Japan, France, Germany, the United States and other wealthy nations are reaping billions of dollars in economic rewards from a global programme meant to help the developing world grapple with the effects of climate change, a Reuters review of United Nations (UN) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data shows.
The financial gains happen as part of developed nations' pledge to send US$100 billion a year to poorer countries to help them reduce emissions and cope with extreme weather.
By channeling money from the programme back into their own economies, wealthy countries contradict the widely embraced concept that they should compensate poorer ones for their long-term pollution that fueled climate change, more than a dozen climate finance analysts, activists, and former climate officials and negotiators told Reuters.
Wealthy nations have loaned at least US$18 billion at market-rate interest, including US$10.2 billion in loans made by Japan, US$3.6 billion by France, US$1.9 billion by Germany and US$1.5 billion by the United States, according to the review by Reuters and Big Local News, a journalism programme at Stanford University.
That is not the norm for loans for climate-related and other aid projects, which usually carry low or no interest.
At least another US$11 billion in loans – nearly all from Japan – required recipient nations to hire or purchase materials from companies in the lending countries.
And Reuters identified at least US$10.6 billion in grants from 24 countries and the European Union that similarly required recipients to hire companies, nonprofits or public agencies from specific nations – usually the donor – to do the work or provide materials.
Offering climate loans at market rates or conditioning funding on hiring certain companies means that money meant for developing countries gets sent back to wealthy ones.
"From a justice perspective, that's just deeply reprehensible," said Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Washington branch of the Heinrich-Boll Foundation, a German think tank that promotes environmental policies.
Analysts said grants that require recipients to hire wealthy countries' suppliers are less harmful than loans with such conditions because they do not require repayment. Sometimes, they said, the arrangements are even necessary – when recipient countries lack the expertise to provide a service.
But other times, they benefit donors' economies at the expense of developing nations.
That undermines the goal of helping vulnerable nations develop resilience and technology to cope with climate change, the climate and finance sources said.
"Climate finance provision should not be a business opportunity," Schalatek said. It should "serve the needs and priorities of recipient developing countries."
Many of the conditional loans and grants Reuters reviewed were counted toward developed nations'pledge to send US$100 billion a year by 2020 to poorer countries disproportionately harmed by climate change.
First made in 2009, the commitment was reaffirmed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Roughly US$353 billion was paid from 2015 through 2020. That sum included US$189 billion in direct country-to-country payments, which were the focus of the Reuters analysis.
More than half of that direct funding – about 54 per cent – came in the form of loans rather than grants, a fact that rankles some representatives from indebted developing nations such as Ecuador. They say they should not have to take on more debt to solve problems largely caused by the developed world.
Countries of "the global south are experiencing a new wave of debt caused by climate finance," said Andres Mogro, Ecuador's former national director for adaptation to climate change.
At the same time, several analysts said, rich countries are overstating their contributions to the US$100 billion pledge, because a portion of their climate finance flows back home through loan repayments, interest and work contracts.
Echoing years of pleas from developing nations, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has publicly urged wealthy nations to offer so-called concessional loans, with very low interest rates and long repayment periods.
This makes them less costly than those sold on the open market. UNFCCC and OECD had no comment for this report. UNFCCC instead referred Reuters to Stiell's past remarks.
About 18 per cent of climate loans from wealthy countries, or US$18 billion, were not concessional, the UN reports from 2015 through 2020 show.
These totals are likely underestimated, given that it is voluntary for wealthy nations to report to the UN whether their loans were concessional.
* The writers are from Reuters