Paris Climate Talks: Getting Down to Business on Day 3
LE BOURGET, France — The world leaders have left the building, and the negotiators at Le Bourget are getting down to business. Topic No. 1 is no surprise: money.
When the schedule of Wednesday’s events at Le Bourget was posted in the morning, one item, listed as “special announcement,” popped out immediately: A two-hour closed-door meeting described as an “open consultation on the finance process.”
The finance process is crucial to the success of the climate change negotiations. As always, it goes back to Hillary Clinton’s 2009 pledge in Copenhagen that rich countries would mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to the ravages of climate change and to make the expensive transition to cleaner energy sources from cheap fossil fuels.
But what does “mobilize” mean? If you ask an American diplomat, it means that money will mostly come from private investment, and that it will flow through institutions like the World Bank and regional development banks. If you ask negotiators from the poor and vulnerable countries who would receive the money — drought-parched African countries, low-lying island nations — they will say they want to see that money nailed down in public spending.
In the United States alone, it would be politically impossible to appropriate the amount of money required to meet that $100 billion global commitment. The estimates are that the United States would be on the hook for about $20 billion annually. President Obama has pledged to appropriate $3 billion over three years, and just that amount is under fire on Capitol Hill.
Another big question is emerging about the money: The $100 billion was initially conceived as a way to help poor countries invest in cleaner energy sources to cheaply reduce their emissions. Such spending, while it still might flow through the World Bank or other financial institutions, could still come in the form of investments on projects, like, for example, a utility-scale solar plant in India, that would yield profits for a private entity.
But in the years since, as the effects of climate change began to be felt across the globe, poor countries said they saw more and more need for money to simply adapt to their changing environments — everything from sea walls to water desalination plants.
That spending does not yield a profit, but studies show that the need for it is growing. Where will it come from?
These questions will be the driving force behind the rest of the talks.
Meanwhile, as Mr. Obama returns home, Congress is sending him two resolutions that would block his domestic climate change regulations in hopes of sending a message to Paris. He will veto the legislation, but there is more to come in the next two weeks.
The Obama administration will continue its full-scale press at the talks, with the arrival of the agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, who will speak at three side events about the links between climate change and food security.