Over 160 Citizen Groups from Dozens of Countries Endorse UN Global Climate Fund: International Call for Fund Outside World Bank

(POZNAŃ)—On Thursday, December 11, over 160 citizen groups from dozens of countries are releasing a statement that calls for the establishment of a major new Global Climate Fund under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These groups argue that such a fund would be a vital component of any new global climate agreement that involves the large-scale transfer of financial resources from rich to poorer countries in order to help these nations reduce the emissions that cause global climate change.

Signing on from dozens of countries on every continent, these groups include a number of leading environmental, indigenous, climate justice, debt justice, development and other organizations, including Oxfam International, ActionAid, Friends of the Earth International, Third World Network, the International Forum on Globalization, and the Institute for Policy Studies. (The full list of signatories is available online.)

This citizen statement builds upon a proposal made earlier this year by the Group of 77 developing nations and China that such a new fund be created, and that World Bank climate finance funds not be counted towards industrialized country governments’ obligations in any existing or new global climate agreement. The statement offers principles to guide the establishment of the new fund in ways that take advantage of the dynamism that citizen groups can bring toward solving the climate challenge.

"Social movements and poorer nations have responded to the climate crisis with a global blueprint for a just solution,” Says Victor Menotti, Deputy Director of the International Forum on Globalization. “The challenge now is to build enormous momentum over this next year to make history happen at the UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009."

"Hundreds of billions of dollars will need to be channeled to the poorest and hardest hit regions of the world as the world's climate careens more out of balance,” said Daphne Wysham, a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. “This statement, endorsed by organizations representing millions of people around the world, recognizes that existing institutions are not up to the task while calling on the UN to ensure the creation of an institution that is democratic, transparent and accountable to those who will need its resources most.”

For more information:
Victor Menotti, International Forum on Globalization
vmenotti@ifg.org, +1-415-351-8065 (www.ifg.org) (In Poznań until Dec. 13)
Janet Redman, Institute for Policy Studies
janet@ips-dc.org, 48-665-703-989 (www.ips-dc.org) (In Poznań until Dec. 11)
Daphne Wysham, Institute for Policy Studies
daphne@ips-dc.org, 202-510-3541 (In Washington, D.C.)

Read the statement (http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/268.html)