People in poor nations to get 11 dollars a year to adapt to climate crisis

Ahead of the UN climate conference scheduled to start in Egypt on Sunday, a study shows the poorest countries, which are also the least able to adapt to climate crisis, only get $11 a year per capita in adaptation finance under current, as yet unfulfilled, climate finance pledges.

The analysis, released by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) on Wednesday, refers to a commitment by rich countries to double climate adaptation funds to developing countries made at last year's COP26 to $40bn a year by 2025.

At the UN talks in Copenhagen in 2009, rich countries promised to provide $100bn in climate finance every year by 2020, with a promise to strike a “balance between adaptation and mitigation.” Last year, the pledge to double adaptation funds from $20 to $40 bn was widely welcomed.

The analysis shows that even if that target was met, the 46 low-income nations the UN identifies as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) would receive $12.8bn in 2025 -  according to the share of climate finance they currently receive. This would equal a mere $11 per person per year to protect the citizens of those countries from the effects of a changing climate on their livelihoods, economy and environment. 

“As global temperatures creep higher and higher, the climate change they cause becomes exponentially more powerful, threatening the lives and livelihoods of more people and making it harder for them to adapt,” says Clare Shakya, the Director of IIED’s climate change research group.

“We need a concerted effort at these negotiations to set new levels of climate finance from 2025 onwards, and these must reflect what developing countries see as their needs and priorities in the face of climate change,” Shakya argues.

Developed countries are estimated to be responsible for nearly 80 percent of historical carbon emissions.

The V20 - a negotiating group at the UN that includes the 20 countries that are most vulnerable to climate change and least able to cope with its consequences - are estimated to have lost one fifth of their wealth to climate-related effects over the last two decades. 

Just recently, the unprecedented monsoon season floods in Pakistan have cost the country an estimated $40 billion, as well as killed at least 1,700 people and affected 33 million. 

Previous research by the IIED in Bangladesh, which is part of the V20, shows that in some areas of the country households spend on average the equivalent of $93 per year to protect against flooding and storms.  

At a recent conference, Egypt’s special representative for COP27 Wael Aboulmagd slammed rich nations for continuing to fall short on their promise to provide $100bn a year promise to help poor nations cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with their consequences. The sum is itself a drop in the ocean, as the UN estimates that by 2030 adaptation costs in developing countries could go up to $300 bn a year.