Life and Death on the Line as Rich Nations Evade Climate Obligations

A bloc of developing nations said Thursday that rich nations are blocking efforts to reach a consensus on financial climate pledges in Bonn, Germany, this week as the upcoming United Nations climate talks approach. This move could derail the entire process.

The Group of 77 (G77) and China, a coalition of nations and alliances that represent more than 80 percent of the world's population, said wealthy UN member states were shirking their financial responsibilities to help developing nations stave off the impacts of climate change and attempting to shift those obligations onto institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to AllAfrica, the latest blueprint of climate pledges reportedly omits key mechanisms included in previous drafts, such as financing for poorer countries and accountability for wealthier ones.

"When you take out the issues of others, you disenfranchise them and disempower those who suffer the most," said G77 chair and South Africa climate envoy Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko.

Mxakato-Diseko said that with the COP21 talks approaching quickly and no more chances to negotiate after the Bonn session ends this week, those roadblocks could mean the difference between life and death for frontline nations.

"It's a matter of life or death...and we are deadly serious," Mxakato-Diseko told journalists in a media briefing on Thursday. While the G77 had agreed on financial positions, she said, "developed countries have not negotiated, in the hope that it will be sorted [out] external to the agreement, where we are weakest."

Mxakato-Diseko continued, " Legally binding financial mandates for wealthy nations must be included in the agreement to guarantee that frontline countries receive funds to address the impacts of climate change. Otherwise, we are left to the whim of charity, the whim of individual countries to decide if and when [to pay], depending on the circumstances."

According to a recent report by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), several sources, including government funds, private institutions, and development banks, raised $62.8 billion in 2014 to stock up the climate war chest. Developed nations previously swore to mobilize $100 billion by 2020 to help frontline countries adapt to the impacts of global warming, such as sea level rise.

But on Thursday, the G77 said those figures were not accounted for and that the fine print included 'development aid' as a form of financial contribution, which raises "serious and valid concerns over the way that $62 billion figure was arrived at," said Angolan diplomat Giza Gaspar Martins. "It accounts for credit guarantees, loans that must be repaid."

Because the World Bank and IMF are private institutions not bound by the COP21 climate agreement, delegates say there is no way to guarantee that those funds will ever reach developing nations.

The World Bank is "a competitor with developing countries for finance to give to us on unregulated conditions," while the IMF "has no status in the agreement," Mxakato-Diseko said. "Beneath the darkness, where there is no scrutiny from civil society, the hope is that our will be bent so much that we are tired, we give up, and then the issue is resolved by external announcements" to the UN climate process.

Gurdial Singh Nijar, a spokesperson for the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) coalition--which includes Argentina, China, India, Iran, and Vietnam, among others--told journalists that the new draft "completely ignored the submissions of G77 on finance."

"We demand that the text be balanced for negotiations to commence," Nijar said.

Harjeet Singh, policy manager for ActionAid's humanitarian organization, explained the G77's position: "If your house goes up in flames, you first put the fire out. Developing countries are already fighting climate change fires and demanding strategies and money to deal with its impact. For rich nations with the money, technology, and skills, the devastation of climate change is not a pressing issue."

"The current climate talks reflect the contrasting order of priority of issues between developed and developing nations," Singh said. "Rich nations need to recognize the crisis is here and now. The money to prepare for and deal with climate impacts must be at the center of the deal in Paris."

The G77's call follows a report released Monday that found the U.S. and other wealthy nations' climate pledges to limit greenhouse gas emissions were not enough to prevent an average surface temperature warming of 2degC, the agreed threshold to prevent irreparable global warming and extreme weather events.

The success of COP21, said Mxakato-Diseko, will be judged by "what will be contained inside" the final accord.