Developing nations will need at least $267 billion (€207 billion) a year by 2020 to fight climate change and adapt to droughts, heatwaves and rising seas, according to African nations.
The figure, part of a new African text for negotiations on a UN climate treaty, is more than double the current development aid from recession-hit wealthy nations, which reached a record $120 billion in 2008.
“Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change, with major development and poverty eradication challenges and limited capacity for adaptation,” the text submitted to the UN Climate Change Secretariat said.
It set a 2020 goal of $200 billion in investments to help developing nations limit rising emissions, for instance via energy efficiency or shifting from coal or oil towards renewable wind or solar power.
The African group, comprising more than 50 nations, said those flows totalled about 0.5 per cent of the gross domestic product of developed nations. Cash needed to help developing nations adapt to climate change, such as building stronger defences against rising sea levels or developing drought-resistant crops, needed to be at least $67 billion a year by 2020.
The numbers are far above the levels of aid discussed by wealthy nations to limit greenhouse gas emissions. A report by the European Commission in January said the international costs of fighting climate change would be about €175 billion a year by 2020.
“It shows the scale of what’s needed,” Kathrin Gutmann, head of policy of the WWF environmental group’s global climate initiative, said of the African text.
“We’re not talking about tens of billions of dollars – it’s far more.”
Ms Gutmann said there was a “strange chicken and egg situation”: rich nations want the poor to lay out their plans for fighting climate change before promising cash; the poor want funds pledged first before deciding what is achievable.
The next UN climate talks, part of a series meant to end in Copenhagen in December with a new pact to succeed the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, take place from June 1st to 12th in Bonn, Germany.
The African group also said developed nations should cut emissions by at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 to 95 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. The numbers are beyond goals set by almost all developed countries. “At lower stabilisation levels, the additional climate impacts are unacceptable to Africa,” it said.
The UN climate panel projects that up to 250 million people in Africa could face greater stress on water supplies by 2020 and yields from rainfed agriculture could fall by up to 50 per cent by 2020 in some African nations. – (Reuters)