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Analysis

Climate change: $100bn pledge is a welcome headline but 'a fudge' to some of those at risk

As hosts of next week's climate summit COP26, the UK will be relieved to have announced the plan - but some fear it's too little too late.

File photo dated 22/04/21 of Business Secretary Alok Sharma. The Daily Mail has reported that the Cop26 president has flown to 30 nations in the last seven months, six of them on the red list, without self-isolating. Issue date: Friday August 6, 2021.
Image: Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister in charge of the UK-hosted COP26 talks, today unveiled the $100bn plans
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The announcement that rich countries have finally delivered the promised $100bn in climate funding for low income nations provides a welcome headline for the UK government.聽

As host of COP26, it will be relieved to announce that one of its key aims of the Glasgow summit has been achieved.

But a look beyond the headline reveals a less rosy picture.

This cash was promised in 2009 and was supposed to have been delivered by 2020.

The blunt truth is that the rich countries have fallen short, and won't make the $100bn mark until 2023, at which point they will start to over deliver to make up the short fall.

It means that the total averaged over five years will hit the threshold.

But for those lower income nations, desperate for more support, being years late is a big deal. It impacts trust heading into the COP26 summit, at a time when trust is a crucial currency.

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But the real devil is even further in the detail.

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There is precious little in the announcement about adaptation funding - simply put, money for climate-vulnerable places to protect their people, economies and infrastructure from the changes that are already locked in as a result of global warming.

Getting more funding for sea walls and moving homes away from the coast may not sound as exciting as grand projects to reduce carbon emissions, but for those who need help to do it, it is a matter of survival.

One senior representative of a climate-vulnerable nation has told me that some within the coalition of low-lying nations will think that the $100bn announcement is "a fudge".

There are also those who fear that the UK government has pushed the announcement out ahead of COP26 in order to gain maximum positive publicity and avoid being drawn in to an in-person row in Glasgow about the details.

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Joe Biden pledges the U.S. will double the money it's making available to help developing countries cope with climate change.

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