After days of intense negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh, countries at the latest UN Climate Change Conference, COP27, reached agreement on an outcome that established a funding mechanism to compensate vulnerable nations for ‘loss and damage’ from climate-induced disasters. 20 November 2022 Credit: United Nations

By Inge Kaul
BERLIN, Nov 29 2022 (IPS)

For decades, there have been non-conclusive deliberations regarding how the international community could support poor and vulnerable countries in their efforts to cope with and recover from the havoc wreaked on their territory by the ill-effects of global warming such as severe droughts, floods, storms, or rising sea levels.

At the COP27 climate summit, this issue figured for the first time as a separate item on the agenda; and, as one of their very last-minute decisions, delegations even agreed to establish a dedicated loss and damage fund (LDF). However, the question of how to operationalize, notably resource the fund was left open.

A “transitional committee” is to be created to examine possible funding options and report to COP28, which could then, eventually, decide on the LDF’s operationalization.

Remembering the many press photos showing the despair written into the faces of people, whose houses and fields were destroyed by floods, or the blank stares of those sitting next to the cadavers of their cattle killed by severe drought conditions,

I feel that business as usual—namely, taking it easy in delivering on funding promises (as we have seen it in the case of the $ 100 billion annual climate-finance promise) — would be an extremely immoral and unethical behavior in the present case.

Therefore, let’s waste no time and start to explore where one could find money fit for the purpose of loss and damage support.

In the following, I argue that only one – still to be established – source will generate on a relatively reliable and predictable manner the longer-term stream of public finance required, as a minimum, for creating a solid basis of LDF core funding.

The funding source to be agreed and established as a matter of highest urgency are UN assessed contributions for climate security.

Money fit for the purpose of loss and damage support

However, at the outset, it is perhaps important to clarify that support for loss and damage should not be confounded with humanitarian assistance delivered as a prompt crisis-response measure.

Disaster may strike countries haphazardly, irrespective of whether they are poor or rich, vulnerable or not. All countries may need or, at least, somehow benefit from immediate and fast-disbursing, short-term humanitarian assistance in cash or kind.

How best to organize such short-term humanitarian assistance is also an important issue that deserves more attention. However, it is an issue beyond the scope of this article.

Therefore, let’s now turn to the specific issue of what type of external support could be most useful for “climate victims”, notably poor and vulnerable countries struggling to rebuild their communities and economies.

An entity such as the newly established LDF and the money that, one day, it might have at its disposal, are governance tools. Like any other tools they should be fit for the purpose at hand.

Considering for now mainly the core funding that the LDF needs to have, it should perhaps have three key characteristics, namely be: (1) public finance; (2) patient, that is, designed for the longer-term; and (3) relatively predictable in its availability.

The reasons are that, typically, a country’s vulnerability to severe climate events is a complex multi-dimensional phenomenon to which both structural factors (e.g., the countries geographic position and size) and non-structural factors (such as its development level) contribute.

Thus, by implication, meaningful loss-and-damage support is likely to be required for several years, maybe, even for a decade or more. This should not come as a surprise, because even in developed countries rebuilding efforts have often been a lengthy process.

Moreover, in the case of small-island developing countries, it could even be that parts of the population need to be resettled to start their life anew.

Initially, patient, predictable public finance may constitute the most important source of funding. As the rebuilding process advances, the public funds could also play an important role in helping to mobilize other resource inflows, including private investments.

Or, they could be twinned with adaptation finance and other types of climate finance, as well as official development assistance.

Making the case for UN assessed contributions for climate-security, including loss and damage support

By now, there exists broad-based agreement that our security today depends on more than the security of our countries’ external borders and on more than the control of within-country conflicts and violence.

As US President Joe Biden, noted in his statement to COP27, military security today is only one dimension of our security, next to climate and food security; and, as COVID-19 taught us, next to global health security.

The security threats we are facing are global in their reach; they tie us together in a web of manifold interdependencies. They require all hands-on deck, or no one will be secure. The United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) is, therefore, correct in pushing for a “Climate Solidarity Pact.”

