TIB urges developed countries to meet $100bn pledge

The Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) expressed deep concern over the developed countries' reluctance to talk about providing $100 billion annually to countries affected by climate change, including Bangladesh, at the COP-26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

The preliminary draft declaration, based on ongoing discussions at the COP-26 conference, has once again come to the fore with a flurry of rhetoric instead of specific promises to tackle climate change or global warming, said TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman at a press conference on Thursday.

At the same time, it called upon the representatives of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), including Bangladesh, to take a stronger stance and play a responsible role in increasing the allocation of adaptation funds to countries at risk and expediting the release of promised climate funds.

Expressing frustration over the announcement of the preliminary draft of the climate conference, Iftekharuzzaman said, "Much of the ambition that world leaders set before the start of the COP-27 summit to take effective actions to curb global warming has not been met. Instead, there is an effort to try to raise the target to 2.0 degrees Celcius from 1.5 degrees, which is unreasonable and unethical."

In the conference, no specific timeline was given for stopping the use of coal as fuel. 

Furthermore, developed countries had once again failed to guarantee the promised annual climate funding, including adaptation, and loss and damage finances, for the affected countries, he added.

He further said that under the Paris Agreement, $100 billion was to be paid annually from 2020 onwards. So far, a total of $80 billion has been disbursed, of which a maximum of $20 billion is for the climate fund, according to reliable reports.

While the Paris Agreement called for adaptation to be a priority for the affected countries, only 25% of the money was spent on climate change. And the new draft, which has shown no progress, has again brought to the fore the questionable role of developed countries in climate change, the TIB executive director added.

Mentioning that addressing the issue of loss and damage separately in the published draft was a positive development, Iftekharuzzaman said the Paris Agreement recognised loss and damage as separate from adaptation, but developed countries did not mention it separately in their financial reports on climate finance assistance for disaster relief.

Though the least developed countries have strongly demanded it, the developed countries claimed they have also been affected, which has raised new questions about the compensation for developing countries.

"We hope that the developed countries will move away from this position and agree on the issue of compensation and it will be implemented soon. This will ensure transparency and accountability for the affected countries, as well as the developed countries, in terms of climate finance," he said.