World set to miss goal of $100B climate aid pledged to poor

Senior officials from Canada and Germany who were tasked with breaking a deadlock in negotiations ahead of next week's summit announced that current data shows the goal won't be reached until 2023 — three years later than agreed.

Berlin: A target for rich countries to provide poor nations with $100 billion in aid each year to tackle global warming will be missed, officials said Monday, dealing a blow to the upcoming U.N. climate talks in Glasgow.

Senior officials from Canada and Germany who were tasked with breaking a deadlock in negotiations ahead of next week's summit announced that current data shows the goal won't be reached until 2023 — three years later than agreed.

"While developed countries have significantly scaled up their support over the last decade, new analysis shows the $100 billion goal was unlikely to have been met in 2020 and is likely to also fall short in 2021 and 2022," the officials said in a statement.

They expressed confidence that "developed countries can mobilize more than $100 billion per year" from 2024 onward, but that is unlikely to satisfy poor nations, who have insisted that the original target must be met.

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"The $100 billion of climate finance is not only a lifeline to poor and vulnerable communities on the front line of a climate crisis they did not cause, it's also the bare minimum that rich countries need to do to hold up their end of the bargain at COP26," said Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based environmental think tank Power Shift Africa.

Adow warned the plan now submitted to the UK to take to the COP26 talks in Glasgow should not be considered "mission accomplished."

"Poor nations will not be conned and the leaders of the developed world need to ... get this money on the table if COP26 is going to be a success," he said.

AP