Thus, it is timely to ask: Why do we have, within the UN, only an established system of assessed contributions to support efforts aimed at keeping and restoring military security? Why not also assessed contributions – a solidarity-based pact – to climate security?

Among the reasons that strongly speak for this financing option are several. First, such contributions could be introduced for, say, an initial period of 20 years, subject, of course, to regular monitoring of their functioning and impact.

Evidently, they would provide the type of reliable and predictable long-term public finance that the LDF needs.

Second, agreement on a UN funding scale for climate security would help end the present continuous tussle among countries over who should contribute how much. The UN assessment scale for determining individual countries’ contributions to climate security would be based on a joint decision by member states.

Besides income (capacity to pay) one would, in the present case, certainly also consider past and current per-capita emission levels and other relevant factors.

Many aspects of the proposed funding source still need further élaboration and consultations. However, let’s start at the beginning and encourage a world-wide dialogue on the pros and cons of the following issues.

Should we: (1) consider climate security, notably that of vulnerable countries, as a global security issue; and (2) grant climate security the same financing privilege that military security enjoys, namely, to benefit from assessed contributions paid by all UN member states according to a formula that aims at promoting climate security and justice?

Why not ?

Inge Kaul is a fellow at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany.

IPS UN Bureau

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On 25 February 2022, people shelter in a school during ongoing military operations in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: UNICEF/Victor Kovalchuk/UNIAN
 
“We must help Ukrainians to help each other through this terrible time. We and our partners are committed to supporting all those affected, in accordance with the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence, and humanity-- Secretary-General António Guterres in remarks at launch of Ukraine flash appeal, 1 March '22

By Inge Kaul
BERLIN, Mar 4 2022 (IPS)

The majority of the world wants peace. This is clear by now. Just consider the many large-scale anti-war demonstrations taking place around the world; and the outpour of solidarity and support for the people in the Ukraine and the more than one million Ukrainians who fled from their country.

Or think of the resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 2 March 2022, condemning not only the Russian Federation’s decision to launch a military offensive against Ukraine but also its decision to increase the readiness of its nuclear forces.

These actions are in clear violation of the UN Charter; and, within only a few days’ time, they have shown once again that military interventions cause unconscionable pain and destructions on the side of the warrying parties themselves and, directly and indirectly, also for the world at large. Most importantly, in and by themselves, they fail to resolve the underlying causes of conflict.

Yes, the UNGA resolution of is of historic importance, given that 141 out of a total of 193 UN member states voted for it. However, what historic follow-up of is being planned?

To me, the operative paragraphs of the resolution sound too much like ‘business as usual’. For example, in its paragraph 7, the resolution calls “upon the Russian Federation to abide by the principles set forth in the Charter and the Declaration on Friendly Relations”; and in its paragraph 14, it “[u]rges the immediate peaceful resolution of the conflict … through political dialogue, negotiations, mediation and other peaceful means”.

Yet, who is to break the spiral of violence? The resolution is silent on that. A historic UNGA resolution deserves an equally historic follow-up.

Therefore, Mr. Secretary-General, please, do what you promised in your tweet following the General Assembly vote on the Ukraine. You said: “I will do everything in my power to contribute to an immediate cessation of hostilities and urgent negotiations for peace.”

In my view, you are the person who could bring the involved parties back to the table to dialogue and jointly search for ways to silence the guns and restore peace. You need to lead.

The reason is that peace is a global public good (GPG). Once it exists, even if it is only peace within a particular region, it is there for all, the whole world, because it is an important contribution to global peace.

As many other public goods, the GPG ‘peace’ is likely to suffer from collective action problems. Each of the concerned parties will wait for the other parties to step forward and initiate change.

Mr. Secretary-General, you could be the one to step forward first. I would even say, you must step forward. A core principle of the UN Charter has been violated; and a strong majority of UN Member States want military operations end.

The matter is too serious to wait and see whether one or the other Member State or a group of Member States may launch a ‘stop the war’ initiative. You are the most legitimate person to play this role.

