Jagdeo remains unimpressed with US$10B fund

Dec 16, 2009 News

From Neil Marks in Copenhagen

Members of the Guyana delegation in Copenhagen. Front row, from left Vanda Radzik, Yvonne Pearson and Jocelyn Dow.

The proposal by rich countries of a US$10 billion fund to help poor countries cope with the disasters brought on by climate change is “nowhere near what is required” President Bharrat Jagdeo said in Copenhagen yesterday.
Reiterating a notion which he expressed during a recent press briefing at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad & Tobago, the Guyanese leader said this country alone needs US$1 billion to fix sea defences and keep the rising waters of the Atlantic Ocean out. This is important to protect agriculture – the backbone of the economy – and most of the country’s people who live on a coastland that is situated below sea level.
Jagdeo’s comments came as the UN climate talks ramped up to the high-level stage and he joined leaders from the Caribbean Community to present their case in Copenhagen. The Caribbean wants “a comprehensive, substantial and operationally binding agreement” leading towards a fully legally binding outcome no later than 2010″ to reduce carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases.
Caribbean leaders also advocated for an agreement that provides for the legitimate development aspirations of developing countries as the world’s leaders also negotiate the financing and other mechanisms needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change.
The United Nations has estimated that poor countries need as much as $170 billion per year to adapt to climate change. That’s $50 billion more than developed countries spent on aid last year.
But even now with a three-year US$10 billion a year plan on the table, there is no uptake on it, Jagdeo lamented.
And what compounds matters is this: while the need for climate change adaptation funding is generally agreed to amount to hundreds of billions of US dollars, the UN fund set up for the purpose in 2008 currently holds just 18 million – not billion – US dollars.
The fund is set up to receive two types of income. One is voluntary contributions from rich countries – these have been scarce so far – and the other is a two percent tax on carbon credits sold under UN-backed schemes such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

President Bharrat Jagdeo listens to a point being made by Brian Dawnson, a Senior Climate Change Advisor with AusAID. Jagdeo delivered the keynote address at an event organized by the world Resources Institute

The tax was estimated to generate at least 1.6 billion US dollars by 2012, but revenues have so far been low due to bottlenecks in the CDM administration.
But that aside, Jagdeo told an event organized by the World Resources Institute that even if the money is agreed to at Copenhagen, there will be the additional headache of accessing it.
How come? Jagdeo posited that international financial institutions, which could act as the intermediaries of climate funds, are still using “old tools in a new environment.”
As a result he said accessing finance can be a tedious task, and even with the plans, money could end up sitting in the institutions if there is no real change in the way financial institutions work.
Asked about concerns about corruption and lack of transparency, Jagdeo cited the five-year US$250 million agreement Guyana has with Norway. He said it provides for a reputable mechanism for transferring of funds and the government was working to build Parliamentary oversight of how the funds are managed.
On the panel he shared with Jagdeo, Brian Dawnson, a Senior Climate Change Advisor with Australia Aid (AusAID) said that there exists a great deal of misinformation about the real effects of climate change and that there was need in developing countries for a clear indication of what infrastructure, for example, is at risk.
But Jagdeo said there is no clear plan on the table here in Copenhagen to cut emissions and prevent temperature rise, and with the dismal commitment to financing, planning is difficult.
The UN’s climate change panel, the IPCC, says developed countries need to cut emissions by between 25 and 40 percent to prevent a temperature rise of two degrees.
Some countries want to prevent temperature rise of 1.5 degrees. With the uncertainty, on temperature rise and funding, Jagdeo said planning is difficult.
In Guyana’s case, he said that there have been suggestions to shift agriculture inland and to relocate the capital city. But this he said is unaffordable.
“We just have to protect what we have,” Jagdeo stated.
Global warming is threatening the habitats of plants and animals, pressuring food production and melting the ice caps in Greenland and the Arctic, causing sea level to rise.
The temperature rise is caused by increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, not least Carbon Dioxide (CO2), which is mainly related to human use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the damage caused by global warming will be irreversible if CO2 emissions are not reduced within the next 10 years.