Tag Archives: rich

Inequality does matter – and we must fight it! Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Since the 1980s, we’ve been told that inequality doesn’t matter. Mainstream thinking has it that you can fight poverty without tackling inequality.

This has been part of an attempt to make poverty eradication easier and more palatable to an increasingly dominant right-wing agenda.

The beauty of separating poverty and inequality is that you can care about ‘the poor’ while not worrying about the need for any of the radical changes which might upset your lifestyle.

You can both be “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, as Peter Mandelson1 said, and also care about very poor people getting less poor.

This embracing of inequality has, unsurprisingly, gone hand-in-hand with soaring levels of it. Today the richest 80 people own almost as much wealth as half the world’s population.

The situation continues to get worse. While most ordinary people endure pay freezes and austerity, the world’s richest 300 people became richer by 16% in 2013.

Those who are unhappy with inequality are accused of pursuing the ‘politics of envy’, or as Margaret Thatcher once put it, of preferring that the poor were poorer provided the rich were less rich. There are two big problems with this argument.

Inequality matters

The first is that inequality does matter. This is not a matter of serious debate. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF), hardly a progressive voice, has issued a warning that rising inequality is threatening economic growth.

This is firstly because rich people are far more likely to spend money in ways that do not benefit the majority of people, such as on luxury imported goods or simply stashing it away in an account in the Cayman Islands. The idea that if you get enough tycoons buying yachts, the jobs created by the yacht building industry will be enough to feed everyone else is a fiction.

Second, inequality warps democracy. It raises the voices and interests of tiny elites above the rest of society. This can lead to perverse results and greater corruption, with laws and policies tailored to the personal interests of tycoons and to the detriment of wider society.

It’s not just the economy that is affected by inequality. Most of the attributes of a decent society – health, education, crime levels, social cohesion – are most present in more equal societies.

Take the USA and Sweden, two countries with similar levels of wealth in GDP per capita terms. The infant mortality rate in the USA is more than double that of Sweden and the murder rate is over three times Sweden’s figure.

This pattern holds up across the world. The charts (see report) show that, in general, countries with high levels of inequality have higher murder rates and lower life expectancy.

The poor are not getting richer

So it’s no wonder that we find that since the big surge in free market, neoliberal economic policies in the 1980s, while the rich have certainly got richer, the poor have, by and large, stayed poor.

Back in 1981, when the free market revolution was just taking off, there were 288 million people in sub-Saharan Africa living on less than $2 a day (205 million were living on under $1.25 a day). By 2008, this figure had almost doubled to 562 million (386 million on under $1.25 a day).

Of course the region’s population has also increased over this period, but even proportionally, there has been almost no improvement in poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa since 1981.

Other continents have done a little better but mostly because of the arbitrary measures chosen. Why $1.25? Much anti-poverty work has been geared to getting people from just below, to just above the international poverty line. It has been claimed that if you changed the poverty line from $1.25 to $1.27, most recent poverty reduction gains would be wiped out.

In fact the vast majority of the fall in global poverty since 1981 has come from China, a country that, despite engaging its very own state-led, form of capitalism, has not followed World Bank-led free market policies.

Here in the UK, real wages have fallen since the economic crisis in 2008. But in those same terms, wages hardly rose in the boom years of the 1990s and 2000s either. Almost all of the proceeds of this boom went to a tiny elite. The big winners from this decline in income have been the credit card companies.

Consumer debt has tripled over the last two decades as people borrow in order to make ends meet, reaching £158 billion in 2013. Meanwhile, the proportion of UK income controlled by the top 1% of the population has doubled since 1970 and the top 1% own as much as the bottom 55%.

The corrosive injustice of inequality

Inequality isn’t good for getting people out of poverty, which shouldn’t be surprising. Poverty isn’t about having a certain amount of money, but the lack of those resources we all need for a decent life; food and water, housing and energy, healthcare, education and decent employment.

Poverty is lack of power. And that lack of power is a direct consequence of others having too much power – ultimately too much control over resources. Wealth comes from exploitation of people and the planet’s resources.

This is why even well-intentioned plans to make the poor richer are doomed to failure if they ignore the question of power.

