In Marrakech, adaptation finance has remained a sticking point between Parties. When it comes to adaptation finance, wealthier countries have continued their common refrains: “There’s just not enough public money”;“Our cupboards are bare”;“It’s complicated”. The Africa Adaptation Initiative has yet to find any developed country willing to support it, a state of affairs made even sadder by the fact that Marrakech is an African COP.
According to Parties’ own biennial reporting, G7 governments plus Australia are providing roughly $3.4 billion per year in public finance for adaptation activities in developing countries. In contrast, these same governments are providing nearly $67 billion per year in subsidies and public finance to support oil, gas, and coal production, both domestically and abroad.
Yes, you read that right – the G7 plus Australia are giving nearly 20 TIMES as much public money to fossil fuel companies as they are to support adaptation in developing countries. ECO wonders why are these countries are buying more flamethrowers when the world is already burning.
This hypocrisy is not going unnoticed at COP – see Japan’sFossil of the Day for its high levels of fossil fuel finance. As indicated in the UNEP Adaptation Finance Gap report, there’s no shortage of need for investment in climate-resilient, low-emission infrastructure. If governments want to be seen by their peers as taking the Paris Agreement seriously, they need to stop funding fossils and start funding climate solutions.
On the positive side, this means that as governments continue to line up with the Paris Agreement, shifting money away from fossil fuels and aligning financial flows with low-emission development, tens of billions of dollars in public money will be freed up and will need a new home.
