THE selection of President Bharrat Jagdeo as a member of a new United Nations high-level advisory panel, to push climate change fund-garnering efforts, is further recognition of the esteem in which he is regarded among world leaders.
He is one of four members named on February 12 by United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon who is seeking to re-energize the global push to prevent or mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The panel is to be co-chaired by British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway is the other head of government panel member.
The UN said other members would include high-level officials from ministries and central banks, and experts on public finance, development and related issues, who would all serve in their personal capacities for the next 10 months.
The panel faces the daunting task of identifying effective mechanisms for raising up to US$100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor nations cut greenhouse emissions and foster green growth.
As well as funds pledged from developed country governments, the group will look at innovative financing mechanisms, including a Tobin tax on financial transactions, and diverting the money now spent on subsidies for the fossil fuel industry towards climate change.
Prime Ministers Brown and Zenawi have acknowledged that it won’t be an easy undertaking but the job has to be done to try to avert further suffering millions of people in Africa and around the globe face from the effects of climate change.
President Jagdeo comes to the task with excellent credentials and it’s not difficult to appreciate the reasons behind his choice.
He’s known as a man of action who likes to cut to the chase, and this is what Mr. Ban’s panel is charged with.
He is an acknowledged leading proponent in the global climate change, partnering in the cause with Britain’s Prince Charles, former United States President Bill Clinton, actor Harrison Ford and other key international players, including Mr. Stoltenberg, with whom he has forged a milestone agreement of support for Guyana’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
He has raised Guyana’s profile as a leader who is pioneering a new model for sustainable economic development, which has attracted international attention.
Time Magazine, in 2008, featured him as a hero of the environment, and he has enjoyed top billing on CNN, the BBC and other international media.
At the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad in April last year, President Jagdeo was chosen by his community colleagues to lead talks on the region’s behalf with United States President Barack Obama.
President Jagdeo has strong views on financing for climate change and speaks frankly on the issue.
“We are not letting the developed world off the hook for their actions which have led to climate change but we don’t want to be constantly complaining; we want to be part of the solution and we should be incentivised to do so – where we don’t have to take money from poverty reduction or education or health care towards fixing climate related problems — but these should be incremental resources”, he said last year.
“We recognise that whatever financing we raise – right now there is no commitment of the magnitude that is required…we need close to US$300 billion to address this problem”, he told reporters at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad in December.
“I don’t anticipate any real difficulties with the US$10 billion per annum over the next three years. I think they may be able to raise those resources; but when it comes to what is actually needed as all the studies have shown then we are going to have major difficulties…”
He said the mechanism drawn up for disbursing the funds should be entirely different to the “traditional aid-type mechanism that we have had in the past.”
“The institutions that intermediated funds in the past have been largely the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the developing world’s experience with these institutions has been dismal. We have argued that we have to have, without compromising accountability and transparency in the use of the resources, a fast disbursing mechanism that would allow countries to immediately move to mitigation and adaptation measures”, the President said.
He told reporters that some countries are calling for a new global institution while “others think that we can have a reformed World Bank with new analytical and financial tools and a new approach to the disbursement of resources; some think that you should have a board reporting to the United Nations through which the funds should be intermediated.”
“Whatever we finally agree with would have to ensure that the funds are used for dedicated purposes in an open way so that no corrupt person would steal the money, but at the same time that it is fast flowing”, he added.
Mr. Ban said the panel would be charged with mobilizing, as quickly as possible, the financial resources pledged in the “Copenhagen Accord”, the outcome of last December’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark where delegations agreed to jump-start immediate action on climate change and guide negotiations on long-term action. Under the Accord, developing countries were to be given US$30 billion until 2012 and then US$100 billion a year until 2020.
“[L]et me emphasize the importance of rapid action.  It is particularly important to release money for immediate adaptation and mitigation efforts in developing countries, especially for the most vulnerable,” Mr. Ban told a press conference.
He added that developing countries needed to move as quickly as possible toward a future of low-emissions growth and prosperity.  Therefore, the High-Level Advisory Group would investigate ways to jump-start mobilization of new and innovative resources and mechanisms.  Those resources would support adaptation, mitigation, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building.
The new panel is expected to issue its final recommendations before the next conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun, Mexico later this year.
Prime Minister Meles acknowledged that, while developing nations had ultimately agreed to the climate financing goals set by the Copenhagen Accord, many remained deeply cynical about whether that money would ever be delivered.  Such a high degree of scepticism was perhaps understandable, given the many promises of financial assistance to the developing world that had never been kept.
