June 5, 2011

On the occasion of World Environment Day, CARE calls on negotiating parties of the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference to speed up their efforts and ensure adequate financing of a pro-poor Green Climate Fund, as agreed at last year’s Climate Change Conference in Cancun.

“With commitments in the Kyoto Protocol expiring next year, the next months are vital for developing a global agreement that addresses the needs and rights of people living in poverty. The majority of these people are women and girls and they are on the front line in the fight against climate change,” says Tonya Rawe, CARE’s Senior Policy Advocate. “The decisions required are clear: We need a comprehensive Green Climate Fund with real money to address real problems in developing countries and vulnerable communities. At the same time, we need ambitious emissions reductions targets to stop the global momentum towards catastrophic climate change.” The Green Climate Fund was established to manage multilateral funding for climate change activities in developing countries. “But at the moment, it is at risk of being nothing more than an empty coffer,” Rawe says.

The UN Climate Change conference takes place on June 6-17 in Bonn, Germany, in the two weeks following today’s World Environment Day. Negotiators in Bonn need to seriously address the lack of finance for poor people and vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change. “Adaptation is woefully underfunded,” Rawe says. “Parties drafting the climate change agreement need to recognise that addressing adaptation now is less costly – in dollars and human lives – than dealing with food insecurity, climate-induced migration and disaster relief later.”

Ensuring that global adaptation funding helps build communities’ adaptive capacity and, in some cases, reduce people’s exposure or sensitivity to climate change impacts is a priority for CARE at the Bonn meetings. To that end, CARE will also be closely observing how the Climate Fund and adaptation planning processes are being set up to ensure  that vulnerable populations are involved in decision making and that the needs of women are prioritized in the way funds are allocated. “The devil is in the details. Even with substantial funding, we must diligently monitor the talks to check that planning processes include people from vulnerable countries, and that funding reaches the people who need it most,” Rawe concludes.

CARE focuses its adaptation efforts on the world’s most vulnerable populations – especially women and other marginalized groups – as they try to cope with a wide array of impacts. But women are not just vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; they are important agents of change. For example, in Ecuador, poor farmers in Papallacta are struggling to feed their families due to unpredictable and more intense wind, frost and cold. They can no longer rely on traditional agriculture knowledge passed down from their elders. In response, CARE is training farmers – many who are illiterate women – in how to use natural resources and new agroforestry techniques that help them adapt to the changing climate.

“In the countries where we work, CARE has seen the resilience of people who are facing climate change – including more severe droughts, floods and typhoons. We have seen them rebuild their lives after disaster strikes. We have seen them fight for a daily wage to feed their families when they can no longer rely on predictable rainfall for their crops,” Rawe says. “What we need now is for our politicians to put the same determination into the climate change negotiations.”

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Contact for photos; more information:

Kathryn Richards, Senior Press Officer CARE International UK: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Tamara Plush, Communications Coordinator Poverty, Environment and Climate Change Network This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Contact in Bonn during UN Climate Change Conference:

Sandra Bulling, Communications Officer, CARE International - Geneva
telephone +41.22.795.1033 / fax +41.22.795.1029 / mobile + 41.792.056.951
email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it