LIBREVILLE, Oct 19 Reuters : African countries want to track the funding from wealthy nations that are not meeting a $100 - billion annual target to help the developing world tackle climate change, Africa's lead climate negotiator said.
The demand highlights tensions between the world's 20 largest economies, responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions, and developing countries bearing the brunt of the effects of global warming at the COP 26 climate summit.
If we prove someone is responsible for something, it is his responsibility to pay for that, said Tanguy Gahouma at COP 26, the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, which starts on October 31.
In 2009, developed countries agreed to raise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help the developing world deal with the fallout from a warming planet.
The latest available estimates of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD show this funding hit $79.6 billion in 2019 only 22% more than in 2018 (Bsm).
The OECD data shows Africa received on average 43% of the climate finance in 2016 - 19, while Asian countries received 26% of this. Gahouma said a more detailed shared system was needed to keep track on each country's contribution and how it went on the ground.
They say they achieved maybe 70% of the target, but we cannot see that, Gahouma said.
We need to have a clear roadmap how they will put on the table the $100 billion per year, how can we track it he said in an interview on Thursday. We don't have time to lose and Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions of the world. The temperature in Africa are rising at a faster rate than the global average, according to the latest U.N. climate report (pdf). It forecasts further warming will lead to more intense heatwaves, severe coastal flooding and intense rainfall on the continent.
Even as wealthy nations miss the $100 billion target, African countries plan to push for this funding to be scaled up more than tenfold by 2030.
The $100 billion was a political commitment. It was not based on the real needs of developing countries to combat climate change, Gahouma said.
World leaders and their representatives have just a few days to address at the summit in Glasgow to try to broker deals to fix emissions faster and finance measures to adapt to climate pressures.
African countries face an extra challenge at the talks because administrative hurdles to travelling to Britain and to attending during the coronavirus pandemic mean smaller than usual delegations can attend, Gahouma said.
Limited delegations, with very limited amount of work and limited time. This will be very challenging, Gahouma said.