The English and Welsh bishops’ Catholic Agency for Overseas Development wants the European Union to at least double the amount and to insist that the contributions of its 27 member states to combat climate change must be in addition to existing aid budgets.
The European Commission, which runs the European Union’s day-to-day affairs, has suggested between two billion and 15 billion euros as a target annual contribution to be reached by 2020.
But head of climate finance policy at CAFOD Liz Gallagher said in a statement that the proposal, announced on September 9, “seriously lacks ambition” and that the figure should be in the region of 35 billion euros.
“The commission’s communique is going for the lowest common denominator,” she said in a September 10 press statement.
“There is no mention that the money provided by rich countries must be additional to pledged aid levels,” she said.
“The commission is neglecting its responsibility to compensate poor people for the damage our emissions have caused.
“Poor people will suffer the first and worst due to climate change and yet have done the least to cause it.”
Ms Gallagher said the wording of the statement meant that Europe could end up diverting aid pledged “for health care and education in poor communities toward reducing the impact of climate change.”
“This is robbing Peter to pay Paul,” she said. “To allow this to happen is immoral.”
She said the European Union should be taking a lead in aid for climate control but was behaving in an excessively cautious manner, possibly because of the global financial crisis.
She told Catholic News Service on September 15 that the additional money was needed to provide technical assistance to help developing economies to operate in an environmentally sustainable way and to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions before their levels became “catastrophic”.
The funds also would be used for such initiatives as the construction of flood-control devices and to protect forested areas, she said.
The European Union has estimated that 100 billion euros a year will be needed to prevent a rise in global temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius, which some scientists have said will result in increased desertification, flooding and other disasters.
According to press reports, the European Union wants the United States Government to contribute up to 12 billion euros a year to reach emission reductions targets.
The EU also hopes that about 40 per cent of the overall sum will be met by the private sector, largely through trade in carbon emissions rights quotas.
The European proposals will be discussed by the European Council, the highest political body of the European Union, in October ahead of a world climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.
At the 12-day Copenhagen summit, a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, will be negotiated.
