As the final week of climate negotiations in Lima draws to a close, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) released a study detailing international climate funds and how they are being distributed to various countries to stimulate climate adaptation.
ODI, a leading think tank in the United Kingdom focused on humanitarian issues and international development, analyzed 10 years' worth of spending and contributions made for two national and nine major international funds started to address climate change. The result is the report "Climate finance: is it making a difference," which showed that half of the approved $7.6 billion for funding has only been directed to just 10 countries.
Top recipients include Morocco, Brazil and Mexico, each one receiving loans amounting to half a billion dollars. While Brazil and Mexico are two of the top 10 greenhouse gas emitters in the world, along with Morocco, they have huge potential when it comes to taking advantage of renewable energy.
ODI's report further analyzes how climate funds have been spent across 135 countries, arguing that using climate funds properly is crucial in securing the ambitious climate agreement set for 2015 in Paris.
Smira Nakhooda, the report's author and ODI research fellow, said that effectively using climate financing will win over support from poor countries that are climate change's least contributors but the first ones to feel its effects.
Findings show that the funds are making a difference, with the money being used to help poor countries adapt to climate change's impact, growing from $3.8 million back in 2003 to $2 billion now in 2014. It's still not nearly enough to mitigate the effects of climate change in vulnerable countries, but there is a positive trend in spending.
For example, Morocco has developed solar energy resources while Brazil has completed three projects resulting in almost 3,000 hectares of land that's been reforested. Mexico, on the other hand, has increased its capacity for renewable energy, using a system that only used fossil fuels previously.
Despite improvements, however, the modest funding leaves many more, such as South Sudan and the Ivory Coast, which have received less than $700,000 and $350,000 respectively, with little to use. Middle-income countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Namibia were each given less than $5 million.
In 2015, the Green Climate Fund will start approving programs. It has raised almost $10 billion in just seven months, amounting to more than what previous funds were able to collect in the last 10 years. The GCF has the opportunity to build on what existing funds are doing, improving results to benefit poor countries especially.
