Climate loan sharks

By Emma Rubach, collumist for The Big Issue

There’s been a lot in the press recently about the fact Britain’s aid budget is one of the few areas of public spending not facing cuts. Despite detractors wondering how we can spend money overseas when we don’t seem to have much to spend at home, the government has been vocally proud of its commitment to helping poor countries out of poverty and to reaching the Millennium Development Goals.

Unfortunately, a recent report by campaign group World Development Movement (WDM) suggests that while we’re giving with one hand, we could be taking away with the other, thanks to the decision to offer climate adaption loans to poor countries through the World Bank. Much like the payday loan companies who target vulnerable people in need, desperate countries on the frontline of climate change will be offered cash to help adapt to the problems climate shifts create. The World Bank appears to be offering a kindly leg-up in a time of need – but as we cash strapped folk well know, all loans have to someday be paid back.

As WDM points out, it’s unfair to expect developing countries whose emissions could fit into a thimble to pay for the damage rich countries have done to the atmosphere – a little like a rude neighbour driving their car into the side of your house and then offering to loan you the money to fix it. There’s also a question mark over whether the World Bank - long the bogeyman of international aid – is the right organisation to be in charge of administering the cash.

Concerned as we are with our own shrinking pay packets, why should we care? Put simply, back in 2005, we tried to make poverty history. While we didn’t succeed, the notion that ending extreme poverty might be achievable became an established, workable possibility. Climate change adaption loans slyly threaten this progress, contributing to a new spiral of debt when the promise of freedom so recently seemed just within reach.
 
This piece was originally published in The Big Issue