The west has broken its promises to developing countries – and we’re all paying the price......Broken  promises, missed opportunities and a failure to see the bigger picture: that’s the story of the west’s approach to developing countries in recent years. Money to help with climate breakdown has been pledged but not delivered. Vaccines have been hoarded. Aid budgets have been cut. From any perspective – be it geopolitical, economic, humanitarian or ecological – the indifference to what is happening elsewhere is disastrous. If the west wants to counter Beijing’s influence in Africa, to secure the raw materials and metals it needs for its green industrial revolution, to prevent a debt crisis and to have any hope of tackling global heating, it needs to sharpen up its act fast. No question, life in developed countries has been tough recently. High inflation has eroded living standards.Rising interest rateshave made it harder for households and governments to service their debts. Money is tight. Everybody gets that. But though life is tough in the west, it is a lot tougher in the developing and emerging world. As the World Bank made clear in its update on the global economy last week, poor countries are the biggest losers from the combined impact of the Covid pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the anti-inflationary measures taken by the US Federal Reserve and other western central banks. With good reason, developing countries view the protectionist elements of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, and Europe’s proposed response to it, with concern. They want to be part of the green industrial revolution, not excluded from it by self-serving policy decisions in Washington and Brussels. While western countries have been preoccupied with their own problems, the situation in the global south has been growing progressively darker. The UN goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 will be comfortably missed, the number of extreme weather events is increasing and the number of countries either in debt distress or on the verge of it is rising. To make matters worse, the global financial system is broken. Poor countries that borrowed in US dollars are being punished because US interest rates are going up. Money from the World Bank was supposed to be the catalyst for a wave of private sector capital to finance clean energy in Africa, but it isn’t arriving. A new system designed to speed up debt relief is unfit for purpose.  It is not hard to sketch out what needs to be done. For a start, there is some low-hanging fruit to be picked. In 2009, developed countries promised they would provide $100bn a year by 2020 to help poor countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the impact of global heating. With one last push, the pledge could be met this year. Likewise, during the height of the Covid pandemic, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a $650bn tranche of special drawing rights (SDRs) – essentially a form of free money for member countries. Rich countries did not need the boost to their reserves provided by SDRs, even though they were the main beneficiaries, and were urged by the IMF to recycle $100bn to help poor countries. Again, the target could be hit with one last push.Next, the World Bank needs an injection of fresh capital so that it can lend more to developing countries. Under its last president, David Malpass the bank was overly cautious......and more       https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/15/west-promises-developing-countries-summit-paris-climate-vaccines-budgets   

Why loss and damage funds are key to climate justice for developing countries. Nations contributing least to greenhouse gas emissions are least equipped to deal with climate-related destruction.   Wed 29 Nov 2023    It has been another catastrophic climate year, with supercharged extreme weather events striking every corner of the globe: the deadliest-ever Mediterranean cyclone dropping unprecedented rainfall in Libya, severe drought threatening Indigenous communities and ecosystems in the Amazon, and a surge in heat deaths in Phoenix, Arizona.

Record-breaking global temperatures have played a major role in this summer’s epic ocean storms, wildfires, flooding and droughts, so it is a perverse reality that the countries and communities which have contributed least to the greenhouse gases warming the planet are suffering the most – and are least equipped to cope with the escalating death and destruction. What is loss and damage? Loss and damage refers to the irreversible costs of extreme weather and slow-onset disasters such as sea level rise, ocean acidification and melting glaciers caused by global heating. It is about holding the biggest fossil fuel polluters liable for the pain and suffering already caused by climate breakdown. Climate finance for loss and damage is considered separately, and in addition to, securing funds for mitigation and adaptation to help developing nations prepare for what is coming. Climate crisis talks resume on ‘loss and damage’ funding for poorest countries- Costs can be both economic – resulting from lost lives, livelihoods, infrastructure, homes and territory – and non-economic and harder to quantify, such as lost culture, identity, biodiversity and sovereignty, among others. The demand for loss and damage funds has become a central tenet in demands for climate justice. In other words, people are demanding climate action that addresses the inequities behind the cause and effect of the climate breakdown. For more than 30 years, developed rich countries have used an array of tactics to block loss and damage funding to the most affected – and least responsible – nations. Finally, last year at the Cop27 summit in Egypt, there was a formal agreement to establish a new, broad fund and funding arrangements. The victory was thanks in large part to the Egyptian Cop27 presidency and unwavering pressure from the G77 block of developing countries (plus China) led by Pakistan, where unprecedented floods had left a third of the country under water. But agreeing to set up the fund was just the first step. What’s happened since Cop27?  A transitional committee was tasked with creating a set of recommendations about what the loss and damage fund should look like and how it will function. After a year of testy negotiations in which developed nations sought to minimise their contributions while maximising control over who benefits, both rich and poor nations were forced to make major compromises. For instance, the final package of recommendations for countries to consider at Cop28 includes the World Bank temporarily hosting the new fund – something which developing countries were steadfastly against. In the end, the US, EU and other rich nations got their way, but only after developing countries secured crucial conditions such as direct access for countries, communities and Indigenous people and a level of transparency that the World Bank is unaccustomed to......read on   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/29/why-loss-and-damage-funds-are-key-to-climate-justice-for-developing-countries-at-cop28

