WWF pushing for G20 decisions on Pacific climate funds
Updated
Leaders from the world's most powerful nations are meeting at the G20 summit in Pittsburg in the United States, where the World Wide Fund for Nature is calling on the G20 to agree on a climate financing strategy. G20 Finance Ministers have been asked to prepare a report on options for this meeting, including for helping developing nations adapt to climate change and reduce their emissions.
The adaptation and emissions reduction task in the developing world is huge. Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has suggested it could cost 100 billion US dollars a year. Kim Carstensen is the Director of WWF's Global Climate Initiative, and he describes what sort of climate financing strategy they hope to see the G20 come up with for the developing world.
Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Kim Carstensen, Director of WWF's Global Climate Initiative
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As we go to air leaders from the world's most powerful nations are meeting at the G20 summit, in Pittsburg, in the United States. The World Wide Fund for Nature has called on the G-20 to agree on a climate financing strategy. G20 Finance Ministers have been asked to prepare a report on options for this meeting, including for helping developing nations adapt to climate change and reduce their emissions. The adaptation and emissions reduction task in the developing world is huge. Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has suggested it could cost 100 billion US dollars a year.
Kim Carstensen is the director of WWF's global climate initiative, and Radio Australia's Geraldine Coutts spoke to him earlier from Pittsburg. She began by asking... what sort of climate financing strategy do you hope to see the G-20 come up with for the developing world?
CARSTENSEN: Well I hope to see some clear commitments from the G20 leaders but we need to act on climate change financing for the poorest and most vulnerable countries, including the small island states very quickly. So I hope to see fast action on money that could be available already as of next year, we call that the early action, and then a plan, an idea of how we're going to get to the levels of funding that would be needed in 10, 15 years time. As Gordon Brown talked about, 100-billion US dollars, something on that order of magnitude, possibly even more.
COUTTS: Would this be enough though to keep global temperature rise to below one-point-five degrees, as is being demanded by the small island states?
CARSTENSEN: Well we need certainly to see in addition to the finance for action in developing countries, we definitely need to see strong commitment on the developed countries own emission reductions. And I think that's the other big thing that's in play and where discussion needs to be had before the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December.
COUTTS: So how much climate financing do you think should come from governments and how much from the private sector?
CARSTENSEN: I think it's very important that this gets kick-started by public funding. Public funding would definitely be needed for adaptation to climate change to help societies like the small island communities to cope with the changes that they see happening already, and those that will come in the future. I think public funding will also be needed for setting up the systems for reducing emissions from deforestation etc., capacity in government, setting the baseline, setting the monitoring systems all of that. So I think the main challenge right now is to find the public finance that can kick-start the whole system.
COUTTS: So how much do you think they should kick in?
CARSTENSEN: I think what's been discussed over the past few years in terms of immediate funding for adaptation was in the order of magnitude of two or three billion dollars that was immediately needed. They should add what would be needed to kick-start the developments to reduce emissions from deforestation, also to start action on renewable energy, energy efficiency measures, access to sustainable energy for the poorest. I think we would be talking something in the order of magnitude of ten billion dollars over the next few years as a starting point.
COUTTS: Well many commentators are saying that sort of money just isn't feasible, especially as those same governments are trying to cope with the global financial crisis. What's your response to that?
CARSTENSEN: Ten billion dollars as a global level of ambition to save the poorest communities from the worst crisis they've ever been facing? I think that's actually cheap and I'm convinced that level of funding would definitely be available. I think the bigger discussion is that how do we get to the presumably much higher level of funding, public and private that would be needed in the longer term to help us get on a sustainable path and the low-carbon development. I think that's the bigger discussion, and there I hope the G20 leaders will at least get us into a mode of getting that discussion in a more constructive way than we've seen so far.
COUTTS: Well the G20 leaders are still in session. Do you have any news on what they're thinking?
CARSTENSEN: They haven't really started the discussions about that yet. We know they're talking about some other stuff that would also be helpful, which is a reduction or an elimination of subsidies for fossil fuels, that might help sort of get money to go in a better direction in subsidising the activities that are causing global warming. Where they're going on the financing thing, we don't know exactly yet, that will be discussed and agreed only tomorrow.
COUTTS: Ok and why is climate financing strategy so crucial for getting a good replacement for the Kyoto Protocol when the world meets in Copenhagen?
CARSTENSEN: Because if we want to see action in developing countries then we also need to make sure that developing countries have the money that is needed to actually get those investments kick-started, and we cannot solve the climate problem without having engagement of the developing countries. So it's two things; one thing is to help the most vulnerable and the poorest communities adapt to climate change, and that is becoming more and more urgent year after year as climate changes. And then also to make sure that developing countries can become part of the solution to climate change, and both things are desperately needed.
COUTTS: Well what form would you like to see climate financing take, should it be set up through a special UN fund?
CARSTENSEN: I think there will not be one answer to that. I think it's very important that the funding is responsible to the overall UN climate change convention so that those who set the policies on climate change globally are also sort of steering the overall use of the money. But I think in terms of dispensing the money, in terms of making sure it gets to the right recipients, that it gets into the right kinds of programs, I think there will be a series of solutions involving a number of the institutions that we know and work with already, both in the UN and the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility, bilateral institutions like AusAid or others will also have a role to play in this.
