On Twitter, Rachel Kyte, a veteran climate diplomat and now dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, called it “thin climate finance gruel.”
The money in the spending bill is mostly meant to help poorer countries cope with the accelerating risks of global warming and transition away from fossil fuels. Mohamed Adow, an activist with Power Shift Africa, called the allocation of $1 billion “appalling.”
“Many countries in the global south have made their climate commitments contingent on receiving substantial climate finance,” Adow said. “The U.S. failing once more to keep its finance promises will destroy any hopes that these countries may achieve their emissions reduction targets.”
Rich, industrialized nations as a whole have fallen far short of their own promise, made over a decade ago, to raise $100 billion in climate aid every year, starting in 2020. The United States, which is responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in history, is under particularly sharp scrutiny. It contributes less than what the Overseas Development Institute, a London think tank, and many others consider its fair share.
…
The shortfall was also particularly notable as it came barely two weeks after a global panel of scientists beseeched world leaders to fund climate adaptation. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in an exhaustive report published in late February, concluded that the world’s poorest nations would very likely need hundreds of billions of dollars every year in the next few decades to protect themselves from climate shocks, including the world’s big coastal cities at risk of sea level rise.
One of the most populous and most vulnerable is Mumbai, India’s commercial capital and home to roughly 20 million people. The I.P.C.C. has warned that it could face $162 billion in damages from rising seas by 2050. This week, the city unveiled an ambitious climate plan of its own. It said it planned to get half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, shore up flood defenses and expand green cover to help its residents cope with heat stress.
As if on cue, Mumbai faced an unseasonable heat wave warning, with temperatures spiking to near 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees Celsius, considerably above normal for mid-March.
Leave a Reply