Developed countries urged to pay climate debt By Thao Nguyen | dtinews.vn Developing countries, including Vietnam need to attract more finance in an effort to mitigate the impact of climate change, according to an international expert.   Developed countries overexploited natural resources at the expense of poor countries Maria Theresa Nera-Lauron, Coordinator of the People's Movement on Climate Change and Programme Manager at IBON Foundation, Inc, made the proposal at a recent seminar in Hanoi on finance for climate change in Vietnam. The seminar drew the participation of 80 representatives from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, officials from international donors of GIZ, JICA, UNDP, non-governmental organisations as departments of natural resources and environment and departments of agriculture and rural development nationwide. According to Maria Theresa Nera-Lauron, developed countries must be responsible for paying for climate debt by providing finances and technologies to help poor countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. "Climate finance should be state funded but not privately financed. Many developed countries just provide climate finance for developing countries but don't make any changes to the technologies for industries in their countries. This is really unfair for poor countries," she emphasised. Climate debt incorporates two elements, adaptation debt that represents the compensation owed to the poor for the damage caused by climate change as well as emissions debts which is compensation owed for their fair share of the atmospheric space they cannot use if climate change is to be stopped. The Climate Debt Crisis released by the World Development Movement in 2009 showed that the UK owes the ‘global south’, generally the world’s poorest nations, more than £600 billion (USD940.9 billion) in total. She noted that climate debt compensation seems to have just focused on adaption instead of mitigation efforts. The Climate Finance Initiative 2011 showed that USD93 billion out of USD97 billion has been used for mitigation measures; only a very small share goes to adaptation efforts.   Over 80 domestic and foreign representatives attending the seminar on climate finance in Hanoi ODA used as state budget in Vietnam Dr. Le Van Minh, Adviser to the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for National Target Programme to respond to climate change (NTP-RCC), said the government of Vietnam approved NTP-RCC in December 2008 using VND1.965 trillion (USD93.72 billion) from the state budget for the 2009-2015 period. The programme would give priority to the building of climate change and sea water rise scenarios, building of action plans to respond to climate change impacts as well as enhancing communication capacity. Statistics by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment showed that the programme provided a budget of around USD7 million for 2010 and USD10 million for 2011. International development partners have continued to support Vietnam via the setup of Support Programme to Respond to Climate Change (SP-RCC) in 2009 with JICA and AFD being the first donors, they're followed by the WB, Australia, Canada and South Korea. SP-RCC provided USD140 million for 2010, USD220 million for 2011 and USD260 million for 2012. "All ODA provided for Vietnam have been considered as state budget funding and is used in accordance with the State Budget Law. The Ministry of Finance considers proposals based on criteria for climate change projects selection, inter-ministerial mechanism and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) mechanism and policies to decide investment for certain projects", he said. Around USD42 million may be financed for 13 projects on climate change for this year, he added.