Over 160
Citizen Groups from Dozens of Countries
Endorse
UN Global Climate Fund:
International Call for Fund Outside World Bank
(POZNAN)-On Thursday, December
11, over 160 citizen groups from dozens of countries are releasing
a statement
that calls for the establishment of a major new Global Climate Fund
under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
These groups argue that such a fund would be a vital component of
any new global climate agreement that involves the large-scale transfer
of financial resources from rich to poorer countries in order to help
these nations reduce the emissions that cause global climate change.
Signing on from dozens of countries
on every continent, these groups include a number of leading environmental,
indigenous, climate justice, debt justice, development and other organizations,
including Oxfam International, ActionAid, Friends of the Earth International,
Third World Network, the International Forum on Globalization, and
the Institute for Policy Studies. The full list of signatories is
available on
line.
This citizen statement builds
upon a proposal made earlier this year by the Group of 77 developing
nations and China that such a new fund be created, and that World
Bank climate finance funds not be counted towards industrialized country
governments' obligations in any
existing or new global climate agreement. The statement offers principles
to guide the establishment of the new fund in ways that take advantage
of the dynamism that citizen groups can bring toward solving the climate
challenge.
"Social movements and poorer
nations have responded to the climate crisis with a global blueprint
for a just solution," Says Victor Menotti, Deputy Director of
the International Forum on Globalization. "The challenge now
is to build enormous momentum over this next year to make history
happen at the UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009."
"Hundreds of billions of
dollars will need to be channeled to the poorest and hardest hit regions
of the world as the world's climate careens more out of balance,"
said Daphne Wysham, a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
"This statement, endorsed by
organizations representing millions of people around the world, recognizes
that existing institutions are not up to the task while calling on
the UN to ensure the creation of an institution that is democratic,
transparent and accountable to those who will need its
resources most."
