NGOs call for extra climate change funding

26 October 2009

Non-governmental organisations working in Latin America with DFID last week called for a fair deal for southern countries at Copenhagen in December.

Climate policy advisers from CAFOD, ActionAid, Oxfam and Progressio joined Latin American diplomats in stating that climate change funding must be additional to existing aid budgets to the region, if dangerous climate change and further impoverishment are to be avoided.

“In Peru, access to water is decreasing in some of the biggest cities. In countries like Bolivia, lowland diseases are reaching higher lands and altitudes,” warned Constantino Casasbuenas, Oxfam’s policy adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Latin America contributes relatively little to greenhouse gas emissions. With the Caribbean, it produces about ten percent of total carbon dioxide emissions. Yet it is one of the regions that is most vulnerable to climate change.

Thursday’s event at DFID was the first of a series of discussions with Latin American Partnership Programme Arrangement (PPA) partners, attended by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Mike Foster MP.

“A just deal at Copenhagen will have two major planks to it,” said Tom Sharman, climate justice coordinator at ActionAid International. “One is that rich countries will cut their emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by 2020.”

“The second thing is that they provide the technology and finance to enable developing countries to adapt and to mitigate,” he continued. “The scale of that would be at least $200bn a year.”

PPA funding to civil society groups working in Latin America is now DFID’s main engagement with the region. DFID tackles poverty through these groups and then shares findings with the wider development community.

The event, called Climate Change and Latin America: Challenges and Opportunities for Copenhagen and Beyond, follows June’s workshop in Peru where PPA partners met for three days to share experiences on climate change and generate debate.

The London gathering looked at case studies and successful approaches in the region.

“If there is not a commitment from the developed world to reduce the carbon emissions as part of the deal with rainforest preservation, it won’t work,” said Maria Souviron-Crespo, Bolivian ambassador to the UK.

Mike Foster welcomed the event as a way to find solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change on the continent. “Countries where glaciers in the Andes are melting for example are at risk of becoming water scarce. Millions of people will be affected by this so it’s quite right that we engage in a discussion and have a partnership as a way of working to overcome the problems,” he said.

The members of the Latin American PPA – known as LAPPA – are ActionAid International, CAFOD, CARE, Christian Aid, HelpAge International, International HIV and AIDS Alliance, Oxfam, Plan International, Progressio, Save the Children, World Vision and the World Wildlife Fund.