The US and other rich countries are cutting climate aid, even as the risks increase

WASHINGTON — Rich countries have reduced the amount of money they allocate to help developing countries cope with the effects of climate change, even as the need for that spending has increased, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday.

Aid for climate adaptation fell to $21 billion in 2021, the latest year for which comprehensive data is available, a 15 percent decline from 2020, most likely due to increased financial pressure on rich countries due to Covid-19 and other challenges. to the authors.

The United States recorded one of the largest cuts in climate adaptation aid of any country between 2020 and 2021, the authors found. In 2021, the United States committed $129 million in climate adaptation assistance, compared to $245 million in 2020, a decrease of 47 percent.

A White House spokesman, Angelo Fernández Hernández, said the report “does not represent the full picture of what the US is doing on climate adaptation.” He said the Biden administration has secured about $2 billion in climate adaptation funding for fiscal year 2022.

Developing countries will need between $215 billion and $387 billion annually this decade to protect themselves from climate shocks such as worsening storms, crop failures and loss of access to water, the report found. That is no less than 18 times greater than the total amount that rich countries have pledged for climate adaptation in 2021.

The new data come weeks before the start of a major United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where aid to developing countries will be a top item on the agenda. At a similar summit two years ago in Glasgow, countries agreed to double their financing for climate adaptation by 2025, compared to 2019 levels. Even if countries make good on this pledge, this would only provide a small portion of the additional money needed, according to the report deliver.

“The ambition really needs to be increased,” says Georgia Savvidou, research assistant at the Stockholm Environment Institute and one of the authors of the report.

The demand for adjustment assistance has grown. The report notes that under current climate policies around the world, average global temperatures would rise by at least 2.4 degrees Celsius, or 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of this century, compared to pre-industrial levels. That is much more than the 1.5 degrees Celsius target that scientists have set, above which the consequences of warming threaten to become catastrophic.

“Current climate action is woefully inadequate,” the report said.

According to Paul Watkiss, another author of the report, the amount of money developing countries need to adapt to climate change has increased by more than 25 percent since 2016, the last time the United Nations conducted a detailed analysis. Those rising costs reflect increased global warming and a better understanding of both the effects of that warming and the steps countries must take to address those effects.

The case for aid for climate adaptation rests on several core principles, the report says. First, developing countries are responsible for a small portion of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause sea level rise, worsening storms, droughts and other climate shocks. Rich countries such as the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom have contributed a disproportionate share of these emissions, which many believe creates an obligation to help cushion their impacts.

Second, poor countries are often more exposed to these shocks than their richer counterparts. Their infrastructure is often less modern or well-maintained, and they may have less access to early warning systems to prepare for disasters, or to insurance to rebuild afterwards.

Finally, the money spent on climate adaptation can significantly reduce the costs of future damage, an argument the Biden administration has used to justify higher adjustment expenditure within the United States. The infrastructure bill, signed by President Biden in 2021, represented the largest investment in climate resilience and adaptation in American history.

In developing countries, these returns can be even greater. According to the report, the $1 billion spent to protect against coastal flooding reduces damage by $14 billion. And investing $16 billion in agriculture each year would save about 78 million people from chronic hunger or starvation.

If developing countries are unable to cope with the consequences of climate change, the consequences could also have enormous consequences for rich countries. Climate-related shocks such as crop failures, hurricanes and other disasters can spur migration, even as the United States and other countries try to prevent it.

“You can’t have a Fortress Europe,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, said in an interview last year. “You can’t have Fortress America. It does not work.”

Climate shocks can also contribute to instability and conflict. Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate & Security, a research organization in Washington, pointed to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state that continues to suffer from severe flooding last year. The country has seen worsening protests over food and energy prices since the floods, she said.

“Climate-driven instability in countries like Pakistan threatens U.S. security, either by setting off a spiral that requires the deployment of U.S. troops or by giving extremists a foothold to exploit popular unrest and expand their power.” , Ms. Sikorsky said.

The report points to another way in which rich countries’ aid is falling short: Only two-thirds of the $21 billion rich countries promised in 2021 has actually been disbursed.

“We cannot have an impact on the ground unless the funding actually reaches the ground,” Ms Savvidou said.