Nearly 200 States are set to meet in Copenhagen next December to draft the international treaty which will succeed the Kyoto Protocol (valid until 2012). However, the summit could fail if financing is not allocated to the poorest nations to help them adapt to climate change and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The African Group at the United Nations, which comprises 55 African nations, declared last month that developing countries would need 267 billion dollars per year between now and 2020 in order to fight the effects of climate change. This figure, presented in the text prepared by the African group within the framework of United Nations negotiations on the new climate treaty, is twice that of the current development aid allocated by the developed world for 2008 (120 billion dollars). According to the African Group, the investments would represent 0.5% of the developed nations’ GDP.

Jeffrey Sachs, adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and President of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, has also alerted national governments of the difficulties that lie ahead. Sachs is of the opinion that "if there is no money on the table, there will be no agreement". He aims to address the issue by establishing an assistance fund for the poorest nations which would distribute tens of billions of dollars each year. He believes that such a fund could be used, for example, to finance water conservation programmes and develop better irrigation techniques.

Most developing countries believe that rich countries have a duty to provide them with financing, given that the latter have reaped the benefits of industrialisation for over a century, during which time they emitted billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

In addition, Africa is one of the continents most vulnerable to climate change and its ability to adapt is limited. The text on climate change submitted to the United Nations Secretariat recalls that Africa must concurrently take up some major development challenges.  According to Jeffrey Sachs, amassing such funds during a world economic recession will not be an easy task. However, part of the money could come from greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes.

Emissions trading consists in issuing, selling, or auctioning CO2 allowances to "polluters" (States at the international level, companies at the national level), which can then be traded. Such as system is already in place in the European Union, set up within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol. Since 2005, the main industrial producers of CO2 have been required to submit trading allowances equal to their greenhouse gas emissions. They can either use the credits distributed freely by the government each year, or those which they have bought from other companies with excess credits. In this way, funds can be gathered and allocated to developing countries in order to help them adapt to climate change. These credits are however considered by detractors as a "license to pollute". The organisation of a global trading system will be debated in the future in Copenhagen.

 

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