Paris climate accord pledge of $100 bn still a distant dream, shows study

Wealthy countries are falling well short of their pledge to provide $100 billion a year to developing countries by 2020 as part of the Paris climate accord, a report published today said.

Of the $111 billion invested in clean energy technologies only $10 billion was provided by rich countries, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The pledge was first made at a Copenhagen summit in 2009 and confirmed by signatories of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The $100 billion, to be raised from multiple sources including from the private sector, was intended to be a minimum, with nations expected to set a new goal by 2025.

UN negotiators meeting in Bonn, Germany, this week are trying to work out how to implement the Paris accord, which aims to keep warming at "well under two degrees Celsius" (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

But US President Donald Trump has pulled his country out of the deal, and analysts have warned that other national leaders may struggle to find the funds to match their ambitions.

On Monday, Standard and Poor's released a report questioning where the money would come from, citing a need for many countries to increase budgets and debt burdens to finance their pledges.

"In our view, it is very unlikely that governments would be willing, or able, to risk deteriorating their creditworthiness by stretching their budgets and debt burdens to fund the implementation costs," the analysts wrote.

But Bloomberg New Energy Finance also said that developing countries needed to improve legal frameworks in order to make investments in clean energy more attractive, both for public and private investors.
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Has the moment for environmental justice been lost?

Given how President Donald Trump has taken aim at the Environmental Protection Agency with regulatory rollbacks and deep proposed budget cuts, it may come as no surprise that the Office of Environmental Justice is on the chopping block.

This tiny corner of the EPA was established 24 years ago to advocate for minorities and the poor, populations most likely to face the consequences of pollution and least able to advocate for themselves.

It does so by acting as a middleman, connecting vulnerable communities with those who can help them. It heads a group that advises EPA officials about injustices and another that brings together representatives from other federal agencies and the White House to swap proposals.

When it works, all the talk leads to grants, policies and programs that change lives.

In the Arkwright and Forest Park communities in Spartanburg, South Carolina, residents were living near contaminated industrial sites and a landfill — and dying of respiratory illnesses and cancer at extraordinary rates. They used a $20,000 environmental justice grant from the EPA as seed money to form partnerships with local businesses and government agencies. Those alliances, in turn, helped bring more than $250 million in infrastructure, community health centers, affordable housing, environmental cleanups and job training to the area.

Trump's budget proposal would effectively eliminate the office and the $2 million it takes to operate it. An EPA spokesperson suggested in a statement that the agency doesn't need a special arm devoted to environmental justice to continue this work.
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