10 December, Paris: LDC Watch gives its reactions to the text issued on 9 December
Azeb Girmai, climate lead of LDC Watch (from Ethiopia) said: having studied the sections relating to finance, we find throughout the text that the new emphasis is to reduce the previous certainty that developed countries should provide financial support to developing countries.
For example, in Article 4 Adaptation (sub-article. 12) the text has changed from indicating that developed countries shall provide support to developing countries, to simply stating that developing countries need support. This is a move from the principles of the Climate Convention that developed countries had a historical responsibility to provide finance to developing countries (LDCs and Africa). This new theme, which discounts developed countries’ responsibility runs through the document.
Article 6 1. In the paragraph referring to the quality of finance that developed countries shall provide: “new, additional, adequate, predictable, accessible sustained, scaled-up’’, these words have now been bracketed (meaning no agreement or consensus), making this finance less secure.
We also see that the whole Article (5) on loss and damage has no commitments, and worse could be scrapped and added as a point under Article 4. Adaptation.
Prerna Bomzan, LDC Watch policy lobbyist (from Nepal) said: “When I read the text I was shocked to see that the LDCs are in square brackets (no agreement or consensus), particularly under Adaptation and Finance (Article 4.6, Article 6.5). This means that the category of LDCs defined by the UN is being totally dismissed when Article 4.9 of the Convention recognizes the specific needs and special situations of the LDCs.
We also see that principles of historical responsibility and equity are at stake since historical emissions and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities are also in brackets”.
LDC Watch will be commenting on the revised text issued this evening
Daphne Davies
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