US backtracks on financial commitments to climate change

US wants poor countries to also pay into the Green Climate Fund. The move left the G77 countries angry and made them officially register complaint against negotiations being conducted in bad faith.

In a late night manoeuvre on Thursday the US backtracked from its obligation to the promise of the $ 100 billion funds by 2020 for poor countries instead demanding that the developing countries too should be asked to contribute.

The move by the US of inserting a new fundamental idea going against the decisions that have been taken in previous years at the UN climate negotiations left the G77 countries angry and made them officially register complaint against negotiations being conducted in bad faith.

One of the G77 negotiators walking out of the meeting at about 3 am on Friday told The Hindu, “Now we are renegotiating decisions that all countries agreed to at previous Conference of Parties (annual climate talks). This is the last day of the Warsaw talks and all some countries are trying to do is throw this critical question of finance into disarray.”

He said, “It was decided earlier that the $ 100 billion annually will be provided by the developed countries by 2020 to help the developing countries fight climate change. They agreed to it. Now they are slipping in the idea that developing countries should also contribute to this fund. Besides this they see private investments as a large part of the funds to begin with. This is plain and simple backtracking.”

The overnight meeting was suspended with the difference on finance remaining irresolvable between negotiators. A source said the contentious and bracketed text of the decision on the future of the Green Climate Fund (texts in brackets imply disagreement between countries on the content) will now be taken up between select ministers. It could not be confirmed if those confabulations had begun but negotiators from some key countries in the G77+ China block said that they had been informed of such high-level confabulations.

While ministers are able to thrash out compromises on such politically contentious issues at such times, the developing countries always fear that their ministerial leaders are at times unable to handle the intricacies and nuances of these high-level and intense negotiations leading to confusion.