Low-income countries are struggling to protect themselves against climate change, officials and experts have told the BBC.
Organisations representing 90 countries say that their plans to prevent damage have already been outpaced by climate-induced disasters, which are intensifying and happening more regularly.
The UN says the number of developing countries with climate adaptation plans has increased. But it stresses that there’s limited evidence these plans have reduced any risks.
“We need to adapt our plans to the worsening climate crisis. Our existing plans are not enough to protect our people,” says Sonam Wangdi, chair of the UN’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group on climate change.
Their call for action comes as the UN’s climate science body prepares to publish its latest assessment on Monday about the state of global warming.
The report, compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will provide a scientific assessment of current and future climate change, and be a key reference for policymakers at the UN climate summit in Glasgow this November.
The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began, and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change says more than 80% of developing countries have begun formulating and implementing their national adaptation plans.
But a study by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), published last month, suggests that the 46 of the world’s least-developed countries don’t have the financial means to “climate proof” themselves.
The IIED says these countries need at least $40bn (£28.8bn; €33.8bn) a year for their adaptation plans. But between 2014-18, just $5.9 billion of adaptation finance was received.
Under the UN climate convention, the EU and 23 developed countries have pledged to make $100bn available every year to fund climate-related projects in developing nations – like schemes to cut emissions, and adaptations to mitigate damage caused by weather-induced disasters.
From 2020, this money will be passed on through the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility and other such agencies. But developing countries argue that promise has largely been unkept. A report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed developed countries had made nearly $80bn available in 2018 as total climate finance. But it found that only 21% of that money was provided for adapting to climate impacts, while most went towards cutting carbon emissions.
Developing countries have criticised climate finance figures provided by developed world, pointing out they also include money from regular aid payments.
Some experts say adaptation plans have been hampered by politics.
“When you have other issues like [bad] governance, poverty and now Covid, it becomes very difficult for the plans to work. They simply aren’t a government’s priority,” according to Carlos Aguilar, a climate adaptation expert with Oxfam.
BBC