Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Already, creeping changes in the seasons, such as longer, hotter dry periods,
shorter growing seasons and unpredictable rainfall patterns, are bewildering poor
farmers in many developing countries, making it harder for them to know when
best to sow, cultivate and harvest their crops. Poor farmers' coping mechanisms
are being exhausted. Frequently, they are without reliable and sufficient incomes,
savings or access to healthcare or social insurance, Shocks from climatic disasters
or shifting seasons often force them to go without food, sell off assets critical to
their livelihoods or take their own children out of school. Short-term coping
strategies can have long-term consequences, causing a downward spiral of deeper
poverty and greater vulnerability. These effects would wipe out any positive
impacts from expected increases in household incomes, trapping generations in
the invidious cycle of food insecurity.
Many developing countries need financial assistance to address the challenges
of climate change. Our collective approach to climate change adaptation needs
to be multifaceted. It should include actions such as building resilience at the
community level, supporting disaster risk reduction, building the capacity of
developing country governments and responding to the direct impacts of climate
change. All these actions will require substantial financial support.
In 2009 the World Bank estimated that the costs of adaptation in developing
countries would be US$75-100bn per year (World Bank, 2009; 2010). This
amount is based on the assumption that global warming will be kept below 2°C
(Oxfam, 2009). Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute estimate that
the non-binding emission reduction pledges made at Copenhagen and Cancun
could steer the world towards a catastrophic 4-5°C (Oxfam, 2009). Adaptation
in these scenarios would be exponentially more expensive, if not impossible.
Furthermore, it is becoming clear that rich countries have not met their initial
'fast-start' commitments (Oxfam, 2012). In many cases the money they are
providing is not new - it is recycled - and in other cases the 'fast-start finance' is
not additional to the aid budget.
One of the positive outcomes of Copenhagen was that wealthy developed
countries agreed to a fast-start fund of US$30bn, over the three years to 2012.
The aim of this fund was to support early adaptation and mitigation efforts while
agreement was still being sought in other aspects of the negotiations. Recently, the
World Resources Institute released a report that suggested only around US$12bn
of the US$30bn promised has actually been budgeted for by developed countries
and in some cases as little as around 30 per cent has been delivered (Vidal,
2011). Australia's approximately $620 million in fast-start financing represented
a fair share of the US$30bn global goal and is notable for the share allocated to
adaptation (52 per cent of the total), the transparency of reporting, the priority
given to Least Developed Countries and to Small Island Developing States and
for being fully grants-based. While there has been a substantial increase over
earlier levels, of the total pledge only US$366m was added after Copenhagen,
and thus in Oxfam's judgement constitutes 'new' money. While part of a growing
aid budget, given that Australia's Official Development Assistance remains well
below the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income, its
