The Guardian recently revealed contents of secret documents that show EU plans to use existing aid money to finance developing countries to reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change. This latest stance is in opposition to a key demand from developing countries and is a major threat to the success of negotiations starting next week.

One of the resounding demands from developing countries (non-annex I parties in UN jargon) is for new and additional funds for funding their adaptation to climate change. Under the existing United Nations Framework for Climate Change (UNFCCC), all climate change adaptation and emission reduction actions that happen in developing countries have to be funded fully by the richest of developed nations (annex II parties).

Developing countries estimate the amount of financing required to be at least USD 400bn annually, approximately 1% of cumulative GDP of the annex II parties. Keeping in mind the principle of historical responsibility, the developing countries further demand this finance to be treated as ‘entitlement’ and not ‘aid’.

The documents show that EU finds the requirement of financing to be ‘new and additional’ as unacceptable. Thus the pool originally pledged for development aid will be diverted to fund climate change actions. This would no doubt be a deal breaker for the poor countries who depend on the crucial aid to fund programs for hunger, poverty, health and basic infrastructure.

 Presently the EU estimates that USD 150bn might be committed annually at the COP15, although the division of burden among the developed countries is not clear. With the developed countries still recovering from the recession, their unwillingness to pledge more, though understandable, is going to be a major contentious issue in Copenhagen.

Last week Gordon Brown proposed a new USD 10bn climate change fund for developing countries amidst much fanfare, but even this money will come from other aid programs. This is a contradiction to UK’s previous statements calling for additional climate change financing.

Diverting development aid is counterintuitive because climate change exacerbates the very issues that the development programs target. Poverty, disease and hunger will only increase as the world becomes warmer. Vulnerability of the poor citizens is high especially because of their fragile economic and social conditions, the very things that development programs aim to improve.

The 50 nation strong African Union has already threatened not to sign any deal that will decrease their aid. As urgent it is to act on reducing emissions, development problems are undoubtedly more urgent. It would be infinitely inhuman and immoral to let people die of hunger while the money is used to fund expensive renewable energy or energy efficiency projects in an effort to reduce emissions.

With such an EU stance, achieving the voluntary pledges of emissions cut by developing countries such as Indonesia, Brazil, India and China seems improbable because they’ve clearly stated all their reductions had to be financed by developed nations.