Moreover, some time ago, you reminded the international community that, if there is a war to fight, then it is the war against global warming. One could add further global battles that all of us need to fight and win together, including that against COVID-19. We have no time to lose.

Therefore, Mr. Secretary-General, my request to you is to consider the following steps:

• Announcing that you will, as soon as possible, host a high-level meeting in Geneva the primary goal of which is to end the military operations in the Ukraine and start the search for a return to peace;
• Inviting all the concerned parties, including the Russian Federation, Ukraine, NATO members, representatives of the EU, UK, Australia, Japan and perhaps others to the inaugural meeting;
• Aiming at achieving at the first meeting agreement on follow meetings needed to consolidate the rewon peace;
• Appointing two or three eminent personalities to assist you in this peace negotiation process; and
• Publishing an open letter in select Western and Russian newspapers as well as on the world’s most important news websites and blogs requesting Russian business oligarchs to consider contributing to a dedicated Ukraine Peace Fund that you, Mr. Secretary-General, would establish for the purpose of mobilizing some US$ 100 billion needed to finance humanitarian assistance, peacebuilding and reconstruction efforts in the Ukraine and compensate neighboring countries of the Ukraine for any extra burdens the war may have placed on them.

Mr. Secretary-General, irrespective of whether you take the aforementioned steps and/or others, but please, ensure that there will be a historic follow-up to the historic UNGA resolution of 2 March 2022.

The world is waiting for it.

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By Inge Kaul
BERLIN, Germany, Apr 3 2020 (IPS)

My recent study on “The G20@10: Time to shift gears” ¹ shows that, during the past decade, the main joint, collective action of the G20 has been to issue communiqués and other types of statements.

As a group, G20 Leaders have expressed concern about all kinds of challenges, recommitted themselves to goals already agreed in other multilateral meetings or –even repeatedly – stated in earlier G20 communiqués.

They have also lauded other entities for actions they have taken or asked others, such as the IMF, OECD, the World Bank or other international agencies to consider taking one or the other policy measure.

They have even promised they will take action individually or seek to bolster their coordination – not necessarily among themselves but, for example, with the private sector.

Inge Kaul

During the virtual G20 Leaders’ Summit on 26 March 2020 they continued this behavioral pattern. Their joint statement opens with the words: “The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic is a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness and vulnerabilities. The virus respects no borders…We are strongly committed to presenting a united front against this common threat.” However, what follows then? Words – promises on paper, no concrete, tangible action.

Again, leaders state: they “are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life” and that they are “committed to do whatever it takes to overcome the pandemic”, including, among other things, to “support and commit to further strengthen WHO’s mandate”, undertake “immediate and vigorous measures to support our economies”, “mobilize development and humanitarian funding”.

But no mention of specific initiatives that some or all of them will jointly undertake, no figures and target dates specifying the amount of additional money they will put on the table.

Of course, I am not expecting the G20 suddenly, due to COVID-19 to take on an operational role. However, I would have expected that, this time, they would have acted differently: lived up to the exceptional scale and urgency of the crisis the world confronts.

For example, they could have decided to act as lead investors in a global mission-oriented project, perhaps executed, by the World Bank, in close collaboration with WHO and other multilateral development banks or other appropriate agencies, and aimed at establishing a sizeable special fund that could be used to bulk-purchase face masks (if and when available), security equipment and gowns for hospital staff, beds, medicines and, in due course, vaccines –in order to make these supplies available at affordable prices to poorer developing countries.

An action like this would, in my view, have added some credibility to the last sentence of the G20 Leaders’ communique of 26 March 2020, which says: “We will protect human life, restore global economic stability and lay out solid foundations for strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth.”

Unfortunately, an important opportunity of building trust and offering hope to the world during these difficult times was missed.

¹ See, (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2019.1694577?journalCode=rsaj20).

