Officials of the world’s most vulnerable nations are growing increasingly anxious that they will not receive their fair share of money dedicated to sustainable development — even though these countries are often at the forefront of climate finance innovation.
As Hurricane Matthew sends a devastating reminder of how unprepared many countries are to deal with climate events, small island states warned that the money pledged for climate change is not yet ending up in the hands of those that need it most.
Although officials and experts recognise the achievements of last year’s Paris agreement, financing “is too slow relative to the needs”, according to Jean-Paul Adam, minister of finance, trade and the blue economy in the Seychelles. Adam told GlobalMarkets there were “still shortfalls” in terms of the financing that has been pledged.
“Flows of this finance to the most vulnerable countries are slow and in some cases non-existent,” he said. “The bureaucracy around access to climate finance is unacceptable.”
Procedures and paperwork to access finance from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the UN’s initiative to bring climate finance to developing countries, are a particular frustration.
“Progress has been slow and at this stage is disappointing,” said Timothy Antoine, governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. “We are concerned about the potential for us not to get our fair share because of the hurdles that are constantly being put before us.
“Are we going to receive parity and are we going to hold them accountable for the promises that have been made?”
Small island nations naturally face human resource constraints, which makes it “very difficult to deal with a fund that is not clear with how it will prioritise its action,” said Adam of the Seychelles.
“Small island states have no indication that they will receive any form of priority in terms of funding, even though they are often the ones most at risk,” he said.
“There is also no clarity in terms of the types of projects that should be put forward in principle.”
TEAMING UP
So concerned are the world’s most vulnerable countries that finance ministers from the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) mobilised to form the Vulnerable 20 Group (V20) a year ago.
“There is really an expectation that clarity will be provided [regarding the $100bn], partly because — for developing countries that are resource constrained — it is not actually a lot of money in the grand scheme of things,” said Matthew McKinnon, project manager of the CVF.
“Estimations from macroeconomists say we will need to reprogramme trillions of dollars in order to really deliver on the Paris Agreement.”
Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the landmark Stern Review in 2006, told GlobalMarkets that the Paris agreement had been “remarkable” and that its speed of implementation was “extraordinary”. But he insisted that the world was “still not doing enough” to combat climate change.
After addressing the annual finance ministers’ meeting of the Commonwealth, which contains 21 of the 50 most vulnerable states in the world, Stern said that small islands were particularly vulnerable.
“Hurricane Matthew has illustrated the issue, and the access of islands to funding that enables them to invest in a resilient development story is very important,” he said.