Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Namibia: Poor countries want fund for loss and damage

Irene Ihoaes in AllAfrica.com via New Era (Namibia): east Developed Countries (LDCs) are calling for the establishment of a fund to deal with the problem of loss and damage, as a result of climate change and global warming.

"We are looking for an international mechanism on loss and damage, although it is seen as part of the Cancun Adaptation Framework. It should be a form of compensation, there is no way you can run away from this," Pa Ousman Jarful, chairman of the LDC Group at the climate change negotiations told reporters on the sideline of the 18th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha, Qatar.

The 18th Session of the UNFCCC and the 8th session of the Conference of Parties (COP) serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol started on Monday November 26 and will run until December 07. Loss and damage, a new concept in climate change discourse refers to the negative effects of climate variability and climate change that people are not able to cope with or adapt to.

According to Jarful, loss and damage is a reality for many vulnerable communities, adding that failure to address that will compromise sustainable development and ensure affected countries that have contributed least to global greenhouse emissions will continue to suffer disproportionately. Each LDC at least needs US$3 billion to build resilience, while each of the countries had allocated funds themselves to deal with the problem.

Jarful is against loans for adaptation, stating that LDCs are not responsible for the loss and damage caused by climate change and need to be compensated and not just given loans. "Every country has to put institutional mechanisms in place to monitor funds that are coming in for adaptation. We have learnt from our mistakes, we have mainstream adaptation and climate change in our developmental plans," he added....

The Doha skyline, shot by Amjra, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

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