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Primary School students in Grenada are seen here working together to promote awareness on water conservation on World Water Day. Credit: Global Water Partnership

By Inge Kaul
BERLIN, Germany, Mar 20 2020 (IPS)

Water is essential and indispensable for life on earth. We know that; and many of us have perhaps heard, written and uttered these words themselves a ‘million’ times.

Therefore, I am astonished and increasingly worried about the relatively low-level of attention and priority accorded to water at the practical-political level.

Certainly, quite some attention has been paid to increasing people’s access to safe drinking water and sanitation services; and important progress has been achieved in this respect.

However, what will happen to this achievement, in the case of water scarcity – when pipes run dry? For many people and countries, an estimated one quarter of the world’s population, dried-up water pipes are not only a hypothetical risk but already reality.

Analysts warn that the spillovers from water scarcity can be serious and many.

Agricultural and industrial production, mining and transport could, for example, be disrupted, economic growth falter, social tensions, conflict and, even, war be funneled, leading, in turn, to swelling flows of internal displacement and international migration. Importantly, while some spillovers may ‘just’ be of local, national or regional reach others will be worldwide. Just think of the high volume of so-called virtual water trade.

About 40% of Europe’s water footprint is virtual water, i.e. water embedded in imported goods, including goods from water-stressed countries.

Clearly, water stress is a global challenge. It concerns us all, current and future human generations, animals and plants – the planet as a whole.

Given these facts and figures, isn’t it odd that policymakers tend to treat water as, what I call, a second-tier policy issue, i.e.: as a good (thing) that matters, because it is needed for the production of desired first-tier policy outcomes, such as wheat, maize, avocados, bananas, cotton (including cotton clothes), urban development and road construction, lithium mining, or swimming pools and other spa-facilities?

Water as an input is in high demand. Many need it; and forward-looking investors have already obtained water-use rights. Not only land-grabbing but water-grabbing, too, could soon intensify, as global warming proceeds.

But global warming is only one driver of water scarcity besides population growth and increasingly water-intensive production and consumption patterns. Water, too, is a most complex good and, importantly, one that is available only in limited supply, even if we manage its use carefully.

All the more to govern it efficiently and equitable so that it can meet to basic conditions viz. (i) be there for all and (ii) be used sustainably.

However, who is in charge of water at the national and international levels? Where is the global intergovernmental water forum mandated to address water as a global policy issue in its own right and complexity – a first-tier issue?

And who would be the national counterparts of this global intergovernmental water forum?

My impression is that we urgently need to build a global water architecture that deals with the various national and international, public and private facets of water in a comprehensive and integrated manner and is endowed with competencies and resources commensurate with water’s essential role for life on earth.

Therefore, on 22 March, this year’s World Water Day, let’s not just pour out more nice words about water as a human right or that progress towards SDG 6 should be scaled-up and accelerated. We said it all before. Let’s shift policy gears and translate words into deeds!

This year’s Water Day is the 27th! In three years, we will celebrate the 30th anniversary of this Day which was proclaimed in 1992 by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and observed, for the first time, in 1993.

Therefore, my recommendation to concerned UN Member States, civil society and business is: Please, do consider requesting the UN Secretary-General to establish a small special commission on water security to hold worldwide multi-actor and stakeholder consultations on national and international water governance, report on its findings in the autumn of 2021 so that delegations have time in 2022 to prepare for a high-level debate and decision-making on a new global water governance architecture in 2023 –in honor of the 30th World Water Day.

Aren’t you, too, thirsting for water security, for doing first things first?

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By Inge Kaul
BERLIN, May 6 2019 (IPS)

This year’s annual “SDG Global Festival of Action” was held in Bonn, Germany, from May 2–4, 2019. The festival’s overall aim is to gather campaigners and multiple stakeholders from around the world at one place for interaction with each other; furthermore, it seeks to inspire them to scale up action in support of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set forth in the 2030 Agenda adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

As can be seen from the festival website, it is a dynamic event awash in the specific color codes of the various SDGs. About 1,500 “festival-goers” meet and chat in the hallways, share information, or listen to brief interventions—some lasting just 2 minutes—by an array of speakers commenting on a wide range of topics.

