Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The Marrakesh COP22 climate conference has ended – and green groups are just waking up that without US financial support, nobody has committed any money to anything.

COUNTRIES APPEAL TO TRUMP OVER CLIMATE CHANGE AS COP22 ENDS

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have welcomed the united front displayed by nearly 200 countries in Marrakesh in the face of Donald Trump’s campaign threat to quit the Paris accord on climate change.

The UN negotiations concluded in Morocco in the early hours of Saturday with an agreement to hammer out a rulebook by 2018.

Last year’s Paris Agreement left many details vague, such as how countries will report and monitor national pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The final text also urges rich nations to keep building towards a goal of providing 100 billion dollars a year to help developing countries address climate change.

But some agencies are disappointed by a lack of concrete targets.

“I’m a little worried by the lack of financial support to help poor countries adapt. This conference has been taking place in Africa, it was generally agreed that there should be more money, but in concrete terms unfortunately these decisions failed to materialise,” said Lutz Weischer, team leader on international climate policy at Germanwatch.

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