Delegates and activists are now departing Cancún as the United Nations Climate Change Conference adjourns. As expected, negotiations did not lead to major new treaty, but a meaningful - albeit small - step was made by creating the Green Climate Fund. This fund will finance climate adaptation projects designed to help protect poor communities from the affects of climate change. Click here to read an Oxfam blogger's report on the agreement.
The World Bank, interim trustee of the fund, estimates that adequate climate adaptation costs will be between $70 billion to $100 billion annually from 2010 - 2050. Estimates from other entities are higher. It's a staggering sum, but an investment that pales to the disastrous financial and human costs of failing to prepare developing states for climate change. The Cancún decision does not include commitments on exactly how the Green Climate Fund will be financed. So, we applaud the fund's creation but do so while pledging to continue our campaign to stop harming the environment and start helping those threatened by climate change with strong adaptation funding.
Update, 15 December 2010:
A Care2 blogger's review of the Cancún agreement.
Remarks on the Green Climate Fund from Oxfam New Zealand.