With the world currently on track for 2.7°C of average global warming by 2100, aggressive reductions in climate pollution are an imperative to avoid “catastrophic” harms to human health, says the latest in a series of reports from eminent medical journal The Lancet. With the release of the report, an open letter signed by 46 million health professionals is urging COP President Sultan Al Jaber, who also serves as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to “commit to an accelerated, just and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels and invest in a renewable energy transition.” The findings of the 2023 Report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change are grim. “Governments, the corporate sector, and banks continue to invest in oil and gas extraction and development even as the “challenges and costs of adaptation soar,” a level “negligence” that is generating “grave and mounting” threats to public health, the authors say in a release. Any further delays on action to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C pose a “catastrophic threat to the health and survival of billions of people all over the world and to successful adaptation efforts,” the authors add. Already, “heat-related deaths in people aged over 65 increased by 85% in 2013-2022 compared to 1991-2000, substantially above the 38% increase expected had temperatures not changed,” based solely on changing demographics. And higher temperatures mean more hunger.        “More frequent heatwaves and droughts were responsible for 127 million more people experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity in 122 countries in 2021, than annually between 1981 and 2010,” says the report. Higher heat can also make it too hot to work. Some 490 billion potential labour hours were lost globally to heat in 2022, “with income losses accounting for a much higher proportion of GDP in low- (6.1%) and middle-income countries (3.8%).” Global heating also poses a devastating risk to healthcare systems. Even at today’s average warming of 1.14°C), 27% of cities the Lancet authors surveyed reported health systems that are “being overwhelmed by the impacts of climate change.” Permitting global temperatures to rise to 2°C by 2100 will be disastrous for human health, especially amongst the already vulnerable, The Lancet writes. Under such a scenario, “yearly heat-related deaths are projected to increase by 370% by mid-century, with heat exposure expected to increase the hours of potential labour lost globally by 50%.”Meanwhile, “more frequent heatwaves could lead to around 525 million more people experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity by 2041-2060,” producing a higher global risk of malnutrition.     https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/11/14/46m-health-professionals-urge-fossil-phaseout-as-lancet-countdown-warns-of-dire-impacts/     

 STUDY & REPORT........Poverty Reduction – the Challenge of the 21st Century Despite international efforts, poverty has become more widespread in many countries in the last decade, making poverty reduction the core challenge for development in the 21st century. In the Millennium Declaration, 189 nations have resolved to halve extreme poverty by 2015 and all agencies involved in this paper are committed to contribute to this aim. However, climate change is a serious risk to poverty reduction and threatens to undo decades of development efforts. This paper focuses on the impacts of climate change on poverty reduction efforts in the context of sustaining progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and beyond. It discusses ways of mainstreaming and integrating adaptation to climate change into poverty reduction and sustainable development efforts. The chief messages emerging from this paper are: ● Climate change is happening and will increasingly affect the poor. ● Adaptation is necessary and there is a need to integrate responses to climate change and adaptation measures into strategies for poverty reduction to ensure sustainable development. This decision to focus on adaptation is deliberate and is taken with the understanding that adaptation cannot replace mitigation efforts. The magnitude and rate of climate change will strongly depend on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere. The higher the concentrations of GHGs, the higher the likelihood of irreversible and grave damage to human and biological systems. Therefore, adaptation is only one part of the solution. Mitigation of climate change by limiting greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere is the indispensable other part. Climate Change is Happening and Will Increasingly Affect the Poor Today, it is widely agreed by the scientific community that climate change is already a reality. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that human activities are altering our climate system and will continue to do so. Over the past century, surface temperatures have increased and associated impacts on physical and biological systems are increasingly being observed. Science tells us that climate change will bring about gradual changes, such as sea level rise, and shifts of climatic zones due to increased temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns. Also, climate change is very likely to increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and storms. While there is uncertainty in the projections with regard to the exact magnitude, rate, and regional patterns of climate change, its consequences will change the fate of many generations to come and particularly impact on the poor if no appropriate measures are taken. The impacts of climate change, and the vulnerability of poor communities to climate change, vary greatly, but generally, climate change is superimposed on existing vulnerabilities. Climate change will further reduce access to drinking water, negatively affect the health of poor people, and will pose a real threat to food security in many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In some areas where livelihood choices are limited, decreasing crop yields threaten famines, or where loss of landmass in coastal areas is anticipated, migration might be the only solution. The macroeconomic costs of the impacts of climate change are highly uncertain, but very likely have the potential to threaten development in many countries.        https://www.oecd.org/env/cc/2502872.pdf