Climate change
Industrialized countries will not reach their climate finance target until 2023
A dead cattle lies on dry ground in Falaise de Bandiagara in Mali (archive picture). Climate finance from richer countries is considered to be an important basis for the success of the negotiations at the upcoming UN climate conference COP26. Photo: epa Bothma / epa / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
100 billion US dollars a year for countries that are hardest hit by climate change, that is the promise of the industrialized nations. But the goal will probably be reached much later than planned.
According to their own statements, the industrialized countries will only achieve their financial goal of supporting poorer countries in the fight against climate change three years later than planned.
The promise provides for 100 billion US dollars (86 billion euros) per year from 2020 to 2025, which should flow from rich to poorer countries. «We will not reach this goal in 2022. But in 2023 we will achieve or even exceed this goal, ”said State Secretary for the Environment Jochen Flasbarth at an online press conference on Monday.
The background to the goal is that poorer countries, which themselves contribute the least to man-made climate change, are most affected by it. The money should flow both into adaptation measures and into a climate-friendly restructuring of the economy.
They are confident that they will come close to the sum of 100 billion US dollars from private and public sources in 2022 and that they will be reached for the first time in 2023, as representatives from Germany, Canada and Great Britain jointly announced. In the two years thereafter, the sum is forecast to be above the threshold and reach up to 117 billion US dollars. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the amount of climate finance so far amounts to around 80 billion dollars per year.
Important basis for successful negotiations
Climate finance from richer countries is seen as an important basis for the success of negotiations at the upcoming UN climate conference COP26, which begins in Glasgow on Sunday. “Understandably, there was a lot of frustration in developing countries,” said British COP President-designate Alok Sharma about the goals that have not yet been achieved. The task now is to restore confidence and make progress in Glasgow.
According to the Ministry of the Environment, Germany contributed € 7.83 billion from public and private sources last year. This contribution will be “substantially increased” over the next few years, said Flasbarth. How much the Federal Republic will actually spend will also depend on the outcome of the ongoing coalition negotiations. Fridays for Future is demanding at least 14 billion euros annually from a new federal government, which should be set aside for international climate finance. Flasbarth also appealed to other countries not to let up, but to mobilize more money.
“The plan is above all the attempt by the rich countries to absorb the disappointment of the poorer countries about the promise not kept – in order to contribute to a successful COP26 from the point of view of the rich countries”, criticized the financial expert Jan Kowalzig of Oxfam Germany. There were no specific commitments that the failures would be made up later and that the funds for adaptation to climate change would be increased.
A representative of the African think tank Power Shift based in Nairobi was disappointed, according to the Guardian. The financing promise is the absolute minimum that the industrialized countries have to deliver.