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Stop people from being locked into poverty with climate loans

Email The Secretary of State for International Development and demand that the UK stop giving climate funds as loans, locking the world’s poorest people into further unjust debt.

Stop people from being locked into poverty with climate loans

Rich countries have become rich through a model of industrialisation that has pushed the planet to the brink of catastrophic climate change.

In a world with limited capacity to absorb carbon emissions, we have already used more than our fair share. We now owe a massive climate debt to the world’s poorest people.

But instead of paying it's climate debt, the UK is currently giving a large percentage of climate funds as loans, which will lock the world’s poorest people into further unjust debt.

Help WDM stop this by writing to the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, demanding that loans are turned into grants and that future money are not given through the undemocratic World Bank.

Write to Andrew Mitchell

Help us turn loans into grants by writing to Andrew Mitchell.

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Message
Dear Secretary of State, The world’s poorest people are suffering disproportionately from climate change. Failing crops, loss of access to water and increased diseases are destroying people’s lives. As one of the biggest historical and current emitters, the UK owes a massive climate debt. But the UK is currently giving a large percentage of climate funds as loans, which will lock the world’s poorest people into further unjust debt. I want you to ensure that: *The UK’s loan to the World Bank’s Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience is turned into a grant  *Future climate money is given to funds which give grants, such as the UN Adaptation Fund, not through the undemocratic World Bank. Yours sincerely,

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Copenhagen outcomes

The shambolic climate conference in Copenhagen last December was far from what was needed to stop catastrophic climate change. Leaders failed to agree a pathway for rich countries to either cut their emissions, or to pay the climate debts they owe to the global south. These debts are owed as compensation for the irreversible damage rich countries have caused as they have got rich through a model of development that has led us to the brink of a climate catastrophe, and also for consuming more carbon than the planet is able to absorb safely, leaving little space for developing countries to follow the same path.

All China’s fault?

In the aftermath of Copenhagen, the EU and the US have done a great spin job in blaming the failure on China. We’ve produced a Question and Answer sheet so you can brief yourself. This reported story is far from the reality of what was happening inside the conference centre.

Read our tricky questions here (PDF format)

Bullying and Bribery?

Developed countries came to the table in Copenhagen with nothing but bribery, bullying and other dirty tactics. One delegate even said that the tactics used in Copenhagen were worse than anything they had ever seen used by the WTO. Private discussions, tactics of divide and rule, and open financial bribery were all used to try and get developing countries governments to sign a deal that would not benefit them.

Find out more about these dirty tactics

100 billion for climate finance?

Another myth that has been pushed though the media is that the EU and the US have offered generous sums of money. Again, as is so often the case, the devil is in the detail and though seemingly large figures have been thrown around, the reality doesn’t match up to the headlines, with this money being taken from existing aid budgets, and being given as loans not grants through the mistrusted World Bank. See WDM’s briefing on the reality of the figures talked about in Copenhagen and read the story covered in the Guardian.
 

Find out more about climate change

Climate change is like eating a slap-up meal then handing the bill to the world’s poor
- Ricardo Navarro, El Salvador

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity. But it is not just an environmental issue, it is a development issue, and a global justice issue.

It is our excessive carbon emissions that are driving climate change. Rich countries are responsible for almost three quarters of global emissions. But it is poor countries that are bearing the brunt of the impact. Hundreds of millions face drought, floods, starvation, disease and death.

WDM is calling on the UK government to take action to reduce the UK’s emissions and show the rest of the world that it can be done. WDM is campaigning to stop climate injustice.

For more info all of our climate change briefings and reports are also online.

The impacts

160,000 people are already dying each day because of climate change. The poorest in the world are the most affected by climate change yet they are the least responsible.

Flooding: Vast areas of land will become submerged as sea levels rise with increasing temperatures. Countries such as Bangladesh are already experiencing extreme flooding. 

Drought: As temperatures increase droughts worsen. Droughts will endanger the food supply of hundreds of millions of people. 

Disease: With temperatures on the rise, warmer wetter weather will increase the number of mosquitoes which spread diseases such as malaria. Malaria is increasing in Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya as a result of a changing climate.

The responsibility

Rich countries, like the UK, owe their prosperity to decades of overuse and reliance on fossil fuels and are historically responsible for 70 per cent of manmade carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Our whole way of life is based on burning things like coal, oil and gas. We burn them for our cars and planes, our heating, our factories and for electricity. But it doesn’t have to be like this. Rich countries have a moral responsibility to lead the way towards a low carbon economy.

The solution

Climate change is happening but we can stop it becoming catastrophic.  This means keeping the increase in average global temperature to less than 2°C. Internationally an agreement is needed to ensure that, at the very least, this goal is met. Following a campaign for a climate change bill, the UK government has agreed to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

But the government seems fixed on market based solutions to get us out of the problem – like carbon trading. But we cannot buy our way out of the effects of climate change. To effectively tackle climate change we need our government to lead the way in reducing emissions, showing the rest of the world that it can be done.

WDM is calling on the UK government to:

• Reduce emissions in the UK by stopping high carbon projects like Kingsnorth coal power station and Heathrow airport expansion, and investing in renewable energy.
• Provide funding and technology transfer to developing countries so they can fight poverty and develop in a low carbon way.
• Support far-reaching targets to reduce global emissions at the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009.

Take action now.

In-depth climate change information

This page features the latest briefings and reports about our climate change campaign.

Briefings tend to be shorter (2-3 pages), more concise summaries of our campaign policy which are ideal if you want to get up to speed with our campaign quickly.

Reports are longer (30-100 pages) in depth documents which WDM produces to influence policy makers and governments.

If you would like to request paper copies of our materials, please get in touch.

All our materials are provided in PDF format. Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Download the reader here

Climate Justice Now! network

The World Development Movement is part of the Climate Justice Now! network, which is a southern-led coalition of around 150 organisations and movements campaigning for a globally just and effective solution to the climate crisis.

Climate Justice Now! principles

Communities in the global south as well as low-income communities in the industrialised north have borne the toxic burden of this fossil fuel extraction, transportation and production. Now these communities are facing the worst impacts of climate change - from food shortages to the inundation of whole island nations.

Inside the global climate negotiations, rich industrialised countries have put unjustifiable pressure on southern governments to commit to emissions reductions. At the same time, they have refused to live up to their own legal and moral obligations to radically cut emissions and support developing countries' efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts.

Climate Justice Now! will work to expose the false solutions to the climate crisis promoted by these governments, alongside financial institutions and multinational corporations - such as trade liberalisation, privatisation, forest carbon markets, agrofuels and carbon offsetting.

We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but on the ground and in the streets, to promote genuine solutions that include:

• Leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate energy- efficiency and safe, clean and community-led renewable energy;
• Radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in the north, but also by southern elites;
• Huge financial transfers from north to south, based on the repayment of climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, innovative taxes and debt cancellation;
• Rights-based resource conservation that enforces indigenous land rights and promotes peoples' sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water;
• Sustainable family farming and peoples' food sovereignty. We are committed to building a diverse movement locally and globally for a better world.