PRESS RELEASE: New report shows EU lacks a joint approach to climate finance
On 18 January 2021 ACT Alliance EU published a new report ‘Setting the Standard’ which shows that the EU as a whole is falling well short on its commitments and lacks a joint approach to climate finance.
ACT Alliance EU Board Chair and President Bread for the World, Prof. Dr. h. c. Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel, comments:
“We are in the midst of a climate emergency. For vulnerable communities in some of the poorest countries the situation is already critical. Climate action is needed, but it will only happen if there is funding. Developing countries are in urgent need of support and the promises about climate finance delivered by the EU and other wealthy countries must be honoured.”
The analysis highlights significant divergences between Member States in their climate finance contributions to the poorest countries in the world. It also shows how some EU member states provide climate finance as grants while others deliver a big part of their support as loans, which have to be repaid, with interest.
Climate finance should be “new and additional” to existing ODA commitments. EU Member States are divided on how this should work in practice.
Chief Advisor from DanChurchAid, a Danish member of ACT Alliance EU, Mattias Söderberg, comments:
“The agreement to deliver “new and additional” climate finance was made to ensure that the need to respond to climate change won’t undermine the efforts to address other development needs such as health care, education and democracy. All EU member states should follow the example of Sweden.
Climate finance should be additional support to developing countries, and it should not be existing development aid simply re-labelled.”
Read the full Press Release here
Read the full report here
For further information contact:
Mattias Söderberg, Chief Advisor at DanChurchAid and climate finance spokesperson of ACT Alliance EU,
+45-29700609