By Percy F. Makombe

Reports coming from Brussels where the EU Heads of State were meeting December 10 – 11 indicate that new financial resources will be set aside to deal with the clear and present danger posed by climate change. The EU has agreed to offer near term fast track finance to immediately deal with adaptation, mitigation and capacity building. 27 member states of the EU are said to have pledged a total amount of 2.4 (two billion four hundred thousand) Euros annually for the next three years beginning next year.

The EU refers to its contribution as their “fair share” to deal with climate change. There are no doubts that as the EU development ministers descend on the Copenhagen Climate talks (Monday 14), they will wave this contribution as signifying their serious intent in the talks. Yet this “new” contribution reflects a lack of commitment and seriousness to a just and effective financing arrangement to deal with climate change. This is not least because the EU “new” offer is largely the re-packaging and re-labelling of already existing Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).

It is only the Netherlands who have made an unequivocal commitment that the money they will give is additional to the existing ODA.  For Denmark and Sweden for example, the money is not new and will be taken from existing posts in the national budgets. The same is true of the pledge made by UK and several other major European countries.

The problem is not just that the “new” money is in fact old money, but there is something essentially wrong about the EU just emphasizing near term fast track finance. Lest we forget, the EU Heads of state agreed to a climate finance package on October 30 this year. This finance package was to be guided by the position that both near term and long term finance are critical elements of a global agreement. It is therefore a source of surprise and consternation that the focus now seems to be solely on near time finance.

To be sure, finance for the next three years is critical as it will fast-start action in the poorest countries but it cannot replace long term finance. Many industrial countries want to avoid costs and they believe that to grant quick small amounts now is better than making long term commitments. It is not implausible that many a country from the South will be overly excited with the EU offer and argue that taking 50 million Euro now is better that waiting for 2013, but that is not the point. The debate is not that there should not be near term finance, the point is that near fast track finance must be part and parcel of an agreement that includes clear commitments and concrete arrangements for predictable and scaled up funding beyond 2012. In that regard therefore it would be a mistake for developing countries to accept a deal that is hitched only on near term finance.

At any rate, developed countries have already committed to providing long term finance both in the Climate Convention and in the Bali Action plan. The attempt to recycle old commitments and pass them off as new money smacks of deception and must be exposed. If there is no clear commitment that the climate finance is new and additional to ODA (0.7% of GDP), it means that the new offers are just repackaged offers meant to hoodwink the rest of the world into believing that there is positive movement in the climate talks.

*Percy F. Makombe is the Programmes Manager of the Economic Justice Network in Cape Town and can be contacted on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it