Helping the poor to buy more products or rent more resources from the rich might provide short-term relief, but in the long-term will reinforce the unequal relationship between the two – just as 19th-century American slave owners who decided to treat their slaves better missed the real injustice that they were perpetrating.

The poor will only get richer by radically reducing inequality, which in turn requires confronting power.

 

 

This article is an extract from the report ‘The poor are getting richer and other dangerous delusions‘ by Global Justice Now (formerly the World Development Movement).

 




389192

Rich nations must cough up for past carbon pollution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Two weeks of international climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, are over, with an agreement pulled out of the bag at the eleventh hour.

While Lima has been seen by many as a mere curtain-raiser to talks in Paris in a year’s time, when a new deal needs to reached to replace the Kyoto Protocol, it will have an impact beyond this.

Lima has reinforced the familiar battle ground between the developed and developing world, and it has seen the re-emergence of a key concept: climate justice.

The idea of equity is at the heart of this – the question of how to ensure any UN-backed emissions deal is fair and that those countries that caused the problem do the most to clean it up. This had largely been ignored at previous summits but at Lima it was once again a big talking point.

2011: the US’s big ‘No’ to equity

“If equity is in, we are out.” Those were the reported words of Todd Stern, the US chief negotiator, on the eve of the last day of Durban talks back in 2011, when the foundations for a new global agreement were laid.

Stern was reacting to the clamour from developing countries that rich, developed nations should take the lead in making emission cuts under the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility and capability‘, given their historical responsibility for climate change and their enhanced technological capabilities.

While some observers were alarmed by Stern’s position, his words were a fair, if vulgar, rendition of the mind-set that is quite pervasive among many developed countries.

Rich nations tend to prefer to wave aside or at least make light their moral responsibility to tackle climate change, while appealing for concerted action by ‘all parties‘.

Pragmatism, realism, and ‘we are in this together’ are some of the phrases used by developed countries as they try to duck their responsibility and cajole developing nations to instead step up their own climate actions.

It was to this effect that many Western countries lined up behind the US in Durban. Eventually all references to equity, justice and common but differentiated responsibility were expunged from the text.

Lima – justice and transparency return

It was a short-lived victory. Events in Lima over the past two weeks have overwhelmingly demonstrated the utter futility of developed countries’ schemes to diminish issues of equity and justice, let alone sidestep them altogether.

In virtually all the key issues and categories under discussion – countries’ mitigation contributions, states’ adaptation commitments, the remit of the loss and damage, and climate finance, among others – equity and differentiation have stood out as sticking points.

For example, the G77 group of developing countries said that the principle of equity must guide all negotiations and long-term actions. Showing their heightened distrust in the progress, developing countries even requested that texts should be displayed on the big screen in real time while negotiating to enhance transparency.

The harshest word for developed countries, however, came from Bolivian president Evo Morales, who referred to industrialised nations that have appropriated more than their own fair share of global atmospheric space as “thieves“ that must be made to pay back what they have stolen.

Without a moral dimension, there can be no climate agreement

Of course, none of this implies that developing countries should be given an easy ride in negotiating the 2015 climate agreement, or that there are easy approaches to finding a ‘just’ climate agreement.

Climate justice is a deeply contested concept, open to multiple interpretations, recommending diverse and sometimes conflicting policy. For example, there are plausible justice-based arguments for allocating carbon emissions quota on individual (per capita) and on national (per country) basis.

However it appears that the Stern approach to international climate politics, seemingly without morality, is beginning to lose ground. If Lima has taught us anything, it is that humanity badly needs a dose of international respect if we are to avoid climate chaos.

The brazen scheme to expunge equity from previous climate agreements by the US and its backers only served to further erode the mutual trust sorely needed to make compromises.

Morality might be a dirty word in some states’ foreign policy handbooks. But call it what you like, the world needs to find its guiding principles quickly, and developing countries want rich nations to pay for what they’ve broken.

 

 

Chukwumerije Okereke is Associate Professor of Environment and Development at the University of Reading.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




388217

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133

COP20 extended another day – but where’s the money? Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




As negotiators enter into all all night session in Lima this Friday night, poor countries that are the main victims of climate change are asking the rich: “where’s the $100 billion a year you promised?”

