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A
landmark pledge seven years ago by the world’s richest nations to spend
billions to help developing countries tackle climate change seemed like
a godsend for Kiribati, the Pacific island nation threatened by rising seas.
The result of that promise was the Green Climate Fund. But Kiribati — like many of the poorest countries most vulnerable to climate change — has yet to see any project funding.
Instead, many of the projects that have won early backing
were approved despite concerns raised by current and former observers
on the fund’s board over whether officials had done due diligence on
projects — especially on those involving the private sector, which make
up half of the approximately $2.6 billion in project financing
authorized so far.
“We raised our objections, but the gavel just came down,” said Liane Schalatek, one of two civil society observers on the fund’s board and associate director at the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America, an environmental group associated with the Greens party in Germany.
“There’s a real lack of transparency,” she said.
The observers took issue, for example, with a proposed project that would hand out $265 million in equity and grants to Geeref Next,
a Luxembourg-based investment fund that proposed to finance renewable
energy or energy efficiency projects in about 30 countries — with no
explicit plan to disclose what those projects would be.
The fund’s 24-member board approved the proposal.
The
board observers have also asked why the fund’s finances, set up to back
locally owned projects that reach the most vulnerable communities, were
going toward private-sector enterprises led by global investment firms —
like $110 million in loans and grants for solar projects in Kazakhstan led by London-based United Green Energy and the investment arm of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund.
Those concerns also went unaddressed.
- $25 million in equity and grants administered from Mauritius, a corporate tax haven, for off-grid solar power in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda;
- $50 million in loans and grants to repair a Soviet-era dam in Tajikistan, even though experts have warned that hydropower there is vulnerable to the retreat of the snow melt that feeds dams;
- $9 million in loans to a renewable energy project in rural Mongolia that observers worried would be used to power coal mining.
The Green Climate Fund also faces challenges on the donor front.
This
year, President Trump said the United States would no longer pay into
the fund — a snub that accompanied the Trump administration’s decision
to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
The United States had promised to contribute $3 billion — more than any other country, though less than other donors on a per-capita basis — of which the Obama administration delivered $1 billion.
Industrialized
nations have indeed pledged to generate $100 billion a year by 2020 to
help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and
address the effects of climate change. The fund has so far secured $10.3
billion in financing.
To
be sure, the climate fund has also enjoyed some notable successes,
including private projects. The off-grid solar projects in Rwanda and
Kenya, for example, have been praised for their focus on reaching remote
communities.
But
the board observers’ concerns underscore the challenges facing the
fund, now a pillar of the Paris climate pact, as negotiators gather this
week at United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
Critically,
the early mix of approvals has meant that less than a tenth of the
funding has gone to the kind of projects that make up the fund’s
mandate: those owned and controlled by the poorer nations themselves.
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| An aerial view of North Tarawa. The government has said rising seas and extreme storms “threaten the very existence” of the country. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times |
“There’s
little enough, as it is, of public funds for climate, and so much of it
is going toward sweetening returns for the private sector,” said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development and another observer on the fund’s board.
The
fund’s growing pains reflect the competing pressures — from its donors,
from the private sector, and from the countries it is meant to assist.
Eager to show taxpayers back home that the fund is being put to work,
donor countries have put pressure on the fund to ramp up its
disbursements. Similar pressures arise from bank’s need to raise private
investment to make up for the expected shortfall in contributions from
industrialized countries.
The
fund’s secretariat did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But in response to some of these criticisms, the bank has adopted a
monitoring framework meant to strengthen transparency at the fund. The
fund also recently set up an independent evaluation unit to assess the
effectiveness of its projects.
“I
hope we can learn, and learn fast, about what works for climate change
action,” Jyotsna Puri, the head of the new unit, said in an interview posted on the fund’s site last month. “Otherwise, just imagine the waste of resources.”
For
places like Kiribati, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Much of the
country, a string of atolls and reef islands that straddles the Equator,
lies no higher than six feet above sea level. The prospect of rising
seas and more extreme storms threatens “the very existence” of large
segments of the population, the government has said.
Officials
in Kiribati have said they desperately need funding for desalination
plants to provide safe water for the 110,000 residents of country, where
much of the water has become contaminated by seawater intrusion into
groundwater. The government is also seeking to elevate land on its main
atoll and invest in renewable energy to end the country’s almost
complete reliance on fossil fuels.
But with little diplomatic and financial heft, officials have struggled to secure funding.
“We can’t do it alone,” the president of Kiribati, Taneti Mamau, said in a video message before the Bonn meeting. “We need the hands of our partners and those who are ready to assist.”
The
fund has pledged to improve the quality of its projects. It is also
working to improve access for countries applying for smaller projects of
less than $10 million.
“Unfortunately so far, we have not taken the observers’ comments into consideration for our decision. That is true,” said Omar El-Arini, a member of the climate fund’s board. He stressed that his personal views were not representative of the entire board.
“But
we just started. There are competing interests — from countries, from
the private sector, and we are trying to wade through this maze of
conflicting interests,” he said. “We will get there.”
Kiribati
scored a small victory this year when it qualified for a $586,000 grant
to help the country prepare a new application to the fund.
The island nation, however, has also taken some heart-wrenching measures.
In
2014, Kiribati bought 8 square miles of land in Fiji, more than a
thousand miles away, as an insurance policy against the rising oceans.
Mr. Mamau stressed that migration from Kiribati would be an absolute last resort.
“The idea is to build Kiribati’s resilience,” he said. “We don’t believe that Kiribati will sink like the Titanic.”
Links
- What’s at Stake in the Bonn Climate Talks?
- Syria Joins Paris Climate Accord, Leaving Only U.S. Opposed
- Trump Team to Promote Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power at Bonn Climate Talks
- New Talks on Paris Climate Pact Are Set, and That’s Awkward for U.S.
- Here’s How Far the World Is From Meeting Its Climate Goals
- Climate Change Is Complex. We’ve Got Answers to Your Questions.
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