What was especially uplifting about the event was the idea put forward by the Barbados prime minister, Mia Motley, who was also the cohost of the Paris summit with French president Emmanuel Macron.The idea, which turned out to be the centerpiece of the debate, was what she termed 'Bridgetown Agenda'. The Agenda is about restructuring the post-World War-II global financial system, which she thinks is geared to serve the rich. Comparing the climate change with another world war that humanity is at the moment going through, she suggests creating another financial order to replace the 'Bretton Woods system' to help the developing nations survive the devastating impacts of prolonged droughts, frequent cyclones, downpours and floods and the encroaching seas. President Macron and 40 other leaders, many from the southern hemisphere debated to reach a 'New Global Financing Pact' in the spirit of Ms Motley's Bridgetown Agenda or Initiative. The outcome of the summit so far as the commitments go was indeed encouraging. However, the pledge made by the rich nations at 2009's Copenhagen UN climate conference to channel by 2020 USD100 billion annually to poor nations to enable them to adapt to climate change is yet to see the light of day. Even so, it looks like, the just-held Paris summit has something to write home about in that regard. To allow poor countries to fight climate change unencumbered, global financial institutions including the World Bank have assured that they would lighten the debt-burden on the victims of climate change in the South. To that end, they (global lenders) would add appropriate clauses to their loan conditions so the indebted climate-vulnerable nations hit by natural calamities may suspend repayment of the loans. Additionally, the plan to dedicate more of rich countries' current assets amounting over USD200 billion in a decade or so to the cause of the climate-hit poor is no doubt music to the intended recipients' ears. Anyway, these are all promises-and there had been promises galore in the past-with few matching results. Focus, therefore, will now be on how the global leaders at the upcoming G20 meet (in September) and next December's UN Climate Conference are actually going to act along the lines of the just concluded Paris climate finance summit.
The climate talks are where the world's richest and the poorest nations gather to discuss ways to fight humanity's common existential foe, the global warming. But the expectations usually remain low. The reason is the failure of the leaders of countries with resources to commit funds as agreed at each such conference being held since 1979.
The climate change, as universally accepted, is a climatic phenomenon caused by human action. It is also unequivocally admitted that it is the industrialised nations which committed the first 'original sin' of increasing the proportion of carbon in the atmosphere. The irony is that the poorest nations which are innocent of the 'sin' are being made to atone for it. So, at every climate summit talk they ask for compensation but the rich industrialised nations shy away from being up to their previous promises. True, they accept the responsibility (for global warming), promise adequate funds and technical assistance for the least developed and developing climate-vulnerable nations. But the problem is nothing happens until fresh promises are made at the next climate summit.
But the rich nations' practice of playing cat and mouse with the developing climate-vulnerable ones should be over by now. Because the coronavirus pandemic, the prolonged recessionary pressure and the ongoing Ukraine war should have forced them out of the comfort zone they had been in so far. As there is no assured supply of cheap Russian fossil fuel any more, the urgency to switch to clean energy option, especially for Europe, should be the imperative now. With the long drawn heatwaves and forest fires, cyclones and floods visiting their shores oftener, they should now be able to feel what the less privileged climate-affected nations have been facing every day. Consider the case of small island nations like Barbados. With few resources to combat the fallouts from the climate change in the form of the regular transatlantic hurricanes and the resulting storm surges and flooding battering it without letup, its prime minister has taken the lead at the climate summits to champion the cause of her fellow leaders from the South. It is a question of survival for her nation in the face of the demon of climate change. So is the case of the Maldives and other small and big island nations. Bangladesh, though not an island nation, is a constant victim of calamitous visitors from the sea as well as the usual droughts and floods. Naturally, Bangladesh along with other climate-affected nations would like to bank on the promises made by the world leaders and the international lenders at the Global Financial Summit in Paris.
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