Climate action depends on funding
Climate finance’ refers to international funding that provides resources to developing countries in order to address climate change and, specifically, to support mitigation and adaptation actions and address loss and damage.
Countries that have historically profited and continue to profit most from industrial and agricultural processes that lead to global heating must make the biggest contribution to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. They must provide for mitigation, adaptation and repairing Loss and Damage in countries that are the least responsible for creating the climate crisis, and least able to cope with the impact.
Without sufficient finance, it is impossible to bring justice and develop the necessary spirit of global cooperation required to tackle climate change, particularly for countries experiencing the worst impact of the climate crisis. The Paris Agreement committed to mobilising $100bn a year for climate finance. This has not been achieved, and it Is vital to deliver $600bn at a minimum before 2025.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC’ found that by 2030, mitigation investments need to increase by at least five-fold in Southeast Asia and developing countries in the Pacific, sevenfold in Africa and twelve-fold in the Middle East to limit warming below 2°C. This shortfall is most pronounced for agriculture, forestry and other land use, where recent financial flows are between ten and 29 times below what is required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s objectives.
The agreement demands a balance between finance for adaptation and finance for mitigation. However, currently only a small proportion is spent on climate adaptation and very little to address Loss and Damage, despite these being the most pressing issues for many developing countries. There is an urgent need to scale-up support to ensure 50 per cent of public resources support adaptation, with an additional dedicated finance facility to address Loss and Damage.
Climate finance should be public and disbursed for public and publicly accountable programmes and projects, rather than private, for-profit initiatives or public-private partnerships. Climate finance must be new and additional to existing international financial commitments, such as overseas development aid. A gender-responsive approach to finance should be adopted to fund transformative and positive change within societies.
