Introduction
Although routinely portrayed as the ‘provision of climate aid to poor rainforest countries,’ all the agreements I have seen between rich countries and poor rainforest ones, including the Guyana-Norway Agreement, are in essence the export sale of global environmental services by the latter in exchange for climate payments from the former. Typical of exchanges between rich and poor countries, they contain elements that are intrinsic to the historical pattern of unequal exchanges between rich and poor nations. In this exchange, therefore, the trade in environmental services, for a number of reasons, engages the parties on an uneven playing field.
Consequently, without a universal agreement to cap greenhouse gas emissions in place, trade in carbon emissions credits/permits and forest-carbon projects does not result in the net reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions. The reason for this is, polluters, who have paid for environmental services in poor countries, feel entitled to add to their own greenhouse gas emissions. This encourages business-as-usual by the historic polluters, who drag their feet on meeting pledges to cap their emissions. But since the net effect is no reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, climate funding (aid) is exposed for what it is: the continued rip-off of the earth’s environment by the historic polluters.
Additionally, readers would be aware of the severe practical problems due to 1) climate exchanges remaining accessible to criminal endeavours and 2) forest-carbon projects failing to deliver what they have promised at agreed periods of time. This situation further reduces confidence that trade in environmental services will yield a net reduction of emissions; instead there may be a net increase.
Climate funding (Aid)
Coming out of the Copenhagen Climate Summit (December 2009) was an accord, which was “noted” but “not agreed to” by most participating countries. I have earlier analysed this accord and do intend to repeat it here. However, I take the opportunity to inform readers of the pledges rich countries made at the summit, as their contributions to climate funding. First, they promised that by 2020 total funding of US$100 billion. This would be delivered from a variety of sources: public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance. Second, in order to fast-start the process, US$30 billion was pledged for the period 2010-12, to help poor countries “adapt and mitigate” the negative impacts of global warming and climate change. Third, of this US$10 billion would be made available in 2010 and the sum of US$3-5 billion set aside to target forest-based projects.
With more than half the year already passed these pledges have not yet been concretised. There is no clear agreement on 1) how these funds are to be delivered; 2) how to fix and determine criteria for the projects that are eligible for this funding; 3) how to determine criteria for the eligibility and allocation to poor countries; and 4) how these funds are to be administered.
However, a few weeks ago Reuters and the mainstream financial media were proudly reporting the rich nations were likely to increase their pledges to US$5 billion for forest projects in poor countries! But at the same time, other watchdog media were warning: “Rich countries will raid existing budgets, double-count promises and convert grants to loans to avoid paying the US$30 billion they pledged last year to poor countries to help adapt immediately to the climate change they did not cause.” (The Guardian, June 9, 2010 (John Vidal))
Strong-arm tactics, threats
Indeed there have been reported threats to cut development aid to poor countries if they do not sign up to the accord. Thus, the Observer (April 11, 2010) reported African diplomats as saying at the United Nations Climate talks held earlier this year in Bonn, Germany: “The pressure to back the West is intense… it was made very clear by the EU, UF, France, and the US that if they did not back them they would suffer.” Even the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Director, S. Huq was reported as claiming: “There was definite strong-arming of countries. A lot were left in no doubt that there would be repercussions if they did not associate themselves with the accord.” (Observer, April 11, 2010)
This situation becomes even more worrisome when one considers the notorious record of unfulfilled pledges rich countries have made to support poor countries. Indeed, over the decades certain traits in this process have become discernible.
The aid scam
First, when rich countries make pledges they are deliberately vague, avoiding at all costs establishing a definite baseline from which their fulfilment can be measured. This allows previously committed aid, not yet delivered, to be surreptitiously insinuated into every new promise. Second, as commitments are re-labelled, the growing pipeline of undelivered pledges defeats all objective efforts at determining their scheduling. Old promises can therefore, be currently met while new ones are pushed forward into an indeterminate future. Overall we may say pledges without published and agreed to baselines are simply rich countries’ scams.
Third, we find that such pledges are always of a best-endeavour, non-binding nature. That is, there is no legal obligation to deliver. The most notorious case of all is the four-decades old pledge of rich countries to each commit to a target of aid and assistance to poor countries equal to 0.7 per cent of their respective gross national income. The record on the delivery of this pledge is to say the least, abysmal.
I would, however, argue that this nonetheless remains the baseline from which “new and additional funding” to deliver environmental services to poor countries should be measured; anything less encourages the decades-old scam to continue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, for readers the stark reality remains. At the Bonn Climate Change Conference talks (June 2010) it was recognised that even if the 37 historic polluters kept their current pledges to curtail emissions, on their current trajectory for fulfilling climate funding pledges to those developing countries that have pledged voluntary actions to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, global emissions will continue to grow dangerously over the next decade and beyond.
This brings to an end, for the time being, my extended analysis of the LCDS, the Guyana-Norway Agreement (MOU and Joint Concept Note) as well as matters pertaining to global warming and climate change, particularly as they affect poor rainforest nations.
