Fw: [FDC-e] URGENT PLEASE TAKE ACTION!!! Climate Finance Action Alert # 2 [4 Attachments]

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Rich De Los Santos

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Sep 8, 2011, 4:07:37 AM9/8/11

to women's committee e-group

[Attachment(s) from Lidy Nacpil included below]

Dear Friend and Colleages,

Please find below and attached the Climate Finance Action Alert # 2. We are also attaching other documents referred to by the Action Alert.

In these next days leading up to and during the Transitional Committee meeting on Sept 11 to 13 -- PLEASE CIRCULATE the Action Alert and get INDIVIDUALS and ORGANIZATIONS to:

1. Send the email actions (#1 on WB Out of GCF and #2 on Private Sector & GCF) - click both links - www.worldbankoutofclimate.org/?p=536 for #1 AND www.worldbankoutofclimate.org/?p=601 for #2 (Copies of the two email actions are also pasted below)

2. Send the letters to Ambassadors of Mexico, South Africa and Norway - template letter and addresses provided

3. Send Letters to the Editors of newspapers in your country - template letter provided

Spanish versions will be sent soon!

Many thanks!

Lidy

Climate Finance Action Alert Number 2

This Climate Finance Action Alert aims to facilitate collective and coordinated actions on climate finance issues. Climate finance is needed urgently by the people of the South to enable them to deal with the impacts of climate change and pursue an alternative development pathway for equitable and sustainable societies. It is an obligation of northern countries because of their historical responsibility for causing the climate crisis. Climate justice movements have been advancing demands regarding 1) the scale and nature of climate finance, 2) sources, 3) a global climate fund, 4) allocation and use. Climate finance campaigns also include resisting and protesting the use of climate finance to promote policies and projects that are harmful to communities, workers, farmers, fishers, indigenous peoples, women and other marginalized groups.

For the 3rd Meeting the Transitional Committee of the UNFCCC Sept 11 to 13

The Role of the World Bank Role and Private Capital in the Green Climate Fund

The Transitional Committee of the UNFCCC* will be holding its third meeting on September 11 to 13 in Geneva Switzerland. Debates are still raging over many issues falling under governance and structures, sources of funds, operations, allocation and accountability.

The role of the World Bank in the Green Climate Fund is a big debate in the Transition Committee. A key demand of climate justice campaigners as well many South countries (“developing countries”) is that the World Bank not be given a role in this new global climate fund given its track record in harmful projects and policies, undemocratic structures and operations, its neoliberal development paradigm, and its involvement in dirty energy. This was the subject of the email action we launched last July during the time of the 2^nd Meeting of the Transition Committee. We must continue delivering this message, but with greater force through bigger numbers and forms of action.

The relationship between the private sector and the Green Climate Fund is another major debate among members of the Transitional Committee. With the United States in the lead, representatives of rich industrialized countries are insisting that the private sector be the main source of climate finance. Claiming that they cannot mobilize enough public funds, they say public contributions should be used as a means to leverage private finance. This refers both to how to raise funds for the GCF as well as how funds from the GCF can be used.

This is clearly and evasion of developed countries’ obligation to provide sufficient, predictable financing to cover the costs of adaptation and mitigation of South countries, as agreed the in international climate convention. Worse, reliance on private capital and market-based instruments for climate finance will render public interests to be subordinated to the pursuit of profit, and thus subverting the principles and purpose of climate finance. While the private sector may play a role in climate programs – this role should be decided and regulated by South countries at the country level through sovereign and democratic processes.

We urge all movements, organizations and individuals to intervene in the process so that the outcomes of the Transitional Committee will be consistent with the principles of historical responsibility and accountability and bring us closer to a just, equitable and livable planet.

Join us in immediate actions:

1. Bring about another, stronger wave of email actions calling for “World Bank Out of the Green Climate Fund! “ MOBILIZE INDIVIDUALS TO OPEN THE LINK www.worldbankoutofclimate.org/?p=536 and sign & send the email

2. Join a new email action on the Private Sector and the Green Climate Fund MOBILIZE INDIVIDUALS TO OPEN THE LINK www.worldbankoutofclimate.org/?p=601 and sign & send the email

3. Send letters addressed to the Ambassadors of Mexico, South Africa and Norway in your cities. These countries are the Co-Chairs of the Transition Committee. The letter and list of fax numbers & email addresses are attached

4. Send letters to the editor of newspapers expressing your concerns as citizens. You can use template attached

* The Transitional Committee -- A new global climate fund that will be responsible for managing and disbursing climate finance for the South has been the subject of climate justice campaigns and of international climate negotiations. One of the “decisions” of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC last December 2010 in Cancun was to set up the “Green Climate Fund” or GCF. A “Transitional Committee” was formed with the task of drafting the design of the GCF and submitting it for adoption at the COP in Durban, South Africa in December 2011.