They also enjoy cultural performances and SDG-related films screened in different formats, such as 2D, 3D, as well as virtual and augmented reality. Award ceremonies and evening parties are held and, on top of this, the festival fireworks light up the skies over the river Rhine.

However, one is compelled to ask: why hold a festival? Why use fireworks? Why should we have a good time at the banks of the Rhine when there is still a long way to go to achieve the SDGs?

The ill-effects of global warming continue to wreak havoc. In some parts of the world, people and animals starve because of droughts caused by climate change; in other parts, harvests are being destroyed and houses swept away by torrential rains and floods.

Lives are still being cut short because of the unavailability or unaffordability of medicines. Inhuman working conditions, including those prevailing in factories and mines producing goods for export to the world’s rich and super-rich, are still being tolerated.

Human trafficking is still rampant, as are various forms illicit trade and tax evasion. War, international terrorism, and conflict continue to persist, increasing the number of people forcibly displaced within their own country, as well as the number of refugees and international migrants.

So, it is worth wondering what would be the reaction of refugees, who are living in camps and hardly have any real prospects of change in their living conditions, if they have a functioning smart phone and would be able to see pictures of the SDG Global Action Festival and the fun-filled activities held in Bonn?

Would they accept them as part the effort toward “leaving no one behind,” a commitment enshrined in paragraph 4 of the 2030 Agenda? Would these pictures not seem like a cruel and twisted joke to the people caught up in the devastating war in Yemen and the conscience-shocking humanitarian crisis that followed it?

I want to make it clear that many of the contemporary global challenges do not adversely affect only those living in the Global South. People in the Global North also increasingly suffer from rising inequality, relative poverty, unresolved financial problems, and mounting uncertainty about their future living conditions.

This includes uncertainty about managing the risks and tapping the opportunities, such as those arising from the digitalization of economies, as well as the development and application of artificial intelligence and other new technologies. In fact, many Northern consumption and production patterns negatively affect the living conditions of people in the South; further, many of the South’s unresolved problems spill over into the North.

Thus, progress toward meeting the SDGs still faces a number of obstacles that require major reforms in the global economy and an improvement in the functioning of the system of international cooperation.

Therefore, this is not the time for fun travel from one international SDG meeting to another, a pattern that has become rather popular after 2015. Although networking, information sharing, and storytelling can be useful policy tools, there is no justification yet for holding a festival or getting into a festive mood.

In fact, doing so can be construed as signaling a lack of respect not only for the deprived among the current and future generations, but for the planet as a whole.

Even as we face many challenges today, we possess the knowledge and the resources needed to tackle them. The key missing element, which prevents scaled-up and accelerated progress, is the willingness to start “walking the talk,” that is, to act unilaterally and, as and when necessary, collectively with the requisite sense of urgency on the most pressing, high-risk challenges.

Such a shift from slow to quick policymaking calls for a worldwide action on part of the truly determined, realistic yet ambitious change advocates urging policymakers to act now and to do all what others cannot do better to ensure that problems not only get addressed in a piecemeal manner, off and on, but rather actually get resolved decisively.

This could revitalize the global public’s and policymakers’ willingness to cooperate and innovate and move us forward toward global sustainable growth and development.

To facilitate the emergence of such a strong worldwide movement of change advocates, the series of annual “SDG Festivals” could be discontinued and the UN could encourage the festival partners: (1) to lend their support instead to the hard work of transformative change, while holding in check festivities and the fireworks until we see real progress; and (2) to use available resources to offer a global platform for interaction and cooperation to the recently sprung-up but steadily growing and already world-spanning movement of “Fridays for Future.”

The bottom line is – if we fail to effectively limit global warming, many other developments, however big or small, may come to naught. In the longer run, we might even find that “Fridays for Future” was the beginning of a durable innovation in global governance: the beginning of a “future generations council” (perhaps under the umbrella of the United Nations) aimed at fostering an enhanced balance between policymaking for the short and the longer term.

