There was, of course, a lot of coverage from me, and much of the rest of the world it seems, on the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen in December – before, during and since. One of the critical agreements to come out of the conference was on finance. Pledges were made by the developed nations to provide $10 billion a year for the next three years for adaptation and mitigation in the developing world, with $100 billion a year on the table starting in 2020. Merveilleux, certainly, but much of the who, what, when and where was left out. Earlier this month, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) asked Six Key Questions on the finance, among them what the sources of funding are to be and who decides who gets what.
Well, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a high-level panel, led by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, to get at these questions and to do it in an expeditious manner. Brown has been, very much to his credit, really shaking the tree on renewable energy, energy efficiency and measures to reduce greenhouse gases. Zenawi was, by all reports, very helpful in Copenhagen in effecting the deal on finance and generally helping to move things forward.
The SG said in a UN press release that “Developing countries need to move as quickly as possible toward a future of low-emissions growth and prosperity.” The release also notes that “… the Secretary-General emphasized that assisting with adaptation efforts is a ‘moral imperative,’ as well as ‘a smart investment in a safer, more sustainable world for all.'”
The release from Number 10 quotes Brown: “If we can resolve this problem, then I believe many of the other challenges of climate change can be resolved. So the task before us, while daunting, is a very important one to the future of the environment of the world.”
At the same time, the PM took some well-deserved shots at the Denialists. “The Guardian” reports here that he said “Those people who have become global warming deniers and those people who have become climate change deniers are against the grain of all the evidence that has been assembled that global warming and climate change are indeed challenges that the world must meet and that can only be met together.” “The Guardian” further notes that “He has previously denounced what he described as ‘anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics.'” You go, Gordon!