👎 Still failing on climate finance

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Hi John,

Despite giving themselves an extension, rich countries look set to once again fall short of their $100 billion climate finance goal. But the problems don’t end there.

In case you missed my previous email, rich countries missed the target set at COP16 to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to the global south by 2020.

The UK has been desperate to make sure the target is met before COP26, with Alok Sharma going cap in hand around the world to increase pledges. However, it has been reported this week that governments are still about $10 billion short.

Yet even if they do make this target, it’s still far less than what the global south needs and is not a fair reflection of the climate debt that rich countries owe for the ecological damage they have caused.

Join us in calling on the UK government to pay its fair share of climate finance and encourage other countries to do the same.

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What is a fair share of climate finance?

The $100 billion target has always been considered, by global south governments, to be far too little to compensate for the global north’s historic contribution to climate change.

Alternative calculations by global south leaders argue that the UK alone should instead be paying $46 billion a year to the global south in climate finance. This would form part of collective global efforts to raise $400 billion a year.

While this sounds like a lot, it is less than 1.5% of annual national income, and would save a lot of money in terms of dealing with the impacts of climate chaos in the long term.

The UK’s recent pledge to increase climate finance to $3.2 billion a year, and President Biden’s announcement that the US will contribute $11 billion a year (the US’s fair share is $80 billion) remain well short of what is needed.

It’s time for rich countries to pay up.

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Dodgy accounting

But a lack of ambition is not the only problem with these pledges.

Firstly, there are a raft of ways in which rich countries overcount the finance they are contributing. In 2018, when the OECD said that the global north was making good progress to the $100 billion target by providing $79 billion that year, Oxfam figures suggested the true value was only $20 billion.

That is partly because 74% of this finance was provided as loans, not grants. That means governments were counting money that they would eventually get back as assistance to the global south, and exacerbating the debt burden that governments face. Alongside increased finance, we also need to see comprehensive debt cancellation to achieve justice.

Time for a new deal

It’s time that the UK paid up and contributed its fair share of climate finance. But our government should also use its COP presidency to push other rich countries to agree a new climate finance deal that represents equity and justice for the global south.

Add your voice

Thank you for your support,

Daniel Willis,
Climate campaigner at Global Justice Now

Read more

1. Financing justice? UK climate finance and how to increase ambition at COP26, September 2021

2. ‘There is no climate justice without debt justice’, Daniel Willis, September 2021

3. Debt and the Climate Crisis: A Perfect Storm, September 2021

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