are needed to help poor countries deal with climate change, writes Judith Crosbie.