Leaked Cop27 draft reveals ‘extremely worrying and unacceptable’ rollback on climate finance

Language in the draft has seemingly been watered down on financial commitments from rich to poor countries

A leaked draft copy of the Cop27 decision on long-term finance, seen by The Independent, reveals rollbacks on rich countries’ pledges to help poorer ones deal with extreme climate impacts.

While there’s still some way to go in negotiations on the final “Sharm” pact, early signs are “extremely worrying and unacceptable” climate non-profits say.

Two major issues in the “Draft Cop decision on long-term climate finance” have raised red flags.

The first is on funding for adaptation– crucial to helping poor countries deal with the increasingly severe heatwaves, drought and floods already occurring.

At Cop26 in Glasgow last year, countries agreed to “at least double” adaptation finance to developing countries by 2025 (from 2019 levels).

But the Cop27 draft text has watered this down. The text now says it “urges” developed countries to “consider doubling adaptation finance”.

Secondly, the leaked draft also addresses the $100bn annual “Green Climate Fund” that rich countries promised to provide to poorer nations by 2020. Two years after the promised delivery date, this fund stands at $83bn, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

This funding gap was supposed to have been closed and the $100bn goal met “no later than 2023”, according to the statement released after the Group of 20 (G20) meeting in Rome last year.

A pre-Cop27 progress report from developed countries contributing to the fund echoed the 2023 delivery date.

However, in the draft text, the 2023 date has been dropped.

Friederike Roder, vice-president of advocacy at Global Citizen, said that while it’s early days on a final Cop27 agreement, the first signs are far from promising.

“When will countries actually take responsibility?” she asked. “The $100bn promise is left unmet for the second year in a row but instead of pledging new money, the reference to striving to finally hit the target in 2023 is now completely gone from the text.

“What’s more, it is extremely worrying and unacceptable that the language considered on adaptation now refers to ‘considering doubling’ when the Glasgow Climate Pact clearly agreed to ‘at least double’ climate finance for adaptation by 2025.”