2 December, 2015, Paris
This is how LDC Watch, the umbrella group of civil society organisations in Least Developed Countries, described the donor’s pledge to the LDCF, made at the start of the Summit.
While welcoming this finance, it points out that it is only a drop in the ocean to what is needed to help LDCs adapt to the effects of climate change. It explained that the LDCF was set up to fund immediate climate adaptation projects, namely the National Adaptation Program of Actions (NAPAS) in LDCs.
However, as LDC Chief Negotiator Giza Gaspar Martins has pointed out, of the 500 projects that were identified by the LDCF, which require more than an estimated $5 billion to complete, so far just over $859 million has been made available to the LDCF, which is sufficient to complete 158 projects. LDC Watch points out that at this rate these projects will not be implemented by the end date of 2020.
LDC Watch is also doubtful about the likelihood of this money being received, pointing to the current state of the Green Climate Fund, which was established after the Copenhagen Conference in 2009, and has received funds far below the $100 billion a year pledged by developed countries. As Azeb Girmai, climate lead for LDC Watch points out “Given the experience with the GCF where we have seen pledge after pledge, but without money on the table, I’m skeptical that this $248 million will ever arrive in full”.
This general feeling was summed up by LDC Chief Negotiator Martins yesterday, 1 December in a statement that said: “There are outstanding questions around how the LDCs will finance immediate and urgent adaptation between now and 2020, as well as secure the next phase of action by LDCs currently under discussion at COP21”.
