Climate funds lack clarity
The international development charity has a new report out asking some fundamental questions about climate finance.
If you recall, : "fast-start" money to the tune of $30bn over the three-year period 2010-2012, and the much larger amount of about $100bn per year by 2020.
Both sums are supposed to be raised in and by industrialised nations, and made available to their poorer counterparts - to help curtail their greenhouse gas emissions, and to help them adapt to impacts of climate change.
Estimates of the true costs of these changes in the developing world vary significantly, and it's worth recalling that neither figure emerged from genuine negotiations - both were floated well ahead of time by western leaders, and changed not a jot as Copenhagen proceeded - so whether the sums are enough is one of the issues that Oxfam doesn't want us to lose sight of.
The other issues that it flags up are ones that in principle should be easier to answer, but which right now are about as murky as the Gulf of Mexico.
Is the money new, or are western countries seeking to redirect existing aid budgets? Will any of it be offered as loans? How much will come from the public purse?
Underlying these is the most fundamental of all: will it actually materialise?
These questions are not easy to answer, largely because there is no single conduit for funds.
Donor governments insist that bilateral transfers of money can count towards the total; and as these contributions can be wrapped up as components of bigger projects (for example, as additional funds to flood-proof a school being built with aid money), there is obviously a lot of potential for figures to jump magically from one column of the ledger to another.
At the April session of the in Bonn, EU representatives announced that by June they would have a report on the table summarising and clarifying contributions from EU member states.
It's not happened, and the idea now is to bring it out by the end of the year. So we will be one-third of the way through the "fast-start" period before we discover whether the EU is actually making good on its part of the $30bn pledge, and whether any uncomfortable questions hang over the raising and disbursement of the funds.
Given their domestic political difficulties, clarity from the other two major promisers of money - Japan and - is in even shorter supply.
Oxfam flags up a couple of other specifics. Some governments, it relates, are keen that money transferred through the UN's should count towards the bigger long-term target of $100bn per year.
CDM money is spent on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, certainly. But the reductions accrue to the western countries that are paying for the reductions - so allowing this as a contribution to meeting the Copenhagen pledges would be a clear case of double counting.
Secondly, some governments are apparently arguing that some of the $100bn should be proffered as loans, not as a transfer of funds.
As Oxfam points out:
"Climate finance is not aid. It is not an act of charity, or an expression of solidarity with poor countries, but a legal obligation under the UNFCCC."
The outcome of last week's in Oslo both illustrated how some governments are attempting to move forward, and highlighted some of the obstacles that encumber the process.
The Norwegian and Indonesian governments agreed a deal that on the surface at least enshrines accountability on both sides.
Indonesia agrees to halt deforestation for two years: Norway agrees to hand over $1bn if it does so, and will demand evidence before it parts with the cash. As part of the mechanism, he will "personally monitor" the forestry sector.
So far, so clear.
The conference that western countries had upped the sum they were pledging to combat deforestation in 2010-12, from the $3.5bn announced in Copenhagen to $4bn.
What we don't know is whether the extra half billion is additional money, or whether it comes from the overall $30bn pot.
Given the overall lack of transparency that Oxfam and others are flagging up, my bet is that no-one could tell us.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
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