MANILA, Philippines?Oxfam International has warned that the $100 billion a year pledged by rich nations to help fight climate change could fail the poorest people if recent moves to deliver climate cash as loans continue.
In its report, ?The $100 billion Questions,? Oxfam raised concerns saying that ?a significant proportion of the first installments of climate cash, to be delivered between 2010 and 2012 will be loans not grants.?
?At a time of economic emergency, when several poor countries are slashing critical health and education budgets to avoid a debt crisis, rich countries are considering saddling them with climate debt for a situation they did not cause and are worst affected by,? said Oxfam?s Senior Policy Advisor Antonio Hill Tuesday.
Citing the local policy here, Oxfam Philippines spokesperson Kalayaan Pulido-Constantino said that the World Bank has committed funding in the form of loans to help in the rehabilitation of areas affected by typhoons Ketsana (Ondoy) and Parma (Pepeng).
?This loan, while beneficial to ongoing rehabilitation efforts, will in the long-term bury the country in more debt. These typhoons are extreme weather events and typify climate change impacts that loom to increase in number and worsen in severity in the next five years,? Pulido-Constantino said.
The Philippines, considered the most vulnerable country to climate change in Southeast Asia, will experience more typhoons, drought and increasing temperature and sea level rise in the coming years, Oxfam said.
In its report, Oxfam lays out suggestions on how rich countries can not only meet their $100 billion a year promise, but also double it by 2020. Some of the suggestions include:
? $100 billion a year from a global Financial Transactions or ?Robin Hood? tax on banks;
? $20-$30 billion a year through the creation of emissions trading schemes for international aviation and shipping. This would cap the amount of carbon emissions these industries could produce and then charge them for each unit of carbon used;
? $75 billion a year in fixed contributions from rich countries according to their historic responsibility for carbon emissions and ability to pay. This could be raised through the money from domestic emissions trading (or cap-and-trade) schemes or taken from budgets currently used for subsidizing fossil fuels and carbon-heavy industry;
? $16 billion a year by 2012 from the IMF in the form of low-interest loans for low-carbon development. Using $120 billion of rich country Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as capital, ?green bonds? could be issued, raising $40 billion per year that can be made available as low-cost loans for clean energy investments in developing countries. Of the $40 billion loaned every year, the net transfer (or savings) benefiting developing countries is $16billion.
Oxfam is calling on negotiators in Bonn to deliver and report openly on climate cash in 2010. A clear framework for raising and doubling the $100 billion pledge in public money must be agreed by the Mexico summit in December this year.
?Rich nations failed to deliver in Copenhagen. Now they can inject a much-needed dose of trust back into the negotiations,? said Pulido-Constantino.
?Showing they are willing to put their money where their mouth is will go some way to healing the deep rifts forged at last year?s climate summit, as well as helping to alleviate the plight of those living on the front line of climate change,? she added.
