‘Climate funding target unlikely to be met’
Former Maldivian President Nasheed warns that climate change scepticism harms vulnerable nations, urging developed countries to provide better financial support.
Climate change scepticism is hurting vulnerable nations particularly hard, former Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed said in an interview to Shashank Mattoo, referring to US President Donald Trump’s remarks at the UN last month. Speaking to HT on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings, Nasheed acknowledged that the $300 billion a year climate funding target agreed during last year’s COP29 summit in Azerbaijan was unlikely to be met. Nasheed, who currently heads the Climate Vulnerable Forum , called for developed countries to aid developing nations by cutting interest rates on green loans and defer repayments of climate related debt. He also welcomed the recent improvement in India-Maldives relations, crediting the upturn in ties to India’s willingness to bear criticism and stay engaged with the government in Malé
You’ve been in Washington for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. Do you leave these meetings with a sense of optimism or pessimism about the future of climate action?
Well, I am an optimist. I currently run the Climate Vulnerable Forum which represents developing countries, and we’re trying to come up with solutions. We understand the difficulties. Of course, the money for climate change programs is not coming and it’s never enough. Most of the 74 climate vulnerable countries we represent are spending sometimes up to 20% of our government revenue on debt repayment and another 20% easily on climate adaptation. So you can see that these countries would have very little money for health, education, housing and other infrastructure projects. We need a fundamental shift in the global financial architecture. So what we would be arguing for is this: if we reduce current interest rates on loans to developing countries to about 1.5-1.7%, our countries would make a huge saving. If we extend the payback period for loans from 20 years to about 30-40 years, our countries would make a huge saving. I think it’s possible to do this and no one is going to lose money on these changes. The leaders of the IMF and World Bank understand this. But both these organizations have shareholders and they are bound by what the shareholders say. We are therefore talking to the shareholders, and I am hopeful that things will change.
At the COP 29 summit in Azerbaijan, there was a commitment that developed countries would provide $300 billion annually in climate finance for developing nations. How much of that money has come?
People have been pledging money, but this money takes a long time to come. I remember in 2009 as President I when I first went to the COP Summit in Copenhagen, they promised $100 billion a year. I was trying to figure out where the $100 billion was going (to come from), but it wasn’t . So to be clear, the money is not coming. We need to look into innovative ways of bringing in money. The Paris Agreement, for instance, allows for carbon credits. So under the program of carbon credits, if you have a tree, then the world has to pay for you to maintain the tree. So the carbon credits need to come to maintain the biodiversity and forest levels. Some of it is happening now. For instance, Ghana has had a few transactions. Switzerland has paid them for carbon credit. I understand Singapore and Japan, Singapore and South Korea are also engaged in carbon credit transactions. You look at India. Your ecological service value with the amount of forests and biodiversity is huge.
You were at the UN General Assembly. President Trump’s speech was seen by many climate change denialism. What was going through your mind when you heard that speech?
Scepticism in science creates a huge impact loss for us. So when big countries are sceptical about what is happening, then it really doesn’t help us. But on the other hand, California is the fifth largest economy of the world, and we have an alliance of cities and states that do believe in it. So in a sense, these climate issues are more state issues and not a Washington DC thing.
But we are seeing real world impacts of this view. America has cut foreign assistance for climate projects. European nations, for budgetary reasons, are also cutting climate funding.
Everyone is cutting back on overseas development aid, and this is very wrong. I mean, just imagine the amount of things that they’ve done. We are facing the brunt of it with nothing that we have done. What did the Maldives do to have all these climate challenges? But as I mentioned, we are paying 20% of our revenue on adaptation.
Last year, we had a bit of a confrontation between India and the Maldives, but now things seem to be back on track. what did you think about the whole saga?
Well, it’s very unfortunate. We’ve had a situation where, with every election, the pendulum swings. When I was President of the Maldives, we had more alignment with India. But when the opposition wins, it goes to more alignment with someone else. Now what I did this time was I backed the opposition. The whole point was to see that we have a stable foreign policy, irrespective of who comes in. Now, of course, when President Muizzu came in the first few months, a lot of rhetoric was going .... I know India has broad shoulders and thick skin, and (the ability) to keep at it. And finally, it (the relationship) has turned around. So we now have a situation in the Maldives where both sides of the political spectrum have good relations with India. So I think this is good. Why should India be an election issue? India doesn’t have expansionist ideas. The Maldives have been there for so many hundreds and thousands of years, and India has been there, and we’ve been living happily. No one is trying to come up here and do anything wrong. So I think people clearly have understood that this was very, very, very wrong. You can always fire emotions, xenophobia and nationalism in any society.
