Carribean Countries Call for Special Climate Change Adaption Fund
No commentsNUSA DUA, BALI, 3 DECEMBER 2007 (PANOS) – Grenada called for the establishment of a special convention adaptation fund for developing countries at the opening ceremony of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on Monday.
Speaking on behalf of the Caribbean and other Small Islands Developing States (SIDS), Dr Spencer Thomas, Economic and Policy Advisor in Grenada’s Ministry of Finance said, “the Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS) proposes the establishment of a Convention Adaptation Fund linked to greenhouse gas emissions, consistent with the polluter pays principle to generate funding to address developing country adaptation needs. Dr. Thomas was also speaking as the delegate representing the AOSIS.
“The proposed Convention Adaptation Fund would complement the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund and not replace this fund,” he said, while adding that the AOSIS was hopeful that during this meeting, parties would be able to finalize arrangements to operationalize the Adaptation fund.
According to Dr. Thomas, the particular vulnerabilities of the small island states made adaptation to climate change a major issue for them.
“Given our vulnerability to climate change, adaptation is a major issue for us,” he said while explaining that SIDS were more prone to natural disasters, exposure to storm surge and sea-level rise, heavy dependence on fragile environmental goods and services, economic openness and limited human and financial resources.
Against that background he argued that small island developing states would need new, additional and predictable sources of funding to help the countries cope with climate change.
“The lack of adequate financing has been one of the major failings of the Convention so far,” he said. “New sources of funding are clearly needed in addition to existing funding under the convention.
The Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund is designed finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are a part of the treaty and are also particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The Fund should become operational in 2008 dependent on whether arrangements on its management and funding can be agreed on at Bali.
For Caribbean countries like Jamaica, funding for adaptation is critical.
‘Locally we would want the implementation of the adaptation fund as this mechanism would allow vulnerable countries like Jamaica priority access,” said Clifford Mahlung, a member of Jamaica’s four member government team currently at the two week conference.
“We would look at using those funds to address for example the airport road situation as there is extreme vulnerability to sea level rise in that case. There are also some vulnerable areas in Negril where we could work on beach nourishment,” he said.
Over 10,000 people are attending the thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC. The meeting is expected to chart a roadmap for the replacement of the Kyoto Protocol (a 1997 agreement to cut carbon emissions that fuel global warming), the first phase of which will expire in 2012.