The Green Climate Fund was announced at the Copenhagen COP in 2009 as a $100 billion a year fund that would finance poor countries adaptation to climate change and their transition to a  low carbon economy.

But so far in Lima, the rich countries have pledged just $10 billion, to be released over four years – just 2.5% of the annual sum promised. As India’s Prakash Javadekar told the Guardian, “We are disappointed. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying $10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn.”

Meanwhile the main negotiating text has scarecely progressed beyond its initial seven-page draft, with deep faultlines set between rich and poor countries.

In a nutshell, the rich countries want to keep their cash, while the poor take on emissions cuts matching their own undemanding targets.

The poor, exemplified by India, want to see the rich make deep emissions cuts and to pay up on their climate fund promises, before signing up to any emissions targets at all.

Progress has been made – but outside the UN process

The only good news is that commitments by China, the US and Europe on emissions cuts could mean significant progress towards ensuring that global average temperatures this century will rise less than predicted.

Researchers say the post-2020 plans announced recently by China and the US and the European Union mean projected warming during this century is likely to be less than expected. The downside is that, even then, the world will still not be doing enough to limit the increase in average temperatures to below 2˚C.

The research, released at the UN climate change conference currently being held in Lima, comes from the Climate Action Tracker, an independent science-based assessment that tracks countries’ emission commitments and actions.

It comes in the form of an assessment by four organisations: Climate Analytics, Ecofys, NewClimate Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

But these commitments were made before the conference. Many had hoped that they would provide the momentum and goodwill needed to reach a wider agreement. But that never happened.

Not enough to limit warming to 2°C – but a start

Together, the four groups measured government pledges and actions against what will be needed to limit warming below the agreed international goal of a maximum 2°C increase above pre-industrial temperature levels, and against the goal of bringing warming below 1.5°C by 2100.

China – which recently announced a cap on coal consumption from 2020 – and the US and EU together contribute around 53% of global emissions. If they fully implement their new, post-2020 plans, they would limit global temperature rise to around 3˚C by 2100, which is between 0.2˚C and 0.4˚C lower than it would have been.

Their plans are more ambitious than earlier commitments, and represent what the researchers call “significant progress”. But they won’t limit warming to below 2˚C.

“In the context of increasing momentum towards a global agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, this represents a very important first step towards what is needed”, said Bill Hare, executive director of Climate Analytics.

“Tempering this optimism is the large gap that remains between the policies that governments have put in place that will lead to warming of 3.9°C by 2100, compared to the improvements they’ve made in their promises. These new developments indicate an increasing political will to meet the long-term goals.”

Niklas Höhne, founding partner of the NewClimate Institute, said: “China’s post-2020 emissions levels remain unclear and difficult to quantify. Its peak by 2030 falls somewhat short of a 2°C pathway. However, if emissions peak just five years earlier, this could make a very big difference and move them very close to a 2°C pathway.”

Höhne added that the US, with full implementation of its proposed policies, appears likely to meet its 2020 goal of 17%. But further measures would be needed to meet its newly-proposed 2025 goals.

Targets lacking ambition – so far

The EU’s current policies put it on a trajectory towards meeting its 2020 target. But it’s not enough to meet its more ambitious conditional target of a 30% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the 40% reduction target by 2030.

Rapidly industrialising countries such as India could do more, say the reseachers. Recent discussions indicate that India had been considering putting forward next month a peak year for emissions between 2035 and 2050, which – depending on the level at which this peak occurred – could be consistent with a 2°C pathway.

“We only have a very limited amount of carbon that can be burned by 2050, and we calculate that current policies would exceed this budget by over 60% by that time”, Hare said. “We clearly have a lot of work to do.”

But with the rich countries failure to pay up that leaves an impossible mountain to climb for negotiators in Lima tonight. India is among those countries digging in its heels until the rich countries make much deeper cuts, and honour their financing promises.

The key question facing developing country negotiators will be whether it’s better to settle for a bad agreement, or to emerge with none at all. Past form suggests the former – but don’t count on it.

 

 

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 

 




388133