Rich nations break promise to help poor cope climate change

London, Nov 24 (UNI) Developed nations have failed to keep the promise to help the poor countries cope with the effects of climate change.

A group of rich countries including Britain had agreed in 2001 to pay around 600million pounds to help developing countries predict and plan the effects of global warming, as well as fund flood defences, conservation and many such projects.

However, only 90 million pounds of the promised money has been delivered.

The disclosure came after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said industrialised countries must do more to help the developing world adapt to a changed climate.

Under the terms of the climate adaptation agreement, made at a UN meeting in Bonn in 2001, the EU, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and New Zealand had said they would jointly pay developing countries to compensate for the severe effects over the coming decades of global warming, which was largely caused by carbon emissions from the developed world, The Guardian reported.

The vast majority of the promised money was expected to be channelled through funds run by an organisation called the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Washington DC, which was to distribute it through programmes run by the World Bank and United Nations.

Saleem Huq, head of the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development, the impact of climate change on poor countries, and the responsibilities of rich countries to help them, gets much less attention.

Climate change was already having a devastating impact on poor communities around the world. A recent report from Christian Charity revealed that rural people from Bolivia and Bangladesh to Mali and Tajikistan were being affected. In many countries, they were struggling with droughts, floods and hurricanes even before climate change had started to bite.

UNI