Western Hypocrisy – The Main Barrier In Delivery Of Climate Finance

“Nepal is diverting its resources from health and education to deal with the climate crisis,” Ain Bahadur Shahi, Minister of Forest and Environment of Nepal revealed at a media event in Kathmandu a few days after the city was devastated by massive floods following a torrential downpour that scientists have attributed to climate change.

Why should Nepal, or for that matter any developing countries that emit minimal greenhouse gas emissions, bear the costs of the serial climate disasters caused by the historical emissions of the rich and developed countries?

In 2009, as part of the Copenhagen Accord, developed countries had agreed to mobilise $100 billion annually by 2020 to support climate change mitigation and adaptation actions in developing countries. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the developed countries failed to deliver the on their promise in full and on time.

“The pledges made by major polluters amount to nothing more than empty talk. They impose impossible barriers for us to access the crucial funds we need to protect our people. Despite continuous attempts, we have not received a single toea in support to date,” said Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko last week while announcing the country’s intention to boycott the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) of the UNFCC to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22.

Determining a new post-2025 annual climate finance mobilisation target — called the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) — is the top priority of COP 29. In 2015, under the Paris Agreement, parties had agreed to extend this goal out to 2025 and to set a new finance goal, from a floor of USD 100 billion per year, for after 2025 taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries.

Most studies find that the overall investment needs for developing countries to implement the Paris Agreement are now in the trillions of dollars per year. According to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) own estimate, developing countries require about $5.8-5.9 trillion up until 2030 in order to meet their climate goals. Civil society groups from around the world are calling on governments in the Global North to pay up US$5 trillion annually as a down payment towards their climate debt to the countries of the Global South, who are the least responsible for climate disaster but are the most affected.

However, the process of establishing the new finance goal that was initiated in 2021 with an ad hoc work programme to discuss technicalities starting from definition of climate finance, to quantity, quality, amount, time-frame, structure, and transparency arrangements has barely made any progress. Less than fortnight before COP29, there are disagreements over almost every aspect of NCQG, raising serious concerns about the intentions of developed countries.

“Economic downturn”, “austerity measures”, “budget-constraints” and “responsible spending” are the excuses bandied around by the developed countries for failing to deliver on their $ 100 billion per annum promise and the reason we do not yet have a concrete number on the table for NCQG, the new climate finance goal. It is difficult to buy these arguments from countries that dole out nearly $ 850 billion in subsidies to fossil fuel companies or spend more than $2 trillion in military expenditure in 2020, while developing countries face a crushing $ 29 trillion debt.

Western hypocrisy is the main barrier in the delivery of climate finance by the developed countries. The money is there, but their leaders don’t have the political will or the gumption to look beyond short-term gains and their colonial mindsets. To begin with, ending unsustainable subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, imposing a pollution tax on big corporate polluters, and reducing military spending are some of the key measures they could take according to climate activists. One thing is certain, the new finance goal must address the core issues of equity and accessibility. Moreover, all NCQG pledges must be for new and additional funds that are not mere commitments but actual disbursals that reach the most vulnerable populations without too much bureaucracy.