* The author can be reached at contact@ingekaul.net

¹ For the full text of the 2030 Agenda, see: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf/
² For more information on the Festival, see https://globalfestivalofaction.org/

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By Inge Kaul
BERLIN, Jul 24 2017 (IPS)

When the finance ministers of the G7 countries proposed the G20 in the late 1990s, a good sense of realism prevailed. They recognized that addressing issues of global finance required the political support from—and involvement of—emerging market economies.

Inge Kaul

At its creation, the G20 was thus meant to facilitate coordination, cooperation and problem-solving among key actors in a specific policy field, which then was global financial stability. The G20 was not meant to be a jack-of-all-trades, offering welcoming words and restating support for long-accepted and previously reconfirmed goals, as most subsequent G20 summits did.

Why had there been so little real progress? What concrete measures would be taken? Neither question was asked let alone answered—to avoid a spiral of reiterations at subsequent summits.

Not solving the most pressing problems

So far, the G20’s record of practical follow-up to its communiqués has been less than sterling. But this could reflect its shift from solving the most pressing problems to considering all possible facets of a more desirable world.

Forget for a moment the failure to clearly add value. What would the 2017 Hamburg summit have done, if it had stuck to the original G20 idea and approach? Which one or two global key challenges could it have focused on to suggest concrete measures?

One focus could have been mass starvation in Africa, with a clear promise to augment, in a meaningful way and within a few days, financial and other support for the UN Refugee Agency and the World Food Programme. A second could have been mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Even if only 19 of the 20 had stated what concrete breakthroughs they would make on the Monday morning following the Hamburg summit, much could have been gained by inspiring others to ratchet up their corrective measures. Why was such a determination to lead not in evidence?

Trend away from multilateralism

Many factors come into play. Among them might be that the G20 has increasingly been promoted as a core element and driving force of the ongoing trend away from genuine multilateralism to increasing minilateralism and club-based global governance.

The G20 agenda has been loaded with diverse issues, and the preparatory processes have accordingly been broadened to afford many parties a chance to raise their pet topic and see it in the summit communiqués. That would also give them a sense of importance as they commented on how to run the world, while the other 173 countries and their people could only observe the summits from the sidelines.

Would the world miss something if such G20 summitry were stopped? Not really. It is important for world leaders to talk and to consult each other. However, plenty of opportunities exist for that.

Just think of the high-level segment of the United Nations General Assembly each September, or the regular Bretton Woods meetings, or the many global conferences convening heads of state or government, or such informal meetings as the Syrian Peace Talks.

There is no scarcity of opportunities for world leaders to announce intentions and explore common ground. What is rare is translating words into action—and into action that is up to the challenge.

Time to revisit the role of the G20

Despite nearly 10 years of G20 summitry, the list of unmet global challenges is lengthening and the human, political, environmental and economic costs of global crises are mounting. So wouldn’t this be the time to revert to the original G20 concept as a global forum for announcing concrete measures to resolve—not just chat about—the most pressing global challenge?

Any other challenges could be taken up in other multilateral forums. And if leaders feel that these challenges also deserve attention and solution, they could instruct their representatives at those forums to announce their country’s ongoing or planned corrective actions—to lead by example and make a real difference that all would perceive as fostering sustainable and inclusive growth and development. How, then, to engineer such a return of the G20 to its original purpose?

Argentina, as the host of the next G20 summit, would be well positioned to initiate debate on this issue and to invite views and suggestions on what should be the basic features of a system of global governance fit for the 21st century and on what should be the potential role of the G20 within this system alongside other informal bodies of various groups of state and non-state actors. Perhaps, it could do so together with the hosts of the last two G20 summits, China and Germany.

The best outcome would be for the G20 leaders to recognize that the G20 is not the right forum to decide on a new, reformed system of global governance that will affect all countries and to instead encourage debate on this issue at the United Nations. This could also be a way for the G20 to clarify its future role and eventually, in whatever form it may continue, to invite less opposition and enjoy more political acceptance, legitimacy and effectiveness.

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