£13bn aid package to encourage poorer nations to cut greenhouse gases

Philip Webster in Port of Spain

An emergency £13 billion deal to persuade poorer nations to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions immediately was backed by the Commonwealth yesterday after being proposed by Gordon Brown to kickstart the Copenhagen climate-change process.
With the summit in Denmark nine days away, Mr Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, who is also in Port of Spain, put the plan to Commonwealth leaders to combat what Mr Brown called a “climate emergency”.
He told the 53-member summit, many of whose members would benefit from the “payment by results” scheme, that the world could not wait until the treaty implementing the Copenhagen process came into effect.
Instead, he proposed that a new Copenhagen launch fund, backed by the European Union and the US, should start next year without waiting for the agreement reached in the Danish capital to be given legal effect.

The funding, to which Britain will contribute £800 million from the environment department’s “transformation fund”, will give incentives to developing countries to halt deforestation, develop low-carbon energy sources and prepare for the effects of a warmer climate. It will rise to $10 billion a year by the third year and will probably amount to a total of $22 billion.
Under the “payment by results” system those countries that showed they were taking action to halt climate change would receive more cash. Satellites would observe forests in places like Papua New Guinea and Guyana and incentives would be granted where they had been protected.
Mr Sarkozy has worked closely with Mr Brown on climate change and was invited to Trinidad at his suggestion to show the commitment of the richer countries to assisting the poorer ones. Mr Brown has spoken frequently to leaders in recent days about using the summit to air the emergency fund.
Mr Brown said that although the developed world was mostly responsible for high emissions, 90 per cent of emissions growth in the future would come from the developing nations. A climate-change deal could not work unless there was finance to help them to adapt and mitigate change.
He said the launch fund would allow the world to “get moving on climate change as quickly as possible”.
“It would make sure that some of the poorest countries, who are most affected by climate change . . . can get help so they can mitigate climate change and adopt and make the changes that are necessary,” he said in a round of broadcast interviews.
“That starts rolling the changes that are necessary to get the ambitious agreement we want at Copenhagen.”
Resources from the fund would be split 50-50 between support for poor countries to adapt to the effects of warmer climates and measures to limit the rise in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
Adaptation measures could include the construction of sea walls and flood defences, the development of low-water agricultural methods for countries affected by drought and defences against hurricanes which are becoming more frequent in areas such as the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, a “substantial proportion” of the mitigation cash would be devoted to halting deforestation, to preserve the carbon “sinks” which are crucial to taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Other mitigation measures would include the development of low-carbon energy generation in developing countries, which are expected to provide 90 per cent of the future increase in carbon emissions if action is not taken to direct them away from fossil fuels.
The fund is expected to be overseen by an expert body under the umbrella of the United Nations, which would have access to data from international satellites to monitor any changes in tree cover and ensure that promises to preserve rainforest are kept. While the adaptation funds would be disbursed like conventional aid support, funds for mitigation would be linked to the “payment by results” system.
The EU has already proposed a ¤100 billion (£90 billion) fund for the period up to 2020, but Mr Brown believes it is necessary to get mechanisms in place more quickly to ensure that there is no delay in reversing the rise in global temperatures.
The Commonwealth summit is being presented by leaders as a springboard for Copenhagen. It brings together 53 nations, including not only leading industrialised states such as Britain and Australia, but emerging economic giants such as India, rainforest states such as Papua New Guinea and some of the poor countries which will be hit hardest by global warming, including the Maldives.
Britain has accepted that a legally binding treaty cannot be sealed at Copenhagen, but believes it can be finalised in months if a top-level political commitment can be reached by world leaders in the Danish capital.