20 November 2009
The EU agreed on Tuesday that funding to tackle climate change should not risk progress on other important areas such as health and education.
Following one of the last high level European Union meetings before next month’s Copenhagen summit, Douglas Alexander, UK Secretary of State International Development stressed the importance of identifying new and additional financial resources for climate change, avoiding significant diversion of resources for development.
There are concerns both within developing countries and also within the aid community that at Copenhagen world leaders will shuffle existing financial commitments to developing countries and reallocate money previously set aside for education, healthcare and other essential services.
“We cannot allow a choice to exist between fighting poverty and tackling climate change,” said Mr Alexander and his Dutch counterpart, Bert Koenders, in an opinion piece in The Independent.
The article was published to coincide with a two day session of the EU’s General Affairs and External Relations Council, where development Ministers discussed this issue.
“As income, health and education levels rise so does a population’s capacity to cope with climate change,” Ministers Alexander and Koenders added.
At Copenhagen, world leaders will negotiate a new international treaty on greenhouse gas emissions as well as agree financial and technical support to help countries and individuals adapt to global warming.
Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, and other EU leaders, have said that by 2020 some euro 100 billion will be needed each year to combat climate change globally. Of this, it is anticipated that the public sector will need to provide up to euro 50 billion.
The funding is needed to help finance adaptation – many parts of the world are already experiencing the dangerous consequences of climate change – and to encourage low carbon development. The latter includes supporting clean energy and addressing the problems that come with deforestation.
“It is a sad irony that the people who have contributed by far the least to global carbon emissions are now the first to suffer the consequences of climate change,” Ministers Alexander and Koenders wrote, noting recent droughts in India and southern Africa, and impending floods in East Africa.
At present, most European countries, like other wealthy nations, are committed to spending the equivalent of 0.7 per cent of GDP annually on aid. The UK is pushing for agreement to a limit of the use of this aid for climate change, in order to protect our promises on areas such as health and education. The UK and Netherlands believe some additional finance should be set aside for climate change.
“By making such a pledge the EU can go a long way in reassuring developing countries that Copenhagen will not be ruled by self-interest and political horse-trading, but will be the platform for an agreement that will set us on the path to a more sustainable future,” the Ministers concluded in their opinion piece.
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