Developed Nations Should Support Developing Nations On Climate Change: Finance Ministry Paper

India on Tuesday said developed countries should enhance their support to developing nations through adequate provision of finance, technology transfer, and capacity building to facilitate the effective implementation of the Paris agreement on climate change.

As per discussion paper titled ‘Climate Summit for Enhanced Action: A Financial Perspective from India’, India is well aware of the world needs to do much more than what they are currently committed to because the current promises are not enough.

So, it is an important urge that all the developed countries must fulfil their prior commitments, the paper released by the finance ministry said.

“In this respect, developed countries should enhance their support to developing countries for actions related to adaptation and mitigation.”

“This must be done through adequate provision of finance, technology transfer, and capacity building to facilitate the effective implementation of the Convention and its Paris Agreement,” it said.

The discussion paper has been released days ahead of the deliberations in the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23 in New York.

It further said that climate finance is a key pillar in enabling climate actions. Enhanced ambition and enhanced support should be at equal footing.

“It should take into account meaningful translation of developing country Nationally Determined Contributions to concrete actions. In essence, the same urgency will have to be seen in the scope, scale and speed of climate finance, without which the world cannot achieve the objectives of the Convention and Paris Agreement,” it said.

The paper said summary report of the Standing Committee on Finance of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2018) outlines a picture, where it was indicated that total climate-specific finance flows from Annex II Parties in 2016 amounts to around $38 billion.

This is less than 40 percent of the $100-billion target of climate finance.

Out of the total finance flows, $30 billion in 2015 and $34 billion in 2016 were reported as climate-specific finance channelled through bilateral, regional and other channels; the remainder flowed through multilateral channels.

The paper further notes there is no time to lose as implementation of NDCs will have to be rolled out from Jan. 1, 2021, which is only a little more than a year away.

However, the reality is that the implementation of NDCs of developing countries will apparently hit a roadblock in the face of an uncertain future in the provisioning of climate finance.

Under these circumstances, effectively addressing 3 “S” of climate finance- Scope, Scale and Speed is necessary for having a realistic hope of achieving the objectives of the Convention, including the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, it said.

At Conference of the Parties 21 in Paris, on Dec. 12, 2015, parties to the UNFCCC reached a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future.