Climate change: Cost of inaction is grave

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned against cost of inactions and stressed the need for breaking down barriers to sustainable investment, including 'perverse subsidies'. Ban came to UN Climate Conference held in Warsaw, Poland from November 11-23, 2013 to help scale up massive climate finance as part of global climate deal.
Ban identified public and private finance and the operationalisation of the Green Climate Fund as areas of common action and said, cost of inaction is grave. But, Ban's efforts in Warsaw could not help strike a finance deal though Warsaw climate conference was billed as 'climate finance' moot. The UN Secretary-General will host a high-level climate finance summit in New York in September 2014. Whether his initiative to hold the climate finance summit would break the ice and result in a robust climate finance deal is to be seen.
During the Warsaw conference, Ban met ministers from the developing as well as developed nations.
As one of the lead negotiators of G-77 and LDCs, this writer asked the UN Secretary-General whether he had instructed all the UN agencies to help climate-smart development in the developing countries, specifically in LDCs, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and other developing countries. In response, Ban Ki-moon said that after Warsaw conference he would meet all heads of the UN agencies including The World Bank and IMF and direct them to step up their support in climate-smart development as part of their programmes in the developing countries.
Opening the high-level ministerial dialogue on climate finance, the conference President Korolec Marcin noted the difficulties of the tasks and asked ministers and delegates to make progress in Warsaw on adaptation finance, predictability and mobilisation from a broad range of financial sources.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete lamented that things have not worked out as developing countries had expected and emphasised the need for the increased financed flows to the LDCs, as well as improved transparency and harmonised financial procedures.
Delivering a keynote address eminent economist Sir Nicholas Stern cautioned that government-induced policy risk is the biggest barrier to private investment and called for increased support for greening development in the developing countries.
At the ministerial finance dialogue moderated by Uganda minister Maria Kiwanuka and Denmark minister Martin Lidegaard, German minister Peter Altmeier urged ministers and representatives to deliver on the US$100 billion commitment, drawing attention to the need for re-directing private investment.
UK Secretary of State Edward Davey announced new contributions totalling 125 million pound sterling to the LDC Fund and Bio-Carbon Fund which in my intervention I appreciated and encouraged UK and others to raise it further in their bid to ramp up the support for the LDCs and other developing countries.
Norwegian minister Tine Sundrof announced her country would continue to finance REDD+ at least at the current level until 2020. But she was shy to say it would be scaled up to 2020. US special climate envoy Todd Stern gave a run down of how his country was trying to mobilise collaboration among developed nations to support them in the fight against climate change.
What Sir Nicholas Stern shared at Warsaw during the First Annual Adaptation Forum was also quite striking. According to him damage caused by natural disasters has risen from about $200 billion a year a decade ago to around $300-400 billion annually in recent years. He and other climate scientists and economists argue that runaway climate change is ever increasing both in frequency and intensity, and strength of extreme weather events.
The good news is the adoption of a programme for reducing emissions from forest-related activities known as 'REDD plus,' and pledges from developed countries including US, UK, EU, Sweden, France up to $100 million for the Adaptation Fund for countries whose resources had dried up after the drastic fall in carbon prices. Besides, UK and others pledged US$ 50 million for LDCs Fund.
The downturn of the Warsaw conference was slow progress in terms of the roadmap for 2015 climate deal to be inked in Paris to cutback global emissions.
The writer is a climate negotiator of LDCs, a member of UN Adaptation Committee, and Chairman of FEJB & APFEJ. [email protected]