COP 22 Oxfam and WWF ~ Climate Adaptation Finances, Ambition and Action Agenda

Climate Action Network Intl. moderator, Ms Dharini Parthasarathy, introduces two speaker’s, namely Isabel Kreisler from Oxfam Intl. presenting on the 100 Billion Road Map and Climate Financial flow, as well as Mariana Panuncio from WWF Intl. who speaks on Pre 2020 Ambition and the Climate Action Agenda, at COP 22, Marrakech conference.

Isabel Kreisler (Oxfam’s Climate Change Policy expert) – on the subject of Climate finances, we have two main expectations from this Marrakech conference, and the first concerns Adaptation finance in terms of the Paris Agreement, in which text spoke of significantly increasing the finance and striking a balance between Adaptation and Mitigation, which clearly is not happening and with climate impacts already worsening poverty and hunger around the world, with more than 40 million people in Southern Africa alone who are facing food insecurity and humanitarian needs because of sustained drought, the urgent need for parties to address the adaptation finance gap becomes even more crucial, in order to assist the people that are least responsible and most vulnerable to climate change.  A further concern in this regard is the low share of resources that are being channeled to least developing countries and adaptation, also that there is no specific mechanism, target or political commitment to address the adaptation financial gap.
Donor countries recently published a roadmap showing how, by 2020, they’ll provide $100 billion a year in financial support to help developing countries tackle climate change, however, while long overdue, this roadmap is a step forward in the world’s efforts to adapt to and combat climate change. Unfortunately, the roadmap’s projection to double the financial support to help countries adapt to climate change is nowhere near enough to ensure the needs of the most vulnerable are met.

In terms of  Climate Financing accounting criteria in donor reports, donors are not applying consistent criteria and the reporting that they present is leading to an over-estimation of the nett assistance that developing countries are getting in order to fight Climate Change, e.g. donors are counting loans at face value, making it impossible to separate  the loans from lending instruments or grant specific reports, which is what is most needed for adaptation.  Assumptions and extrapolations are being used in ‘private finance mobilized’, and all of these are leading to an over-counting of the financial support to developing countries and of course, the more financial resources are over-counted, the less the developing countries are ensured that they will get the support they need.

Mariana Panuncio (Snr Dir. Intl. Climate Co-Operation~WWF Intl., USA) – The Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action was recently launched where Ambassador Laurence Tubiana and Minister Hakima El Haite presented the sequence of events over next few weeks in sectors like Energy, Transport, Forests, Cities, Oceans, etc.where progress on past commitments in these sectors will be discussed in relation to the Paris Agreement, with Ambassador Tubiana framing this event very well, in saying, quote: “We are in a race against time”!.

Climate discussions in Marrakech have to empower the governments of the world to achieve the goals set and create the conditions to encourage the establishment of more ambitious ones. The established targets will avoid following the catastrophic trajectory that would have led us to an increase in temperature above 4.5 degrees Celsius by the middle of the century. We are still out of the parameters necessary to stay below 2 degrees Celsius with current commitments, and even further away from the ideal goal that is 1.5 degrees, which is the so-called Paris Agreement.
We can not forget that climate change is not a problem exclusively for governments. It is everyone’s job to do everything possible to combat this climate crisis. COP22 should increase collaboration between the business sector, cities, communities, individuals and governments around the world.

This appetite for ‘action’ is absolutely critical if we are to really pick up the pace and win this race against time!

http://dfat.gov.au/international-relations/themes/climate-change/Pages/climate-change.aspx  (Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia ~ Climate Change)
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.efeverde.com/opinion/la-nueva-arena-global-la-accion-climatica-mariana-panuncio-wwf/&prev=search    (Mariana Panuncio~Snr Dir. of Intl. Climate Co-Operation for WWF Intl., USA http://unfccc.int/files/paris_agreement/application/pdf/marrakech_partnership_for_global_climate_action.pdf  (Global Climate Action Champions)