Found: $50 billion for adaptation needs

Oxfam: In a new report released today, “Turning Carbon into Gold,” Oxfam said there are ways already available to raise tens of billions of dollars that are linked to emissions reduction schemes. These would ensure that those countries most responsible for emissions, and that can afford to pay, would shoulder the bulk of the obligations. At least $50 billion per year is needed to fund adaptation in developing countries, with more necessary if a new climate change deal is inadequate to keep global warming to below 2°C.

“With a global financial crisis unfolding, these mechanisms could raise enough money from polluters without governments having to dip into national treasuries,” said Heather Coleman, Oxfam’s Senior Climate Change Policy Advisor and author of the report. "Many negotiators agree this is one of the more practical approaches. Billions of dollars can be raised and invested to prevent future climate change and to help poor people adapt to the negative impacts of global warming.”

The most effective and fair approach for generating adaptation financing is to link into the emissions-reduction system that would form a core part of a post-2012 agreement, where “international emissions units” are allocated to rich countries. Oxfam says that a portion of these units must be auctioned rather than given away free to countries.

Oxfam estimates that more than $50 billion could be raised each year by 2015 by auctioning just 7.5 per cent of rich countries’ international emissions units. This money should be handed to a new multilateral adaptation-finance mechanism under the UNFCCC. Other new finance mechanisms within the aviation and shipping sectors could generate another $28 billion – $12 billion from aviation and $16.6 billion from shipping annually – just from rich countries.

“Helping vulnerable people cope with the effects of climate change is desperately needed today because they are already face increasingly severe and ever-worsening climate change impacts,” said Coleman.

Image from Oxfam's website