Climate change is a complex problem requiring coordinated international action – and its impacts and costs fall disproportionally on developing countries like Nepal. That is deeply unfair. So it is only right that in Cancun last December the 16th, Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reaffirmed the joint commitment from developed countries in Copenhagen in December 2009 to mobilize $100bn of climate finance a year by 2020, to address the adaptation needs of developing countries and help them to limit their carbon emissions.
The UK takes this commitment very seriously, and recognizes the need for urgent action. The UK government has therefore allocated £2.9bn to international climate finance from 2011 to 2015 (including our Fast Start commitment). This will be administered through our International Climate Fund (ICF), which has just been formally established. We expect to spend about 50 percent of the total on adaptation in poor and vulnerable countries, with around 30 percent for work to reduce carbon emissions, and 20 percent for forestry.
We have three overall priorities for ICF funding, which we will deliver through both bilateral and multilateral channels in a way which maximizes its impact and value for money: To show that building low carbon, climate resilient growth at scale is both feasible and desirable; to support adaptation in poor countries and help build an effective international framework on climate change; to drive innovation, creating new partnerships with the private sector to support low carbon, climate resilient growth;
The ICF will also fund the climate element of an Advocacy Fund to support the poorest countries to take part more effectively in international negotiations; this will be formally established later this year.
This UK funding will play an important role in helping to mobilize ambitious global action on climate change. But the UK is the only major donor so far to have made specific finance commitments up to 2015. More is needed to meet the Copenhagen commitment of $100bn a year by 2020. We look to other donors too to make significant and ambitious financial pledges, and we look to business to play an important role, since we expect the target to be reached through a mix of public and private finance.
That is why the UK is hoping to provide £45m of ICF money to Nepal for climate related activities over the next four years, mainly through the UK Department for International Development (DFID). This high figure recognizes Nepal’s high vulnerability to climate change: 4th globally in terms of risks to investments, whilst having emitted just 0.025 percent of total Green House Gas emissions. This support will be in three areas.
Firstly, along with the EU, helping Nepal implement its National Adaptation Program of Action by providing support to help the most vulnerable communities in the 13 Mid- and Far-West districts adapt to impacts of climate change they are already seeing. For example, improving irrigation schemes to cope with more erratic rainfall, building better flood protection systems or training farmers on new more drought tolerant crops. This work is urgent as many of these impacts are being felt already, as Ganesh Ram a farmer from Dang explained to DFID: “I have had to take on extra work – mainly carrying bags for tourists – because my crops aren’t as reliable as they used to be. With more rain in a short time in the monsoon soil gets washed away and my farm produces less to sell and for me to eat... "
Secondly, the UK will increase its support for forestry, working with the government and the Swiss and Finnish development programs to reduce deforestation in Nepal, building on very successful past programs that have given 40 percent of households access to community forests in Nepal and lifted over half a million people out of poverty. Future work in this area has the potential to attract carbon financing for the one million tonnes of carbon that community forests ‘lock up’ each year.
Thirdly, work with Nepal to help achieve a fair and ambitious global deal on climate change in the international negotiations, and to access its fair share of climate change support. This will help Nepal both to adapt to the inevitable impact of climate change, and to adopt a low carbon and climate resilient development path that avoids the polluting ways of the past, while helping to secure the country’s future prosperity.
Through this new program of support, the UK government will help Nepal, and the world, deal with the devastating consequences of climate change. The clock is ticking. With every passing year, the global cost of effective action to tackle climate change grows greater. The time to act is now; and the UK is doing so, recognizing that the poor of Nepal will suffer the most from the impacts of climate change but have done the least to contribute to it.
John Tucknott is British Ambassador to Nepal; Sarah Sanyahumbi is Head of DFID Nepal
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