“This time around, promises made have to be kept, because the alternative is irresponsible management of the climate, followed by catastrophic changes,” he declared.
Developing countries in general, and the poor and vulnerable countries in particular, desperately needed financial and technological assistance to be able to adapt to inevitable climate change and to contribute to the mitigation of such change, Mr. Meles continued, adding that he was convinced that the Advisory Group could play a vital role in coming up with practical ideas on implementation of the provisions on finance of the Copenhagen Accord.
He was also optimistic that the Advisory Group’s work could make it possible for the developing world to join the developed world in Mexico to craft a “final and binding” treaty on climate change with the confidence that promises made on finance would be kept.  “I believe we need to come out with clear and specific sources of finance that can generate the resources promised […] I also believe we need to come up with a delivery mechanism that is both efficient and transparent so that all sides are assured that we are dealing with real res
ources,” he said.
Mr. Brown acknowledged Prime Minister Zenawi’s sentiments about the Copenhagen outcome, but he also stressed that, despite the disappointment of not reaching a final agreement there, 92 countries had since communicated support for the Accord.  In addition, 66 nations had set out their plans for climate change or identified their targets, covering about 80 per cent of global emissions.
“Already, we can see that, if promises are met, the Accord would lead to the peaking of global emissions by or before 2020, and make it possible for us to uphold to the trajectory of holding global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius,” he said.
Mr. Brown noted that the Advisory Group’s mission was to press ahead with the financing elements of the Copenhagen Accord.  “Among other things, the panel must get the $30 billion for fast-start finance for 2010-2012 flowing right now to help developing countries immediately tackle and adapt to climate change, address deforestation and move forward with low-carbon growth,” he said.
“We must put in place appropriately transparent mechanisms for measurement, reporting and verification, and we must take forward cooperation on technology,” he continued, also calling for deeper international agreement through a detailed set of rules and governance arrangements, under the United Nations, to be finalized in Cancun later this year.  “Our end goal remains a legally binding outcome.”
Mr. Brown said that fast-start finance was vital, the efforts would have to rise significantly after 2012, including through providing additional funding to exiting official development assistance.  Still, the overall goal of $100 billion annually could not be met by tax-payer revenues alone, so actors must examine new sources of finance, both public and private.
“This is the task of the High-Level Advisory Group,” he declared, pledging that the panel would drive the combat against climate change by ensuring that the poorest countries had the necessary finances to do so.  “If we can do this, I believe many of the other challenges related to climate change can be resolved,” he said, and while the panel’s task seemed daunting, its success was very important for the environment and the entire world.
Responding to a question regarding the reticence of some rich countries to meet even the minimum requirements needed to tackle climate change, Mr. Ban recalled that there had been firm agreement among the leaders in Copenhagen on the financing targets set out in the Accord.  He expected the Advisory Group to come out with detailed modalities on how the money would be generated and how it would flow to developing countries.
For his part, Mr. Brown said the United Kingdom stood by its commitments and would work to make real the figures agreed at Copenhagen.  At the same time, the conference had decided that the level of money would be scaled up to $100 billion by 2020.  A large part of that would come from the private sector — for example, by auctioning of national emissions allowances — and the Advisory Group must look at how to bring together such finance.  “It will be difficult, but that was the agreement,” he added.
“We have to state the obvious:  not all developed countries were reluctant to provide the money,” said Mr. Meles when he weighed in on the topic.  Indeed, it was not only the United Kingdom, but the European Union as a whole that was committed to the agreement.  The resources must be identified, generated and distributed in a way that did not put more pressure on what everyone understood were the already overstretched budgets of developed countries.  “This is the key […] and I believe it can be done,” he said.
Following another reporter’s suggestion that the push for innovative financing was foundering, especially with United States President Barrack Obama’s cap-and-trade legislation stalled in Congress, Mr. Brown said that, ultimately, a worldwide low-carbon economy would be a huge benefit for the United States and other countries.  It would lead to the development of new technologies, the creation of new jobs and a new kind of prosperity based on a greener environment.
Continuing, he said the technologies being developed in the United States and elsewhere could help lead the push, from electric cars to renewable energy and other low-carbon products.  “We have to be fair to developing countries.  I think that people will come to see, as the low-carbon economy emerges, it is right for us to help the countries that have been affected […] and need support to mitigate and adapt to climate change.  I think we can win this argument across the board,” he said.