Climate change: genuine policies or elaborated scams? According to Transparency International, millions of dollars in the industry are wasted in corruption.

In his award-winning movie “An inconvenient truth”, the former US vice-president, Al Gore, tried to illustrate that the climate is changing, that the earth is warming up. Five years later, billions of dollars are earmarked to fight or alleviate the effects of climate change.

But where does the money go? Certainly where it is most needed. However, some of these countries, like Madagascar, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the northern African region, are among the most corrupt nations in the world.

Dollars
“We’ve studied the installation of solar panels in North Africa and found that weak governments, bureaucracy and corruption could inflate investment costs by 20 percent”, says Lisa Elges from Transparency International, the anticorruption organisation.

She adds: “The project was supposed to cost 400 billion dollars up to its completion in 2050. However, with the 20 percent inflation every year, it will cost 1600 billions dollars by 2025!”

Bas Eickhout is a representative of the ecological party, the Greens, at the European parliament. He will take part in the next climate change summit this November in Durban, South Africa. Eickhout shares his concerns: “A country like Zimbabwe, for instance, will be hardly hit by the effects of climate change.

Zimbabwe already battles with drought. The country thus requires numerous irrigation projects for agriculture”.

He adds: “However, we all know the type of regime in place in Zimbabwe. We cannot leave it to Mugabe, the President!”

Bureaucracy
Dutch climate envoy Hugo von Meijenfeldt, confirms the challenges posed by corruption. He would not hesitate to reclaim his investment, when he discovers irregularities with his partners. “The money might go to various corrupt countries like Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda or Mali, but, it is directly invested in the projects. The money does not go through governments”, he says.

Von Meijenfeldt adds: “I work closely with corruption fighting experts and embassies, and I require full reports from them. Yes, we’ve had to reclaim our funds in some instances where they went into the pockets of dignitaries rather than in the irrigation project”.

In addition to corruption, bureaucracy also proves to be rather costly. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) environmentalist, Corneille Ewango, is critical of the United Nations’ deforestation project known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

“In the DRC, we are wondering why there is still no activity on any of the eight REDD sites in the country”, Ewango says. He adds: “Instead, we are worried that the successive political or technical meetings would exhaust the budget without any work being started on the ground”.

Ewango concludes: “The lack of transparency in the management of the funds and clear strategic planning are hindering the implementation process”.

Intelligence
Today, about 1.2 billion dollars have been spent on the alleviation of the effects of climate change in Africa. As from 2020, developed countries will be contributing 100 billion dollars every year towards the Green Fund for climate change. The funds will be dedicated to fighting climate change in poor or developing countries.

Ways to spend the money efficiently will be discussed at the climate change summit, later this year in South Africa. This is probably a realisation of Al Gore’s dream.