Why the last day of the G7 summit may be the last chance to find billions for the climate emergency

Rich countries promised to spend $100bn a year to help poor nations meet the challenge but are nowhere near, writes Rob Merrick

Out of the G7, only the UK and the US have said they will increase climate finance from current levels (Getty)

The summit communique is crystal clear: the world’s richest countries “commit” to spend $100bn a year to help the poorest adapt to the climate emergency and help save the planet.

Sadly, this is a promise made way back in 2009 and –11 years later, on the gorgeous Cornish coastline at the G7 summit – there is still no evidence that wealthy nations will deliver.

We’re often told that time is running out to stop global warming, but – when it comes to the $100bn climate adaption fund – it really is now or never, with November’s landmark Cop26 summit in Glasgow this November so close.

Unless the cash is stumped up, poorer countries, reeling from the Covid crisis, are simply not going to be willing or able to set a path to a net-zero carbon future.

“It isn’t that $100bn is going to solve everything, but $100bn promised and not delivered is going to create distrust,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh.

So, how close are we to the $100bn? Sadly, as close as a teenager determined to leave any cribbing for vital exams until deep into the night before.

According to Oxfam, the G7 – which is meant to find 80 per cent of the fund – has committed to only $36bn of state climate finance by 2025, and only $8-10bn of that is for adaptation.

Between 2016 and 18, just 14 per cent of all grants and loans provided went to the least developed countries and only 2 per cent to small islands most at risk from rising waters.

Meanwhile, said Catherine Pettengell, UK director of the Climate Action Network, the G7 spent $189bn on support for coal, oil and gas in the first quarter of 2021 alone.

Speaking in Cornwall at the start of the summit, she told me: “It just can’t continue like this. Cop26 is really too late for building trust that we’re on track to deliver this.”

Only the UK and the US have said they will increase climate finance from current levels. France has said no – while Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy have yet to reveal their hands.

But it is the US that must “up its game”, climate campaigners say, having pledged only £5.4bn by 2024, just one quarter of what is needed and far less than the £24bn offered by the three EU members.

In Carbis Bay on Sunday, G7 leaders will hear from Sir David Attenborough, who will plead with them to take the action so badly needed to prevent “crippling” global warming.

If the much-loved naturalist can’t persuade them, maybe nobody can. But Boris Johnson’s attempt to curtail the session – to avoid his press conference clashing with England’s Euro 2020 football match – left no one bursting with optimism.