Australia asked to double climate grants to vulnerable nations

Australia and other developed nations have been ‘invited’ to double the money they provide to the UN to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate events.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen at the COP28 in Dubai. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

Australia and other developed nations have been “invited” to double the money they provide to the United Nations to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate events while the private sector will be asked to raise additional funding.

After a less than stellar series of contributions from the governments of developed nations – falling each year well short of a US$100bn annual target to mitigate against climate change – the UN has decided to ask for a doubling of adaptation grants in the short term in the latest draft text of the COP28 declaration.

Many poorer countries have struggled to access money to fulfil their adaptation and mitigation projects, with the private sector believing them to be too financially risky, while some governments have fallen well short of their pledges.

Australia mainly contributes to five different climate initiatives in the Pacific and expects to deliver $3 billion in climate finance between 2020-25.

Amos Remanya from Power Shift Africa said: “Rich countries which developed off the back of fossil fuels need to support and help others to transition”. He added: “Stop the gluttony for oil and gas and stop hooking Africa on gas, you need to be responsible partners, you need to support developing countries.”

The COP said it had agreed to “make progress towards achieving the goal of mobilising jointly USD$100 billion per year from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources’’.

It also “Invites developed country parties to continue to enhance transparency regarding their effort to double adaptation finance, including by, as appropriate, providing relevant information on a baseline for the doubling of adaptation finance’’.

But the most significant financial challenge for the world in keeping global warming to 1.5C is still to come, with a new international climate funding arrangement – called the new collective quantified goal on Climate Finance – to be agreed at next year’s COP in Baku.

Earlier this week climate minister Chris Bowen referenced the new financial arrangements telling the COP president Sultan al Jaber that Australia “expects it will provide for the support necessary for countries to reach their 1.5 targets”.

He later denied that this was an open cheque book, but was a simply a statement acknowledging that the financial arrangements were on the agenda for next year.

Anticipating a broad range of challenges, the countries have agreed to have at least three meetings next year to prepare, and countries will submit their initial plans and thoughts in six weeks time, by the end of January, 2024. So far the scale of the fund is unknown, but climate experts say the most vulnerable countries require trillions of dollars in support, not billions.

There will also be a mini-COP involving ministers before Baku to try and nut out problems before Baku.

At this Dubai COP28, the finance texts were only submitted eight hours after the summit had been scheduled to finish.

Angie Flores, 24, from the College of the Atlantic said countries like Australia, as well as in Europe and the United States had spoken for stronger fossil fuel language in the COP declaration but had omitted referencing any equity or justice.

“They have to be the first (to cut emissions), and do it fast to keep the 1.5C goal, but they also have to provide finance and technology to help others phase out, otherwise in the developing world it is not possible,’’ she said.

“Those countries are already in debt and without climate finance there is no adaptation and to phase out fossil fuels it has to be funded with suitable finance, otherwise it’s meaningless.’’

Australia announced at the beginning of COP28 that it would provide A$150m climate finance for Pacific countries and strongly supported, but did not contribute, to a newly created loss and damage fund.

The government has agreed to contribute a foundational $100m to the Pacific Resilience Facility to assist Pacific Island nations with resilience projects as well as $50m for the Green Climate Fund.

Countries which contributed to the UN loss and damage fund, which has raised around US$700m include US$109 million from Germany, and US$130m from other European nations, US$100 million from the United Arab Emirates, US$50 from the United Kingdom and U$17.5 million from the United States. Japan has pledged US$10 million.