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In a conversation with The Quint USAID's chief, Samantha Power speaks about climate crisis and the need for climate finance. She comments on the climate plans of the US, US President Joe Biden facing heat from the the US Congress, the need for increasing green funds, paying losses and damages to developing countries and more.
Power has been a journalist, professor and a Pulitzer-winning author. From 2013 to 2017, she served in the Obama-Biden Administration as the 28th US Permanent Representative to the United Nations. During her time at the UN, Power played a key role in rallying the countries to ratify the Paris climate agreement among among other important initiatives.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
Addressing domestic politics on climate change, administrator Power says, "US President Biden has made unprecedented requests of Congress in order to dramatically increase climate finance. We will see a major increase in our global climate finance in this coming year, more climate finance than ever before has been appropriated."
When asked about the impact of climate change, she adds, "Honestly, climate change is making its presence felt in every one of our communities."
Calling out the climate critics in the US, she says "the fact that it (climate change) is with us that it is ubiquitous, that the effects are just being felt right now, in some sense, sooner than some scientists even predicted, I think really makes it untenable for political opposition of the kind that has afflicted this agenda in the United States."
"And that's where people's priors and whether they believe that debt spending is bad for the economy or good for the economy, or whether they want to trust science or not, and I'm, I'm sad that there's even a debate about that, kind of come in. And that's where we've been blocked."
"But even if sometimes they don't call it climate change programming, we might have more success as USAID in running food security resilience programming, or infrastructure resilience, or disaster response, or even the humanitarian assistance budget this year in many ways is about helping people.
It is climate change assistance, but it's not called that."
Administrator Power says, "We're invested in adaptation finance, and that is the approach we understand. We have heard very loudly, of course, from developing countries who feel like wait, this is unfair.
You all emitted in these ways, and we're the ones paying the price for that."
Adding to the US commitment to climate finance, she adds, "I do think you're going to see increased investments every year. President Biden has committed to something called the Prepare initiative, which is an adaptation initiative, that should be up to $3 billion a year."
She says, "One of the reasons that we have struggled domestically in the United States to move in an even more aggressive way toward net zero, because I think President Biden wants to get there sooner, and none of us can afford some of these longer timelines that we're all on, but it may not be framed as just transition in the United States, but it's a feeling that there will be winners, and there will be people left behind for sure."
During the transition period there need to be social safety nets, that too often had been lacking, when people make abrupt transitions. That said, we don't have time, really, to spare as we develop these kinds of buffers, so as to ensure that we can simultaneously grow green jobs, and look out for people who are not only transitioning because of the the move to renewables but we have to have just transition and adaptation as well.
Talking about how US commitment to climate change took a hit under President Trump, Power says, "Even though President Trump, President Biden's predecessor, moved away from the Paris Agreement, of course, famously questioned the science of climate change. Mayors and companies and states, including California which is an emitter larger than many countries, is also now an emissions reducer on an accelerated timeline more than most countries."
So the private sector recognizes that and that's why even large American car companies are all transitioning in some fashion to renewables, electric cars, and so forth.
But, we need all of our societies to come together. And in order for that to happen we have to reconcile our economic objectives, looking out, particularly for people who are living at or beneath the poverty line with these climate objectives, but bearing in mind that climate change is going to destroy so many livelihoods.
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