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Flood at Lake Baringo in Kenya
Photo: James Wakibia / imago images / ZUMA Wire
More than ten years ago, the industrialized countries made a promise: They want to continuously increase climate aid for poorer countries and reach an annual total of 100 billion dollars from 2020.
That was at the 15th UN climate conference in Copenhagen.
This period has now expired and the full amount has not yet been collected.
But almost since Wednesday.
At the 26th climate conference in Glasgow, however, the frustration of the poor countries is great: "We can't wait any longer," complained Sonam Phuntsho Wangdi, a government representative from Bhutan and spokesman for a group of the least developed countries (LDC), on Wednesday Conference.
"The lack of resources costs lives and livelihoods."
The group of countries includes many African and Asian countries whose populations live in extreme poverty.
They have always been among the critical voices of the UN climate conferences because they are hit particularly hard by the consequences of climate change - and with one percent of global emissions they hardly bear any responsibility for climate change.
However, German representatives in Glasgow reject the anger of the Bhutanese politician.
"There is no reason to be angry," said Environment State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth on Wednesday morning.
Thanks to new commitments in the past few days, they have come very close to the 100 billion target.
At the end of the World Leader Summit on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden also declared the target “within reach”.
In fact, several states had made major commitments.
Japan wants to increase its climate aid to ten billion dollars in the coming years, Norway doubled its previous promises and Denmark also put another billion in the climate aid pot.
This would probably achieve the promised contribution in the next year.
But no later than 2023, as Flasbarth assured, who had negotiated the deal in the run-up to the summit.
According to the OECD, around 80 billion euros already flowed in 2019.
Who distributes the billions?
Why is the affected states still so frustrated?
"The countries have the feeling that the money is not getting through to them," says Oxfam climate expert Jan Kowalzig.
Many climate aid are only loans that countries have to repay.
Far too little is being benefited from adaptation to climate change in order to protect the local population from the consequences of climate change.
"There is money there but we can't get it"
Diplomat from Bhutan
After all, at least part of the money has been flowing for years.
Essentially, the climate aid comes from:
Industrialized countries
- their governments give the money directly to climate projects in poorer countries, similar to development aid.
Mostly countries that traditionally cooperate with the donor countries come into play.
Multilateral
banks
such as the World Bank (largest donor) or the European Investment Bank
UN-based
funds
such as the Green Climate Fund
private
investors
"The big problem is that there are no uniform standards," says Kowalzig.
Every country and every institution award climate aid according to different criteria and standards.
In the jungle of applications, the countries no longer even know how to get the money.
But where does the climate aid actually go?
Take Germany as an example: In this country, the "tracking" of the funds is easy to understand.
The German climate aid flows into the traffic turnaround in India, solar cold chains in Indonesia and climate-friendly waste management in Albania.
This bilateral aid makes sense, but it also depends on the goodwill of the respective government.
It decides which countries and projects will be used.
Many states now have the problem that each country has different application formalities.
According to experts, some countries have extremely few contacts with the western world and therefore fewer opportunities for help.
There is also a great chaos of applications among the many development banks and climate funds.
"We need a harmonized standard because we simply do not have the capacity to apply for funds from such different donors," said Wangdi from Bhutan.
It is even more difficult at the banks: "If a natural disaster happens to us, we can often wait between four and five years for loans to be rebuilt," he complains.
"There's money there, but we can't get it," said the Bhutanese diplomat.
Move the trillions
Even more far-reaching than the decision on the 100 billion pact is a new announcement by the US, the EU and the UK on a "new paradigm" in credit issues. It should pave the way for faster and larger financing of energy transition projects in developing and emerging countries. "This is about a new division of risks between the state and the private sector," says Julian Havers, program manager for public banks at think tank E3G.
If poorer countries switch to renewable energies or want to rely directly on them for electrification, the costs are often high so far.
This is because there are always political risks involved in investing in developing countries, which drive up borrowing costs, according to Havers.
"At the moment there is a new political dynamic at the climate conference to regulate the interaction between private investments and state development loans."
The Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and former President of the European Central Bank also declared at the conference that "the public and private sectors should work together in new ways".
Observers assume that a new negotiating group will be formed at the conference.
This plan is also supported by the so-called Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero - a climate alliance made up of more than 450 banks and asset managers.
Its initiator, the United Nations climate protection officer Mark Carney, said that around 100 trillion dollars would have to be invested over the next three decades.
"Even more important than the 100 billion is leveraging trillion dollars in the next few years for the energy transition," said financial expert Havers.
"This is the only way for developing and emerging countries to obtain the loans they need for massive investments." The new paradigm negotiated on Wednesday is an important first step in this direction.