- Climate change help for the poor ‘has not materialised’, November 25, 2009, BBC News: “Rich countries pledged $410m (£247m) a year in a 2001 declaration – but it is now unclear whether the money was paid. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has accused industrialised countries of failing to keep their promise. The EU says the money was paid out in bilateral deals, but admits it cannot provide data to prove it. The money was pledged in the 2001 Bonn Declaration, signed by 20 industrialised nations – the 15 countries that then made up the European Union, plus Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. They said they would pay $410m per year until 2008. The date the payments were meant to start is unclear, but the total should be between $1.6bn and $2.87bn. The declaration said: ‘We are prepared to contribute $410m, which is 450 million euro, per year by 2005 with this level to be reviewed in 2008.’ But only $260m has ever been paid into two UN funds earmarked for the purpose, the BBC World Service investigation has found…”
- UK and France propose climate fund for poor, November 28, 2009, BBC News: “UK PM Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have proposed a multi-billion-dollar fund to help developing nations deal with climate change. Mr Brown said the $10bn (£6bn) fund should also be used to help developing nations cut greenhouse gas emissions. Both spoke at the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad, the last major world forum before the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen on 7 December. Many Commonwealth members are island states threatened by rising sea levels. Mr Sarkozy, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Danish Prime Minister Prime Lars Loekke Rasmussen, is there to give weight to any climate change statement. The topic was the only issue on the Commonwealth summit’s agenda for the first day…”
Tag: Climate change
Drought and Poverty – India
Amid droughts and failed crops, a cycle of poverty worsens, By Mark Magnier, December 1, 2009, Los Angeles Times: “She stops for long stretches, lost in thought, trying to make sense of how she’s been left half a person. Sunita, 18, who requested that her family name not be used to preserve her chance of getting married, said her nightmare started in early 2007 after her father took a loan for her sister’s wedding. The local moneylender charged 60% annual interest. When the family was unable to make the exorbitant interest payments, she said, the moneylender forced himself on her, not once or twice but repeatedly over many months. ‘I used to cry a lot and became a living corpse,’ she said. Sunita’s allegations, which the moneylender denies, cast a harsh light on widespread abuses in rural India, where a highly bureaucratic banking system, corruption and widespread illiteracy allow unethical people with extra income to exploit poor villagers, activists say…”
Poor Nations and Climate Change
Poor nations vow low-carbon path, By Richard Black, November 11, 2009, BBC News: “Poor countries considered vulnerable to climate change have pledged to embark on moves to a low-carbon future, and challenge richer states to match them. The declaration from the first meeting of a new 11-nation forum calls on rich countries to give 1.5% of their GDP for climate action in the developing world. It also calls for much tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The forum was established by Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed to highlight the climate ‘threat’ to poor nations. The declaration contends that man-made climate change poses an ‘existential threat to our nations, our cultures and to our way of life, and thereby undermines the internationally protected human rights of our people…'”