New website to track climate aid, key to UN talks

* Website to track promises of $30 bln in aid
* Cash is "golden key" to Cancun climate talks-U.N.
Alister Doyle Reuters AlertNet 3 Sep 10;

GENEVA, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A website launched on Friday will help track whether rich countries are keeping a pledge to come up with $30 billion in climate aid for the poor, seen by the U.N. as a "golden key" to progress in talks on global warming.

The United Nations-backed site (www.faststartfinance.org) so far lists cash promises by 6 European donors including Germany and Britain and 27 recipients from Bangladesh to the Marshall Islands. Many of the developing nations have blank entries on the amount of aid received.

Rich countries promised at a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 to provide poor nations with "new and additional" climate funds "approaching $30 billion" for 2010-12. Until now, there has been no official site to track compliance.

Countries fill in their own entries on the website, without checks.

"I strongly called on other countries to join," Dutch Environment Minister Tineke Huizinga said of the Dutch-led initiative during a meeting of 46 nations in Geneva reviewing financing for the fight against climate change.

The United Nations praised the site as a step to build trust between rich and poor before an annual meeting of the world's environment ministers in Cancun, Mexico, from Nov. 29-Dec. 10.

"I have always called this short-term financing the golden key to Cancun," Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told a news confernece with Huizinga.

Developing nations say the promised new cash is a test of how far rich nations, which have spewed out most greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution, are willing to lead in combating global warming at a time of austerity cuts.

U.S., JAPAN

The United States and Japan, the top two industrialised emitters of greenhouse gases, have not listed their aid contributions on the site yet.

The $30 billion is meant as a "fast start" to help the poor curb use of fossil fuels, shift to renewable energies such as wind, hydro and solar power, and adapt to floods, heat waves, droughts, mudslides or rising ocean levels.

"It is particulary urgent and important to have clarity about the source, the allocation and the disbursement of the short-term funds," Figueres said.

Rich nations in Copenhagen also promised to increase aid to $100 billion a year from 2020. The two-day Geneva talks, ending on Friday, are looking at possible sources such as carbon taxes, levies on air tickets or on bunker fuels.

A Reuters tally of pledges for 2010-12, from official data, show that pledges so far total $29.8 billion, close to the $30 billion pledge. [ID:nLDE6811MP]

But it is unclear how much meets the demand for it to be "new and additional" as promised in Copenhagen.

"The website will not answer that particular question. It will show what countries see as their contribution to fast-track money," Huizinga said.

In the Reuters tally, half of the total pledged so far -- $15 billion -- is from Japan, but much of this comes from a previously planned initiative running from 2008-12.

Website tracks Copenhagen pledges
Yahoo News 3 Sep 10;

GENEVA (AFP) – Six rich economies joined a website unveiled on Friday detailing pledges in short-term aid they made at last December's climate summit, a move aimed at restoring damaged trust with developing countries.

The portal www.faststartfinance.org showed that Britain, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway had so far allocated the equivalent of 3.2 billion dollars in climate funds.

Twenty-seven poorer countries are named as beneficiaries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Morocco and the Philippines. Details of the projects and the timescale of funding were not given.

A sixth donor, Germany, said it had promised 1.26 billion euros (1.61 billion dollars), but has yet to say how the money would be allotted.

"It will give trust that promises are being kept," Dutch Environment Minister Tineke Huizinga, who conceived the project, told reporters.

"I expect in the months to come much more countries will sign in the website."

The announcement was made on the sidelines of an informal meeting on climate finance in Geneva, gathering more than 40 countries.

The US representative at the talks, Todd Stern, said Washington would contribute to the site with a "very detailed document" setting out its estimates of country-by-country undertakings.

"From the very beginning of the year, we have been very much focussed on the visibility of fast-start financing," he said.

The commitments are part of an overall package of 30 billion dollars that rich countries declared in "fast-start" aid for 2010, 2011 and 2012 at the Copenhagen summit to help the poor tackle global warming and its impacts.

The money was seen as a show of good faith in the troubled negotiations under the banner of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

In the long term, according to a parallel but sketchier pledge made in Copenhagen, rich countries have promised to mobilise jointly 100 billion dollars a year by 2020.

But the infighting that marred Copenhagen left scars of mistrust among developing countries.

Poorer nations are keeping a watchful eye on the fast-track finances, insisting that donors honour the Copenhagen vow that funding be "new and additional."

Suspicions are high that a big chunk of the money will come from development aid or other budgets, thus damaging poverty alleviation in order to fulfill a political commitment.

"This initiative is a step in the right direction, but the question of additional funds is essential if trust is to be rebuilt," Romain Benicchio, Oxfam's policy advisor, told AFP.

Huizinga acknowledged that the information was provided by donor countries and the new portal "will not answer that particular debate" about additional sources.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres endorsed the scheme.

She said agreeing on finance was a "golden key" to unlock success at the UNFCCC's upcoming conference in Cancun, Mexico.

The November 29-December 10 parlay aims at reviving negotiations with an eye to sealing the elusive climate treaty a year later.

Figueres on Thursday pleaded for tolerance if money disbursed in 2010 came in part from existing budgets, given that the promises were made at the end of 2009.

"It would be understandable if not all 100 percent of the 10 billion for this year to be new and additional because those budgets have already been set," she said.

The Copenhagen Accord declared developed countries were committed "to provide new and additional resources... approaching 30 billion dollars" for 2010-2012.

This included forestry and investments through international institutions. Allocations for tackling emissions of greenhouse gases and for coping with the effects of climate change would be "balanced."