Rich countries against Climate Change Adaptation Fund continuing

India and other developing countries demand it remain under Paris Agreement

A week of climate change negotiations at Marrakech threatened the future of the Adaptation Fund as developed countries blocked talks on housing it in the post-2020 regime under Paris Agreement. The fund, set up in 2001 under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is meant to provide developing and poor countries monies to adjust to inevitable climate changes. 

A bitter fight through the week ended without resolution on Monday as 134 developing countries of the G77+China demanded that the Adaptation Fund continue to function under the new pact. But, the rich countries collectively argued that they would prefer bilateral funding and other routes rather than the only existing multilateral fund under the UN climate change convention to continue. As minsters began to pour into the Moroccan capital the issue remained unresolved and is now likely to be escalated to their level for resolution. 

The Fund, though largely notional at the moment, is the only existing mechanism for developed countries to come through on their financial commitments to supporting poor countries adapt to climate change, which cannot be avoided due to existing levels of greenhouse gas emissions. 

The G77+China countries collectively moved a formal proposal on how the Adaptation Fund could be housed during the operationalizing of Paris Agreement. They invited the developed countries that did not fully agree with the proposal to share their views. But the developed countries refused to even entertain the idea of letting the fund live in the new climate regime that is to begin starting 2020 under the Paris Agreement. 

Australia speaking in closed door meetings on the issues said that it didn’t see the Adaptation Fund “as the only way of adaptation finance”. It is mostly being done through bilateral funding, it added. Australia is part of the Umbrella group of countries that includes the US. The European Union too chimed in immediately, suggesting everything but a formal discussion on the G77 proposal to let Adaptation Fund live on. Canada, Switzerland and Japan too supported Australia.

Seeing that the developed countries were not willing to even discuss the proposal, the G77 then suggested that a draft decision for this be moved to a larger formal setting of negotiations to be undertaken Tuesday onwards. This too was opposed by developed countries. They pushed that the G77 proposal be taken into the second week of negotiations as a mere proposal that developing countries could try raise from scratch in the discussions. 

Facing a complete blockage by the developed countries it was decided in the informal meeting that the continuation of the Adaptation Fund would be discussed in the second week as a mere one sided proposal of developing countries to be presented to the formal talks. 

The fracas over the Adaptation Fund was an extension of the big fight that has run through the first week at Marrakech. Through different routes the developed countries tried to ensure that only mitigation-related work under the future Paris Agreement be carried out and the rest of the issues, as close to developing countries interest, be side-stepped. Mitigation refers to emission reduction measures. Developing countries put as much emphasis on adaptation and rich countries providing funds for developing countries to adapt and mitigate. 

By the end of the week a host of issues that developing countries hold important had been called as either ‘homeless’ or ‘orphans’. These included concerns about how developing countries’ adaptation efforts would be recognised in coming years so that funding can be provided against them and how a new collective and quantified goal for finance to be provided by developed countries over coming years of Paris Agreement. 

The developed countries argued against recording of any other part of national targets (nationally determined contributions or NDCs) under the Paris Agreement except for mitigation goals. Developing countries had pushed hard and won at Paris that NDCs could include goals for adaptation or their financial needs besides pinning down the levels of emission reduction they may want to achieve. Even last year developed countries such as US had argued in favour of only mitigation-centric NDCs. 

This year at Marrakech the US and others asked that the Paris Agreement system only record the mitigation-part of the NDCs even if countries provide other details – this became the debate that raged over a week over ‘registries’ of NDC, in climate jargon. 

Several developed countries including the US also pushed that work on the mitigation-centric issues under Paris Agreement continue in the second week as well at the cost of discussing pre-2020 actions. Under the agreed previous decisions only developed countries have mitigation and finance commitments between now and 2020, before Paris Agreement kicks in. 

There has been a long-standing demand from many developing countries for the pre-2020 targets of rich countries be enhanced. Notionally the rich countries have agreed to it but have not let negotiations progress substantially on it. 

At Marrakech too, in the first week, they kept insisting that talks focus merely on the post-2020 phase much to the resentment of developing countries including India and China.