Jubilee South – Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development JSAPMDD * Africa Jubilee South AJS * Jubilee South Americas JSA* Jubilee South * Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance PACJA * Third World Network TWN * EURODAD * Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives * LDC Watch * South Asia Alliance on Poverty Reduction * SEAFish * Migrant Forum Asia * Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives ARENA * NGO Forum on the ADB * Alternatives Asia * 11.11.11. Belgium * World Development Movement WDM – UK * Jubilee Debt Campaign UK * Jubilee Scotland * Jubilee USA Network * Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns USA * SLUG Norway * Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale CRBM Italy * Alliance Sud * ATTAC Japan * Daughters of Mumbai Kenya * Equity BD Bangladesh * VOICE Bangladesh * International Campaign on Climate Refugees’ Rights (ICCR) Bangladesh * Bangladesh Krishok Federation * SUPRO Bangladesh * Nabodhara Bangladesh * Resource Integration Centre Bangladesh * Community Development Learning Society Bangladesh * Jatiyo Sramik Jote Bangladesh * Unnayan Onneshan Bangladesh * KRuHA Indonesia * Solidaritas Perempuan-Women's Solidarity for Human Rights Indonesia * WALHI/Friends of th Earth Indonesia * Koalisi Anti Utang Indonesia * Indian Social Action Forum * River Basin Friends India * mines minerals and Peoples India * Nadi Ghati Morcha India * Himalaya Niti Abhiyan India * Monitoring Sustainability of Globalization Malaysia * National Network on Right to Food Nepal * All Nepal Peasants' Federation Nepal * Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum * Centre for Environmental Justice/ Friends of the Earth Sri Lanka * Kenya Debt Relief Network * Faith Based Congress Against Immoral Debts * Philippine Movement on Climate Justice * Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino * Sanlakas Philippines * Plateforme Haitienne de Plaidoyer pour un Developpement Altrernatif PAPDA Haiti * LATINDADD * Ecologistas en Acción Spain * Climate Justice Project Centre for Civil Society University of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa * African Forum for Alternatives Senegal

Text of Email Action # 1 For TC Members: World Bank Out of Climate Finance

To Members of the Transitional Committee

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Climate finance is needed urgently by billions of people in developing countries, to enable them to deal with the impacts of the climate crisis and shift to alternative sustainable, equitable development pathways.

As members of the Transitional Committee, your task of preparing the proposal for the design of the Green Climate Fund will be crucial as to whether climate finance will be appropriately sourced, equitably disbursed and fully used to serve its purpose.

It was much to our dismay that the World Bank was appointed as Trustee of the Green Climate Fund for the interim period. Its role should end there. It should not be given a place in the regular structures and operations of the Fund. Our experience and knowledge of the World Bank lead us to believe it is not an institution that should be entrusted with such a Fund

The World Bank’s undemocratic structures and lack of full transparency and accountability is opposite to how we expect the Green Climate Fund to be governed and managed.

Its operations as a lending institutions stand in contradiction to what should be the principles of fair and effective climate finance. Climate finance must not come in the form of loans or other debt-creating instruments.

The World Bank has a long track record of aggressively promoting fossil fuel projects and other programs that exacerbate climate change and harm the environment. An institution that actively promotes the causes of global warming should not be given a role in global climate finance.

The World Bank actively privileges the private sector and private capital markets over public interests.

Climate finance must be used to support the public good. It must come in the form of public resources, and not rely on market-based programs for its generation and application.

We urge you to keep the World Bank and other multilateral development banks out of the Green Climate Fund. This is a reiteration of the message of past letters and statements from civil society groups all over the world.

Signed:

Text of Email Action # 2 For TC Members: On the Private Sector and the Green Climate Fund

Dear Members of the Transitional Committee,

It is alarming that the role of the private sector and private finance is being heavily emphasized in discussions on the design and operations of the Green Climate Fund.

For the Green Climate Fund to truly serve its purpose in accordance with the principles of historical responsibility, equity and justice, we believe that --

The core contributions to the GCF should be predictable, additional and public. Private donations are welcome but private funds that expect a return on investments are contrary to the principles and purposes of climate finance.

The GCF should not use speculative and other instruments to raise capital on financial markets. The parceling of bonds into derivatives, and investments in carbon markets, are excessively risky from a financial and environmental perspective. The current volatility of the world’s stock exchanges provides a clear reminder that such tools are hardly the basis for the kind of stable, sustainable approach to financing that the GCF requires if it is to meet its aims.

The GCF should support country-driven programs. The use of these funds should be determined by developing countries and informed by sovereign, participatory planning processes.

Private sector participation is best decided, managed, regulated and incentivized at the national level, in the context of a national strategy. Thus:

The GCF should not have a stand-alone private sector window
The GCF should not channel money directly to multinational investors and corporations or through financial intermediaries
The GCF should not provide incentives directly to the private sector.

Such actions may pose serious risks to the achievement of a country-driven process.

We urge the Transitional Committee to break from business as usual and pursue a transformational path to sustainable development and resilient communities.

__._,_.___

Attachment(s) from Lidy Nacpil

4 of 4 File(s)