Substantially raise EU support to people hit by climate change in developing countries, say MEPs
The EU has a moral obligation to provide more support to vulnerable populations subjected to climate change in developing countries, said development MEPs on Thursday.
The draft report adopted in the Committee on Development by 15 votes for, nine against and one abstention calls on the EU and its member states to “radically scale up their actions” to help developing countries cope with climate change. It is “a moral obligation to do much more” because developing countries are the least responsible for global warming while emissions by developed countries have remained dominant, MEPs state.
The Commission should prepare a strategy for a “substantially reinforced EU contribution” to limit the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations in developing countries. The Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, the EU’s new external policy tool, must ensure dedicated resources to this purpose, while its rapid response tools must be used to prevent and manage climate related crises, MEPs say.
Further measures suggested in the draft report include:
- increasing the resilience of the population by reducing general vulnerabilities (caused by poverty, inequality, lack of social protection) and climate-change specific ones (loss of housing and livelihood, disproportionate burden on women);
- promoting sustainable and resilient agriculture;
- provision of funds, technical assistance to developing countries to mitigate, manage and adapt to climate change and boosting of climate finance, prioritising grants-based financing; and
- press for stronger international action to address the rapidly worsening debt situations of developing countries, so as to give them more fiscal space for adaptation to climate change.
Climate change as legal base for asylum
The international community must recognise that migration is inevitably becoming an ever more important response to climate change, say MEPs, proposing international cooperation to manage climate-induced migration by, among others, recognising it as a legal base for granting asylum. They call on the Commission and the Member States to consider climate change-induced livelihood destruction as an eligibility criterion for humanitarian protection.
Mónica Silvana González (S&D, ES)
“We need to address climate change as a cause that directly threatens human rights, including the rights to life, food, water and health. It can undermine countries’ development prospects, acting as a risk multiplier of drought, famine and forced displacement. This report proposes a strategy to place the most vulnerable populations in the centre of humanitarian action and the external dimension of the Green Deal", the rapporteur said.
Background
Impacts of climate change - hurricanes, floods, landslides, extreme heat waves, droughts, forest fires, sea-level rise, permafrost thawing, decline and displacement of flora and fauna - affect developing countries the most. The poorest populations in these countries, including women who make up 70% of the world’s poorest, are even worse affected.
According to the World Bank, by 2050 over 143 million people in Latin America, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are likely to move within their own countries to escape the slow-onset impacts of climate change unless effective measures are taken.
Next steps
The draft report now goes to the full House that is expected to vote on it at its April plenary session.
Contacts:
-
Eszter BALÁZS
Press Officer