Madam, – The news of “substantial new and additional funding” for climate change adaptation announced by Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power (Home News, December 15th) is welcome, but he needs to go a step further.
The developing world is at the front line of climate change. I have just returned from Uganda, where many of the small farmers we work with have seen rainfall patterns change beyond recognition in the past two decades. Long droughts are now often followed by torrential rain, causing floods that wash away seed and topsoil.
For farmers in Ireland, floods cause serious economic hardship, and the experience of the past few months have shown how vulnerable we all are to climate change. However, for farmers in Africa, where there are no support systems, floods and drought can be fatal.
In that context, the news from Mr Power that €100 million will be made available to fund climate change adaptation and mitigation programmes is timely. The worry, clearly flagged in Mr Cullen’s report, is that some of this funding will be diverted from the existing aid budget.
While we recognise the very difficult economic situation in which this Government finds itself, we urge it not to “rebrand” aid in this way. Funding for climate change relief must be new funding, not money taken from other programmes – to do otherwise is simply to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Our aid programme has an excellent reputation worldwide – let’s keep it like this by showing other donors how to deal honestly with the challenge of climate change. – Yours, etc,