Helping the poor tackle climate change

The European Commission will this month propose a multi-million euro strategy to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change.

The Global Climate Change Alliance is due to be launched in the week beginning 17 September, although the exact day has to be decided.

The alliance was suggested in a green paper on climate change adaptation, published in June, as a way to help developing countries deal with floods, hurricanes, drought and heatwaves blamed on climate change. The green paper proposed a budget of €50 million for 2007-10. Member states will also be asked to contribute.

"There has clearly been an increase of natural disasters linked to extreme weather conditions, resulting from climate change," said a spokesman for Louis Michel, the commissioner for development and humanitarian aid. "The idea of building an alliance is based on the very clear assessment that climate change has the greatest impact in the least developed countries - particularly Africa."

Michel will present the proposal on the Global Climate Change Alliance with Stavros Dimas, the commissioner for the environment, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the commissioner for external relations.

The alliance will complement the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which makes climate change action compulsory only for wealthy countries, explained the spokesman. "There is clearly a gap. We need to help developing countries prepare for disaster."

The alliance could help introduce measures to deal with the effect of global warming, including improved irrigation systems to reduce the risk of desertification or regional disaster alert systems. It would also encourage dialogue, by increasing the number of meetings on climate change between EU and developing countries.

Sally Nicholson of WWF, the conservation group, said that there was an "urgent need" to find more money for measures helping poor countries adapt to climate change. But she said that the Global Climate Change Alliance would only work if member states agreed to contribute.

The proposal to launch the alliance comes ahead of annual UN climate change talks, to be held in Bali in 3-14 December, where governments will discuss future strategies to deal with climate change. At a preparatory UN meeting for diplomats, scientists and lobby groups last Friday (31 August), countries suggested that the starting point for the Bali talks should be a 25-40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 for developed countries.

In a speech on the same day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that future climate change targets should be based on emissions per person of greenhouse gases, rather than per nation, as a way of encouraging poor countries to sign up to an international deal.

Developing countries such as China and India are now among the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, but emissions per person remain low when compared to the US and Europe.

The European Commission will this month propose a multi-million euro strategy to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change.