Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
through the mainstreaming of adaptation initiatives into holistic development aid
programmes.
22
A common developmentally oriented discourse is now more evident at the EU
level and within member states. The 2012 European Development Report focused
on how far EU development policy has progressed in addressing the nexus of
inter-linkages between development, water use, sustainable energy and land use;
this being the dimension of EU climate funding that has advanced most tangibly,
and an area prioritised in the EU
s 2011 Agenda for Action designed to upgrade
and update development policies.
23
'
s 2009 Climate Justice Plan, which
attempted to close negotiating gaps prior to the Copenhagen summit, was pre-
dicated strongly on this development-oriented logic and professed to mobilise new
aid allocations. The UK has moved to talk of
France
'
'
'
resource security
,re
ecting a
recognition that climate change may not directly cause con
ict but rather puts
stress on existing resource shortages; the policy agenda is more about the quality of
political and economic governance.
In the Centre for Global Development
s
2012 Commitment to Development Index
,
EU donors received strikingly higher scores than other states for the quantity and
quality of their climate-related aid.
24
For 2010
'
7.2
billion. This was split between 48 per cent for mitigation, 33 per cent for adapta-
tion and 16 per cent for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degra-
dation. Just over half was given in the form of loans, and 48 per cent as grants.
Nearly 60 per cent went through multilateral organisations.
25
By the start of 2013
the EU was on schedule with its fast start
-
12 the EU allocation was
€
nancing commitments. Proposals have
been made to extend the
'
blending
'
of Commission and member state aid fully
into the area of climate security.
Denmark, Finland and Germany were the most generous proportionate con-
tributors, allocating between 12 and 15 per cent of bilateral aid to climate projects.
France and Spain have increased their role, up to around 10 per cent of their total aid
going to climate adaptation. Sweden claimed that beyond its speci
ned cli-
mate aid it allocated more than $585 million in additional support to climate-related
development assistance over the period 2009
cally de
11.The UK allocated a lower 3.5 per
cent, despite running a large number of vanguard climate change programmes. It set
up an International Climate Fund in 2010, an inter-departmental fund to channel the
vast bulk of Britain
-
s climate funding of £2.9 billion up to 2015; aid relevant to cli-
mate change is now running at just under 400 million per year, up from 100 million
per year in 2005. In relative terms there was much that was impressive in these
'
g-
ures. Spain, for example, gave eight times more than the United States. In the
summer of 2012 the Commission committed an additional
€
50 million. In October
2012 the EU agreed to provide China with
25 million worth of technical support
to consider adopting some form of emission trading scheme.
€
