By Karel De Gucht - 21st October 2009
The future of the planet is at stake today - it is time to imagine tomorrow's world
Karel De Gucht
With the future of the planet at stake, development and humanitarian aid commissioner Karel De Gucht is calling for urgent financing to help tackle climate change.
Unless something is done, 200 million people will be displaced by climate change by 2050 and 325 million people will be affected by environmental degradation each year, most of them living in the world's poorest countries. Economic losses are estimated to be around €90bn. The climate change crisis will have - indeed, it is already having - a far greater impact than the financial crisis which we have just experienced.
Europeans have now awoken to the dangers which climate change entails for the planet and their countries. But developing countries, and especially the poorest among them, are already picking up the tab - and the cost is heavy. Situated in less temperate regions and with few resources to protect their people, these countries cannot cope with this new factor now.
In the arid regions, climate change is another lethal hazard. As a result of rising sea levels and the melting polar ice cap, natural disasters are becoming increasingly frequent. They destroy whole cities, as we have recently seen with the nearly four million people hit by the floods following typhoons Ketsana and Parma in south east Asia. They are threatening the very existence of some Pacific states, such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and Samoa. Rising temperatures also encourage the spread of diseases, especially tropical ones. Malaria already kills over one million people each year in Africa. We do not have the right to stand by while the area in which it is endemic expands further.
It is not only because of their geographical situation that poor countries are those hardest hit by climate change. They are also those least well equipped to protect their citizens and adapt their economies. There is thus a risk that poor management of greenhouse gases will hit hardest - and first - those who bear the least responsibility for emissions. A further difficulty for the least advanced countries is how to reconcile adjustment to climate change with the challenge of development in a competitive world.
The European commission estimates that an annual allocation of €100bn will be needed by 2020 to help the least advanced countries combat global warming and adapt to the new climatic conditions. This figure is more than the total development aid provided by rich countries today. Unless we want to further destabilise the emerging economies, we cannot slash traditional development aid to finance their struggle against global warming. We have to find other sources of funding.
There are three possible ways of raising a sum of this order. All the world's countries must contribute from their national economies - within their means, of course, but all of them must make a contribution, as funding the struggle against climate change is a global challenge. Revenue from the carbon market could be reallocated to the developing countries. And finally, international public financing could provide a further €22 to €50bn per year by 2020 to supplement the other sources of funding.
Without an initial budget boost, the developing countries will have very few resources with which to establish the means and to put in place the economic tools needed to combat the effects of climate change. This means that between €5bn and €7bn must be found as of 2010 if we want poor countries to be able to swiftly reorient their development towards environmentally sound economies.
The future of the planet is at stake today - it is time to imagine tomorrow's world. The question of how to fund the fight against climate change is crucial, and the only way to find a solution is through a north-south dialogue that is fair and balanced.
It is exactly this spirit that characterises the European development days, which are to be held from 22 to 24 October in Stockholm. A few weeks before the Copenhagen summit, at a time when media attention is focused above all on the positions which the US, China and India will adopt, the commission wishes to give the floor to those whose voices are heard less often on the international stage. They cannot be left out of the fight against climate change, if only in order to combat deforestation.
This will be an opportunity for us - European countries and developing countries, civil society and companies, international organisations and citizens - to reflect together on the new models we must find, which must be ecologically responsible, fair in human terms and effective in economic terms. Looking after number one is no longer acceptable. Together we can and we must imagine a world for tomorrow.
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