Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
climate funding negotiated through the UNFCC is a tiny percentage of the
potential estimated cost of climate change: 0.5 per cent compared with 20 per cent
of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) gross
national product.
30
Yet still governments have haggled over the distribution of
such funding allocations. While adaptation is now being de
ned in a broader sense
than mere physical defences
-
to include the need for changes in development
models and early warning
in 2011 developing states received only $960 million
for adaptation, compared with the $8 billion a year needed by 2015.
31
Develop-
ment commissioner Andris Piebalgs acknowledges that the scale of climate
-
nan-
cing agreed so far within mainstream Commission development budgets
is
'
meaningless
'
as a security instrument. He argues that the amount of
funding
o
ered can assist in a minor amount of adaptation at the margins, but is totally
inadequate in helping prepare more anticipatory solutions to the strategic impact of
global warming. DG Energy o
cials recognise there is still a need for more sys-
tematic use of research and development budgets to include the EU
'
s neighbours
in renewables development. Member state o
cials also acknowledge that dialogue
with consumer countries on cooperation in climate aid projects has so far remained
more limited than what is needed to have any impact on international relations.
The EU raised hackles on the
rst day of the December 2010 Canucn summit by
revealing that half its fast start funding would take the form of loans and private equity
instead of grants. Many environmental campaigners express concerns that the EU still
has to demonstrate that it will resist the temptation simply to divert existing devel-
opment aid or to use the climate adaptation agenda as a covert means of introducing
new forms of conditionality and even trade barriers. Governments have rejected novel
proposals, such as that to ring-fence future taxes on banks for climate adaptation. Italy
was singled out for a particularly poor record in actually delivering on its promised
funding.
32
Member states still have di
erent ideas on additionality and on reporting
criteria. Most governments over-report climate funds to least developing countries.
France is most suspect on the issue of additionality
much of its climate funding
commitment simply repackages existing aid projects in disingenuous fashion.
33
Member states have pushed up to 50 per cent the share of ETS revenues to be allo-
cated to climate projects, so as to reduce the burden on their own budgets; this
represents another dent in the spirit that new climate aid promises should bring addi-
tional money to the table, not simply divert resources from other revenue sources.
The 2012
-
'
Rio plus 20
'
summit was a virtual non-event: the EU kept a low
pro
le and did not make commitments on the link between sustainable develop-
ment and climate change. Diplomats and even the EU climate commissioner her-
self lamented that this was a lost opportunity of merely rhetorical re-statements of
basic principles. Some politicians and o
cials in some member states argue that the
EU should reduce subsidies for renewable energy and adaptation outside Europe
