Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Headlines: Britain's commitment to climate finance

BRITISH Foreign Secretary William Hague has described climate change as "perhaps the 21st century's biggest foreign policy challenge". End Quote

(1888PressRelease) June 07, 2011 - By Simon Featherstone

http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/17power0503/Article/

BRITISH Foreign Secretary William Hague has described climate change as "perhaps the 21st century's biggest foreign policy challenge".

He has stressed that "a world which is failing to respond to climate change is one in which the values embodied in the United Nations will not be met".

Indeed, the UN Charter makes clear that a central purpose of that organisation is to "achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character".
Climate change is just such a problem - and its impacts and costs fall disproportionately on developing countries. This is deeply unfair. So it was only right that in Cancun last December, the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reaffirmed the commitment from developed countries in Copenhagen in December 2009 to jointly mobilise US$100 billion (RM300 billion) a year by 2020 to climate finance to address the adaptation needs of developing countries and help them to limit their carbon emissions.

The United Kingdom takes this commitment seriously and recognises the need for urgent action. The British government has, therefore, allocated STG2.9 billion (RM14.3 billion) of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to international climate finance for the period 2011/12 to 2014/15 (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 per cent of the total amount on adaptation in poor and vulnerable countries, with around 30 per cent for work to reduce carbon emissions and 20 per cent for forestry.

We have three overall priorities for ICF funding, which we will deliver through both bilateral and multilateral channels in a way which maximises 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; and,
- 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.

We hope this funding by the UK will play an important role in helping to mobilise ambitious global action on climate change. As a developing country, Malaysia could potentially be a beneficiary of this fund.

But the UK is the only major donor so far to have made specific financial commitments up to 2015. More is needed to meet the Copenhagen commitment of US$100 billion a year by 2020. We look to other donors, too, from the developed world to make significant and ambitious financial pledges, and we look to businesses to play an important role, since we expect the target to be reached through a mix of public and private finance.

As the Stern Review in 2006 made clear, 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.

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