US President Joe Biden announced plans to double the financial aid it offers each year to developing nations to tackle the ravages of climate change. He pledged to boost the country’s annual contribution to $11.4 billion, which will “support the countries and people that will be hit the hardest and that have the fewest resources to help them adapt.”
The pledge was made during the United Nations General Assembly, where Biden said that the world must work together to fight and eradicate unnerving challenges including the coronavirus pandemic, trade disputes and climate change.
It will also ease some of the anger and panic among the developing nations who are the most affected by climate change impacts and have done little to cause the phenomenon.
Image: Eduardo Munoz/AP
Mohamed Adow, director of the African climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said;
Climate finance to help the world’s vulnerable people is the elephant in the room heading towards the COP26 climate summit. It’s good to see President Biden is upping the amount that the U.S. is contributing, and others should certainly follow suit. However, the U.S. is still woefully short of what it owes.
Over a decade ago, the developed nations vowed to provide $100 billion annually by 2020 to help the most vulnerable countries in order to deal with the catastrophic consequences such as sea-level rise, heat waves, strengthening hurricanes and other such occurring, and to increase the pace of eliminating fossil fuel use. However, the vows never fully materialized.
As the world is bearing the brunt of climate change-induced calamities this year, the US and other developed countries are being heavily criticized for not fulfilling their climate action goals.
Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns for ActionAid USA, said;
In order to truly lead, the United States must genuinely do its fair share of climate action. That means drastic domestic emissions reductions, and massively scaled up climate finance to enable reductions and support front line communities in poorer countries. What the administration has pledged to date fails to meet the scale of the challenge.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has also criticized the climate speeches and pledges at the UN as hollow promises through Twitter.
Via: Washington Post