India, other BASIC nations question OECD report

India along with other BASIC nations today questioned a recent OECD report which claimed that significant progress has been made on USD 100 billion fund for developing nations to mitigate climate change and sought a transparent mechanism for better accounting of financial flows.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had recently come out with a paper in partnership with Climate Policy Initiative 'Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the USD 100 billion goal', claiming significant progress has been made on a roadmap for USD 100 billion a year climate change financing by 2020 and USD 62 billion has already been given.

In 2009, industrialised countries had pledged USD 100 billion to developing nations to help them fight the challenge of climate change.
"Double accounting is not the real numbers. It does not reflect the real numbers," Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said.
The BASIC is a bloc of four large newly industrialised countries - China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
South African Environment Minister Edna Bomo Molewa said that countries agreed that finance must come from all the sources and although OECD has come out with a report, the reality remains that nations were not part of putting together the narrative behind what is being calculated.

"We agreed that finance must come from all sources. OECD did some work in terms of calculating what has already gone into climate finance. The report has come up with USD 62 billion. The reality remains that parties of the world that are gathered here, were actually not part of putting together the narrative behind what is being calculated. As minister Javadekar pointed double accounting cannot be accounted for.

"We still have to agree as parties under UNFCCC that what is it that is counted, what amount is meant for what. This process can be complicated if we do not have mechanism of accounting and what we are calculating.

Similar reactions were echoed from Environment Minister
of Brazil Izabela Teixeria who said it was important to know about accountability and transparency.
"It's important to know about accountability and transparency. That's we are working hard to get a good agreement in Paris. What is the real number. We are not talking about pledges but the disbursement. You need (to) show the numbers, the sources (of funds)," she said.
China also maintained that the calculation was not unified and there was also an issue of double accounting.
"The calculation is not unified and there is a double accounting issue. Transparency is a very important approach. Developed countries are saying we provided USD 62 billion, developing are saying we have not received it.

"You should clearly report how much they report and to whom? If we have a such kind of system, then there will be no more questions like. The OECD numbers have not been acknowledged by developing countries, this shows it is something we need to address to get a process or mechanism into the system," said Xie Zhenhua, China's Special Representative on Climate Change.
India had earlier said the report is "deeply flawed and unacceptable" and raised questions on its "correctness".