COP26
It's payback time Boris Johnson has called on rich countries to pledge more climate finance at COP26. But as DANIEL WILLIS writes, the UK is a long way short of paying its own fair share. decarbonise and adapt to climate At last month’s UN general assembly change. Yet not only have they failed in New York, prime minister Boris to meet this target, the target itself was Johnson tried to show off his ‘climate always far too low leadership’ credentials. He hectored Alternative calculations by global world leaders to increase their south leaders argue that the UK alone climate finance commitments, while should instead be paying at least $46 announcing that the UK will increase billion a year to the global south to its own contributions in the next five cover its fair share of climate finance. years. “History will judge,” he said. While this sounds like If you’ve come The UK alone a lot, it is less than across Boris Johnson of this country’s before, you’ll already should be paying 1.5% annual national know that there’s a catch. At $3.2 at least $46bn a income, and would save a lot of money billion a year (£2.3 year to the global in terms of dealing million), the UK’s with the impacts climate finance south to cover of climate chaos in commitments still fall its 'fair share' of the long term. One well short of what southern leaders climate finance. LSE study found that rich industrialised argue would be this countries together must provide $400 country’s ‘fair share’, based on the billion to $2 trillion a year of climate UK’s historic contributions to climate finance by 2050 to collectively pay change. Even worse, this funding isn’t new and additional as the UN requires their fair share. The UK’s recent increase, and it to be, but will instead be raided President Biden’s announcement in from the UK aid budget, which the September that the US will contribute government has already cut by £4 $11 billion a year (the US’s fair share billion this year. is $80 billion), therefore remain well PAYING OUR FAIR SHARE short of what is needed. Yet a lack of Over a decade ago, rich governments ambition is not the only problem with agreed to collectively pay the global these pledges. south $100 billion a year in climate DODGY ACCOUNTING finance by 2020. The goal was designed to account for the historic Firstly, there are a raft of ways in which carbon emissions of the global north rich countries overcount the limited and to support the global south to finance that they have contributed. Of
18 Ninety-Nine 2021
Protesting outside the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines. Photo: © Pat Roque/AP/Shutterstock
the $79 billion the OECD said that the global north had provided in climate finance in 2018, Oxfam analysis suggests only $20 billion meets the definition of genuine climate finance. That is partly because 74% of this finance was provided as loans, not grants, meaning that governments were counting money they would eventually get back as assistance to the global south. Furthermore, the funding is meant to be new and additional. In contrast,
