Ethiopian Review

Donor countries should raise up to two billion dollars to help vulnerable, poor countries adapt to climate change, according to a report submitted to the United Nations Thursday.

“As a first step, we urge donors countries to mobilize one to two billion dollars to assist the vulnerable, low-income countries, which are already suffering from climate impacts,” particularly in Africa and small island states, said the final study by the Stockholm-based Commission on Climate Change and Development (CCCD).

But the report, presented by Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Gunilla Carlsson, stressed that countries “must agree on a mechanism with democratic and efficient governance, and the necessary flexibility to cater for the variety of needs.” It also made clear that those extra resources must not be at the expense of of current development programs by rich countries.

“By additional, we mean additional to the commitment of paying 0.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) as official development assistance,” the report said. Adaptation to global warming consists of initiatives to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems and increase their resilience and is distinct from the parallel goal of mitigating the effects of global warming. Speaking at the launch of the report, UN chief Ban Ki-moon noted: “Climate change will affect all countries. But the poor will suffer first and worst.” “Billions of people are at risk. That is why adaptation is a key element in the negotiations for a new climate deal,” he said, noting that “simple community-based measures taken today can strengthen resilience, save lives and prevent future poverty and disaster.”

A UN-led conference in the Danish capital Copenhagen in December is meant to approve a new global warming treaty for the period after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol’s obligations to cut carbon emissions expire. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, meanwhile said here Thursday that any deal reached in Copenhagen must “at the very least, clarify how much industrialized countries would have reduced their emissions by 2020 and what developing countries were willing to do to limit the growth of their own emissions.”

“Those two areas were inextricably linked because the United States and other industrialized nations would not be able to ratify any agreement without corresponding commitments by developing countries,” he told a press conference.

- AFP