Down to the wire on adaptation money
COPENHAGEN, 14 December 2009 (IRIN): Should there be an international insurance facility to help poor countries alleviate (lindre/modvirke) the impact of climate-related risks? Should they be compensated for losses to their developmental goals by slow-onset events like droughts?
These were among the tougher debates at the final week of the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen.
New disaster statistics released in Copenhagen Monday showed that extreme weather events and natural hazards killed thousands of people, affected millions, and cost economies billions of dollars, underlining the need to help poor countries adapt now, said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
The data on the impact of climate-related disasters on human settlements was released by the Belgian World Health Organiza-tion collaborating Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).
Of the 245 disasters in 2009, 224 were weather related, accounting for 55 million people of the 58 million affected, 7.000 of the 8.900 killed, and causing 15 billion of the 19 billion US dollar in economic damages, CRED’s data from January to November 2009 showed.
Some of the world’s most vulnerable countries pointed out that they did not have the capacity, technology and the finance to scale up their response to steadily intensifying climate events like droughts and floods.
The problem, as some countries see it, is that once endorsed, it becomes a legally binding document and there could be wider ramifications (forgreninger/følgevirkninger) – anyone whose house is submerged by an increasing sea level rise would have the right to compensation.
These aspects were part of the adaptation package, which was “very good, but progress has been very slow” said Sandeep Chamling Rai, climate change policy coordinator on adaptation at the World Wide Fund for nature.
Some countries emphasized that they were “not even looking for money, but know-how”, said a delegate from one of the 49 Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
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