Make it happen

A formula for clear and timely financing is needed to help ensure that developing countries get the aid they need to reduce emissions and fight climate change, the head of the UN's climate change body said in a interview with China Business Weekly.

"So far, there has been a lot of emphasis on mitigation on how to reduce emissions, but very little talk on how developing countries are going to be helped through technology and finance to make it possible for them to engage," said Yvo de Boer at a UN-sponsored climate change conference in Beijing on November 7-8.

Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, the industrialized countries have an obligation to help developing countries through financing and technology. But de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said that obligation is not specifically formulated and that is why developing countries are calling for clear and predictable financing.

Goodwill and political desire remain strong as more countries have fallen victim to meteorological disasters in recent years, but little is happening in practice, he said.

The Beijing conference explored ideas on how to develop resources for development and technology transfer to developing countries, including setting up mechanisms to blend public and private money to develop high-level technology that companies wouldn't invest in alone. A UN conference will be held early next month in Poland, which will continue negotiations for an accord to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which will expire at the end of 2012.

Developing countries have agreed to increase their efforts to reduce green house gases, provided they get measurable, reportable and verifiable financial and technological support.

"If international technology transfers happens, the developing countries like China will be able to take action that is not affordable to them at the moment," de Boer said.

The G77 group of developing nations, along with China, have already suggested that rich countries should pay 1 percent of their GDP into a fund to pay for clean energy technology for poorer countries.

De Boer welcomed this proposal, but is pessimistic about its feasibility. "I know that the industrialized countries are not even meeting their 0.7 percent obligation on official development assistance. So to put another 1 percent on top of that, you run the risk that commitment will also not be met."

In addition, de Boer believes more advanced environmentally sound technologies need to be developed as well. "Funding for this have been decreasing over the past years, and this needs to be changed urgently."

De Boer said the ongoing financial crisis will affect the international climate change policy, as the primary focus for each government will be on economic recovery.

But he believes financial crisis will offer the world an opportunity to make sustainable investments, for example, into low emissions energy infrastructure.

"Even if climate change policy is delayed for some time, if today you invest in dirty and old technology in the energy sector, that technology will still be there in 30 to 50 years, so people need to think ahead, otherwise when the climate policy does come they need to throw away the technology they invested in," he said.

De Boer says that during this difficult time, energy efficiency is a very good investment opportunity. "You are investing in your own company to make your production cheaper, and you know you will soon see return on investment."

(China Daily 11/17/2008 page4)