Adaptation Funding
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Tell Congress: Help Countries Adapt to Climate Change
Climate Change, without question, is one of the most critical global challenges of this century. If we don’t take action now, millions of people will be affected by food shortages and climate-related disasters. ActionAid’s rights-based approach and more than three decades of experience have positioned us to take a strong lead in responding to this challenge. We ask you to join us in this fight.
Climate Change, without question, is one of the most critical global challenges of this century. If we don’t take action now, millions of people will be affected by food shortages and climate-related disasters. ActionAid’s rights-based approach and more than three decades of experience have positioned us to take a strong lead in responding to this challenge. We ask you to join us in this fight.
Responding to climate change requires both long-term and short-term measures. Environmental groups have long been demanding long-term mitigation policies to reduce carbon emissions and switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, so as to slow the rate of global warming. But it is only recently that science has revealed that climate change is already affecting vulnerable areas, requiring them to take short-term adaptation measures to respond to these ongoing impacts.
ActionAid’s expertise in agricultural development and disaster relief has prepared us to support adaptation efforts. Adaptation can involve investing in sustainable, resilient methods of food production, sponsoring water retention or small-scale irrigation projects in drought-prone areas, planting mangroves to lessen the effects of increasingly severe storms, or raising houses to higher elevations in areas likely to be affected by rising sea levels.
ActionAid believes that rich countries, which created the problem of climate change through two centuries of intense carbon emissions, must provide the funding and technology needed to enable the poorest countries to adapt to the effects of climate change.
ActionAid calls for more and better funding to help developing countries adapt to the immediate impacts of climate change. ActionAid is developing policy proposals to identify the types of projects to which climate adaptation funds should be directed, and the mechanisms and channels through which such funds should flow.
Currently, the most significant source of funding for adaptation is facilitated through The Global Environment Facility (GEF), which provides the structure for the transfer of financial resources from developed to developing countries. ActionAid’s report, “Compensating for Climate Change: Principles and Lessons for Equitable Adaptation Funding” critiques the GEF’s management of the adaptation funds. It is also important to note that the United States, the single largest contributor to global carbon emissions, has contributed exactly $0.00 to the adaptation fund.
The best hope for an effective multilateral adaptation fund lies in negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). ActionAid was a leading voice in demanding new funds for adaptation at the December 2007 UNFCCC “Council of Parties” meeting in Bali. The United States has been a significant obstacle to international progress towards new agreements on both mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. ActionAid calls on the US government to join the international community in fighting climate change.
Drawing on our long history of development assistance and advocacy, ActionAid has developed a set of five core criteria to be used in assessing the relative merits of the various international funding mechanisms currently under consideration to respond to urgent adaptation needs. ActionAid will push for respect for these principles in order to guarantee the rights of those most vulnerable to climate change:
1. Democratic Governance - A system of democratic governance will ensure that all decision-making power, rights, and responsibilities are equitably distributed among the countries represented in the mechanism. There are various ways to ensure democratic decision-making. Options include each country representing one vote (referred to as one-country-one-vote); or a more complex voting system that weights voting share according to various factors such as population density, emissions levels, and vulnerability to climate change; or a double-majority system in which decisions have to gain a majority of votes under a weighted system as well as a one-country-one-vote system.
ActionAid believes that more discussion and analysis is needed before endorsing a specific method of democratic decision making for adaptation funding. However, a system that weights votes purely according to countries’ financial contributions is counter to the principle of democratic decision making. A "one-dollar-one-vote" system would place poor countries at a clear disadvantage with regard to decisions affecting their very survival.
2. Civil Society Participation - Poor communities have already been coping with climate change for decades, and they know best what strategies for adaptation will work in their local contexts. For these reasons, equitable adaptation funding must guarantee community-level participation — particularly through leaders or institutions accountable to poor people, such as parliaments, local governments, community-based organizations, women’s organizations, farmers’ organizations, and labor unions.
3. Sustainable and compensatory funding - Due to the enormity of climate change-related threats, it is essential that any adaptation funding mechanism have the capacity to manage sufficient funds for addressing poor countries’ adaptation needs. The funding mechanism should be dedicated not to short-term fixes, but to predictable and dependable funding streams.
Additionally, funding for adaptation must be based on the “polluter pays” principle, which recognizes that financing for adaptation is not charitable “aid,” but should be seen instead as compensation from high-emissions countries to those that are most vulnerable to–and least responsible for–the impacts of climate change. For this reason, adaptation funds must be given as grants, not loans.
4. No Economic Policy Conditionality - “Conditionality” refers to the controversial practice in which donor countries condition their aid on the adoption of specific economic policies of questionable benefit to recipient countries. There is a growing consensus that the impact of conditionality on poor countries has often been negative. As a result, and because financing for adaptation should not be considered “aid” in the first place, access to money in the adaptation fund must not be made contingent on the adoption of externally imposed economic or other reforms.
5. Access for the Most Vulnerable – Multiple barriers often prevent the most vulnerable communities from accessing much-needed funding. These obstacles may include a lack of information about funding opportunities, the complexity of program design and implementation, and the need for compliance with overwhelming administrative and financial management requirements. Because climate change will affect poor women disproportionately, it is essential that any adaptation mechanism be structured in a way that facilitates access by women and other vulnerable communities. The principle of access to the most vulnerable is complementary to the principle of non-discrimination, which requires the equal treatment of any individual or group irrespective of their particular characteristics.
