Wealthy Countries Accused of Trying to Weaken Paris Climate Finance Rules

Climate negotiators are drafting rules for carrying out the Paris agreement, and they're stalemated on some key issues.  Poor countries fear they're losing ground.

The Paris climate agreement was just the first step.  Now the rulebook for how to carry out the accord is being written, and there are growing complaints that the United States and other wealthy countries are trying to manipulate the rules to protect polluters and weaken their own commitments.

This past week, climate negotiators from 178 countries were in Bangkok to draft those rules ahead of the United Nations climate conference in Poland in December.  UN officials on Sunday described the outcome of the talks as "uneven progress."  Activists who have been watching the talks were less charitable.

"When it comes to climate change actions, the message from the developed world to developing countries is:  'You just have to do it yourself'," said Mohamed Adow, the international climate lead for the group Christian Aid.

Two of most contentious issues, both still unresolved, are climate finance—the money needed to help developing countries deal with climate change—and transparency around how countries report progress on their Paris goals.

The U.S., Australia, and Japan proposed rules in Bangkok that critics say effectively would allow commercial loans, which would have to be repaid with interest, to count as climate finance contributions.  And China butted heads with the U.S. in arguing that developing countries should have more leniency in reporting their progress than developed countries.

"Progress has been made on most issues, but no issues have been fully resolved yet," Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said at the closing press conference.

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