Crossroads's Blog | Copenhagen: It’s All About the Money

Crossroads's Blog | Copenhagen: It’s All About the Money: "Copenhagen: It’s All About the Money
Posted by: Guay on September 2, 2009 at 1:33PM PST

Wu-Tang unwittingly summed up one of the central problems preventing international action on climate change with their hit song: Cash Rules Everything Around Me (CREAM). The rap giants whose famous financial advice was to “diversify your bonds son!” is well heeded when it comes to the international politics of climate change. Financing is central to any deal that may come out of Copenhagen and not surprisingly developed countries like the United States have very different views on the issue compared to their counterparts in the developing world. These views hinge on two fundamental issues: who controls the money, and how much of it there is. In short, it’s all about CREAM.

For their part, developing countries are demanding that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) controls the flow of finance committed to a potential international deal in Copenhagen. They want and need this to happen, because without UNFCCC control they have no input into the crucial decisions on how the money is spent.

Their concerns reflect the decades of western-centric development aid that has been focused through a few high-powered channels-think the World Bank and the IMF-that have in many cases enriched western countries and contractors, while leaving developing countries worse off than they were prior-think Confessions of an Economic Hit man, large scale dams and the displacement of indigenous populations. Developing country negotiators are not fools; they understand how the West’s aid financing works and they are looking to circumvent the damaging ways of the past by increasing their control over future financial flows through the UNFCCC."