World leaders and their representatives have just a few days at the summit in Glasgow to try to broker deals to cut emissions faster and finance measures to adapt to climate pressures. A protester from the Climate Coalition demonstrates, with 100 hundred days to go before the start of the COP26 climate summit, in Parliament Square, London, Britain, on Jul 23, 2021. (File photo by= REUTERS/Peter Nicholls) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] LIBREVILLE: Africa's lead climate negotiator said that African countries want a new system to track funding from wealthy nations that are failing to meet a US$100-billion annual target to help the developing world tackle climate change, Reuters reported.
The demand highlights tensions ahead of the COP26 climate summit between the world's 20 largest economies, which are behind 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and developing countries that are bearing the brunt of the effects of global warming. "If we prove that someone is responsible for something, it is his responsibility to pay for that," said Tanguy Gahouma, chair of the African Group of Negotiators at COP26, the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, which starts on Oct 31. In 2009, developed countries agreed to raise US$100 billion per year by 2020 to help the developing world deal with the fallout from a warming planet. The latest available estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show this funding hit US$79.6 billion in 2019, just 2 percent more than in 2018.
Meanwhile, temperatures in Africa are rising at a faster rate than the global average, according to the latest UN climate report. It forecasts further warming will lead to more extreme heatwaves, severe coastal flooding, and intense rainfall on the continent.