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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Climate Funding is Entitlement, Not Aid, India Says
2009-02-17
You just knew this was coming. I've got a rather colorful response, but since this is a family website .... (No time to do inline, darn it)
The West owes billions of dollars to developing nations in order compensate for climate change, India's government says.

In a submission to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Indian government warns rich countries against defining funding for adaptation or sustainable development in vulnerable nations as traditional development aid. Rather, it says, it is an "entitlement" for poor countries whose development will be further set back by global warming.

"There is a tendency to equate such resources to foreign 'aid' or Overseas Development Assistance," the government wrote, adding that financing should not be left up to the legislatures in wealthy nations, nor should it be in the form of loans. "The providers of finance cannot be discretionary 'donors,' but must be legally obligated 'assessees,'" the document says.

Financing efforts to fight climate change emerged as the single most contentious issue from the U.N. climate change convention in Poznan, Poland, last year, and the debate remains unresolved.

At issue is how to extort raise and spread the boodle distribute money to help poor countries and countries that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, 2 percent of all carbon offset projects in developing countries are slated for an adaptation fund. In the last round of negotiations, developing nations won a measure of control over how that money will be distributed, in a provision that allows them to directly access the funds rather than go through an institution like the World Bank.

But when they pushed to increase the levy to 3 percent and also apply it to offset projects in former Communist countries as well as to the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme, wealthy countries blocked the bid. The added percentages would have meant millions more to the approximately $37 million worth of carbon emission reduction credits waiting to be liquidated.

"The developed countries could have done this as a goodwill gesture. That didn't happen, and the conference did end on a very sour note," said Raman Mehta, who works on climate policy for ActionAid in New Delhi, India.

Mehta noted that India's argument that climate financing should be an obligation rather than aid reflects the position of the G-77 group of developing nations and China.

In a submission earlier this month, the Chinese government called on developed countries to provide "new, additional, adequate, predictable and sustainable" funding of at least 0.5 percent to 1 percent of a nation's gross domestic product -- over and above existing foreign aid.

"Nobody is saying the West knew what it was doing and that it [industrial emissions] would cause climate change," said Mehta. But, he said, the reality is that the most poorest countries are going to be hit hardest by climate impacts, endangering many of the development gains made in the 1990s.

"Because the costs of development are going to go up because of climate change, therefore the West, which has been a beneficiary of free atmosphere, should compensate," he said.
Report requires subscription, so is posted in its entirety. Link goes to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change website, where presumably the documente referred to is buried posted.
Posted by:Barbara Skolaut

#5  Financing efforts to fight climate change emerged as the single most contentious issue from the U.N. climate change convention in Poznan, Poland, last year, and the debate remains unresolved.

So come back and see it when the UN resolves it...in about 2250. Or when India melts. Whichever comes first...
Posted by: tu3031   2009-02-17 16:46  

#4  Since the current sunspot cycle has more or less provided virtually unimpeachabl evidence that the SUN, not humans, controls climate, this piece of blackmail will get all the attention it deserves - none. Stick it, India.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2009-02-17 16:42  

#3  They just want a percentage of Al Gores profits.
Posted by: tipover   2009-02-17 16:29  

#2  I'm wit'choo, Jim.

First give us back the billions (more likely trillions) we've given YOU over the years, and then we'll talk. Idiots.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-02-17 16:26  

#1  As I understand it, they want to tax us for being a strong progressive nation?

That's fixable. Simply return all Gifts, donations, and other "Good works" we Americans have provided, and we'll call it even.


This doesn't scan correctly, anybody else want to clear my idea? (Kauphy, more Kauphy)
Posted by: Rednek Jim   2009-02-17 13:40  

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