COP21: Time to turn climate change around

As I arrive in Paris, I will be remembering the faces of the women in the village where I grew up in Uganda. They rely on the land, herding cows, and growing crops – and they are amongst the 3.5 billion poorest people around the world whose daily lives are perilously exposed to changes in the climate.

Climate change is a fundamental environmental, economic, humanitarian and security threat to our world. It isn’t “another crisis” we can somehow chose to prioritize above or below others. Within Oxfam, we also see it as a crisis of inequality, where poor and vulnerable people – and especially the women of the South – are shouldering hugely disproportionate risks.

The UN climate talks in Paris next month will likely result in a global deal. The big question is what will the deal look like – and will it benefit the elites and the big emitters only, or the most vulnerable too?

I’m optimistic that humankind has the technical and political capabilities to run a cleaner, more stable and safer world, one that can deliver on the ambitious new Sustainable Development Goals. Countries can find the money, as they did $11 trillion to bail out the banks.

The headline for Paris isn’t all bad. Freer from the crushing expectations that helped sink Copenhagen climate talks six years ago, Paris is being seen as the beginning, not the end, of a new set of ambitions. This increases the likelihood of a deal but also the certainty that it won’t be good enough for safety. This cannot be a deal to lock in for 15 years – it must the start of something greater.

Renewable energy has grown spectacularly since 2008. It has become cost-competitive in a number of countries and overall now the world’s second largest source of electricity. But it still ranks behind coal which is also growing alarmingly – as fossil fuels continue to gorge more than nine times more finance from the world’s big banks than they invest in renewables. Paris must signal the beginning of the end of this destructive relationship.

In the past 18 months we have seen unprecedented political engagement ranging from a joint US/China pact, to G7 leaders calling for a global phase out of fossil fuels over the course of the century and more than150 countries tabling into Paris their targets for emission cuts. The most ambitious of these are from developing countries.

The chances that these talks will descend into rancor are slim. Oxfam will be an active part of efforts to shore up the unity and assertiveness of the G77, Africa, the Least Developed Nations and small island state blocs – these countries are the most affected by climate change and least responsible for it.

For some years now, Oxfam has been following the money which, in the end, will seal the deal. In Copenhagen, rich countries promised developing countries $100 billion a year by 2020, but so far our analysis shows that they have only found around $20 billion in public funding, barely $5 billion of which has gone to help poor countries cope with climate harm being caused now.

Woefully, this equates to little more than the price of a cup of coffee for 1.5 billion small-holder farmers each year. The likes of Ethiopia and Tanzania are spending more in trying to adapt to climate change from their own domestic budgets than they get in climate adaptation funding from the international community. This is unacceptable. Oxfam estimates developing countries will face almost $300bn per year in extra costs to adapt their economies by mid-century. Without such a major boost, their economies could shrink by around $1.7 trillion per year by that time.

So what do we think will be the “game-changing” issues in Paris? Firstly the money: we need to see a new target set to reach $35bn per year in public finance for adaptation by 2020 and $50 billion by 2025 – and not from aid budgets either, but from new sources like financial transaction taxes and carbon pricing schemes. We must scrap the current ad-hoc system for financial provision and make it stable and predictable. Richer developing countries need to step up too, Russia, Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Singapore among them. 

Secondly, the emissions cuts – all countries need to commit to new, more ambitious emission reduction plans from 2020 and then every five years thereafter. But critically, the deal must have “equity” built into its DNA, meaning richer countries must move fastest to decarbonise their economies, and provide the financing some poorer countries need to do so too.

Ultimately, the test of the Paris talks rest on whether they are a game-changer for those most affected. Their voices must be heard clearly, and to mean something, the deal must work for them.

Winnie Byanyima is Executive Director of Oxfam International. She is a leader on women’s rights, democratic governance and peace building.