One of the biggest changes to the most recent installment of the IPCC AR5, concerned the removal of a key number from the executive summary. The missing figure is the annual sum that rich countries have agreed to give poor countries for climate change mitigation. While mention of the $100 billion figure remains in the full 2,500 page report, it was removed from a 48-page executive summary read by the world’s top political leaders.
The most recent IPCC report was released at the end of March, 2014, in Yokohama, Japan. The body of the WGll report points to a World Bank estimate that shows how poor countries need $100 billion a year to try to offset the effects of climate change. At present they are receiving only a tiny fraction of that amount.
Research from the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) showed 2013 climate finance pledges were 71 percent lower than in 2012. This is far from the $100 billion a year rich nations pledged to deliver by 2020 in the Cancun Agreements.
The poorest nations in the world are also those who contributed least to
climate change. It is a savage irony that they will be the worst
impacted. The exclusion of the $100 billion in the executive summary does not bode well for the future of transfer payments from richer to poorer nations.
© 2014, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.
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