Funding is crucial for adaptation

Xinhua: Funding remains a key problem for developing Asian economies to address the pressing problem of climate change. This is the consensus among government officials, advocates, business leaders and experts who participated in the recently-concluded high-level dialogue on climate change held in Manila and organized by the Asian Development Bank.

Climate change adaptation and mitigation projects are quite costly. The ADB, in its report issued on Monday, said that 320 million U.S. dollars of public funds are now available to be used for climate change adaptation.

This is inadequate. Oxfam International, the UK-based advocacy group, estimates that developing countries around the world need 50 billion U.S. dollars a year to survive the impacts of climate change. The United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) projects that this figure will rise to 250 billion U.S. dollars per year in 2020.

…Stakeholders in Asia concede they're equally responsible for causing climate change, as the recent economic growth in the region was achieved at the expense of the environment. Asia now accounts for a third of total greenhouse gas emissions that lead to a steady rise in temperatures.

But they also noted that industrialized countries such as the United States and those in Western Europe, not only have the resources to finance adaptation and mitigation measures, but also are the biggest culprits of global warming. They must therefore provide stable financing that will enable developing Asia to mitigate the climate change….

Jean Louis Théodore Géricault, "The Raft of the Medusa" (1818-1819), from the Louvre