Comments

What a shame that the typo was not actually in the MYEFO and the government meant to place a plus sign ahead of the numbers, not the negative as it is! Australians should be loud in objection to this and not silent in acceptance - for it is hard to see how this retreat in commitment to the world's poor is anything but unacceptable.

Samuel, You're quite right. That was a typo, which we have fixed. Thanks for pointing it out. Stephen.

Hi Stephen and Jonathan, Thank you for the analysis. Just one query: "We’ve focused so far on the cumulative cuts out to 2016-17, but most of the cuts will be implemented next year (2014-15), when the aid program will fall by a round $1 billion or 20%" If I'm not mistaken, was this not the cut due for 2015/16? This agrees with your spreadsheet. Thanks again, Sam #maintainaid campaign

I spoke on Radio National Breakfast this morning on the widely reported aid cuts. As reported, they are, by a long shot, the largest cuts the aid program has ever seen. We'll be putting out more analysis once the MYEFO is released. Meanwhile, my interview is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/aus-png-summit-underway-amid-reports-of-aid-cuts/5966998" rel="nofollow">here</a>.

From the ABC: "The ABC's AM program understands the aid budget will be reduced to Howard-era levels and more than $3 billion will be cut over the next four years."

I saw in the Canberra Times that Joe Hockey was quoted as saying that there will be spending cuts, but that they will be modest and will not harm the domestic economy. The clearest signal yet that aid will be cut on Monday?

This is quite a large topic, so please forgive the smallness of this reply. First, aid budgets have long been used to meet various emerging global challenges, such as the spread of HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. Climate change mitigation is one more such challenge. Provided the benefits of spending aid money on such things are primarily in favour of developing countries, people in most cases do not quibble about the fact that the benefits extend to developed countries. Second, adaptation programs deliver multiple development benefits, so it is difficult in both theory and practice to separate them from ordinary development investments. Third, and most importantly, adherence to the 'new and additional' doctrine, no matter how sacred it has become in the climate negotiations, just leads to semantic gaming. Almost all international climate change assistance provided to date has been presented as new and additional in one or another sense, and almost all that assistance has come from aid budgets. The intent of the 'new and additional' requirement is obviously to avoid having climate change spending completely swamp spending on pre-existing problems. At this stage, given past and pledged levels of financing, swamping is no great risk. As for the future, additional commitments would best be reflected in bigger aid budgets.

A welcome turnaround. But I am not sure what the "good grounds" for drawing climate funds from aid budgets are. Given the long way that many Pacific Islands are from establishing basic systems of service delivery and management one would have to be pretty sure that adequate aid funds were still going towards that before any excess "space" is diverted to climate projects - unless of course recent evaluations showed that these were also securing such basic systems. What do you think with regards to the grounds for drawing climate funds from aid budgets?

The UNEP fared pretty well in the Australian Multilateral Assessment in 2012 - satisfactory in most areas, strong in a few, including contributing to/supporting with Australia's aid priorities. The funding cut really makes you wonder what the point of the AMA was. Particularly given the likely prominence of sustainable development in the post 2015 era (this being a big part of the UNEP's work), it seems strange. The apparent lack of explanation for the decision seems to align with one of the common features of the current government - an inability to effectively sell policy decisions. If the rationale for the cut was more money for actual programs/less for the UNEP's policy and normative leadership, this should be spelt out.

It appears that Julie Bishop will have lots of environmental credentials to promote at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in in Lima this week. On top of the A$200m contribution to the Green Climate Fund, the government announced yesterday that it is allocating $31 million over six years for research to assist in the management of coastal and marine water quality in Australia’s tropical regions, including the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef.

Many thanks for this blog Stephen. Please see <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/pacific-islands-trade/5946312" rel="nofollow">this link</a> for a discussion I had with Amanda Vanstone regarding labour mobility and the PACER-Plus negotiations. It aired on Radio National's 'Counterpoint' program earlier this week. Regards, Wesley

Now that Australia has announced an A$200m contribution to the Green Climate Fund overnight, it seems that we may have an answer to where the UNEP savings have gone. But the fact that UNEP and the Green Climate Fund complement rather than duplicate each other's work means the UNEP cut remains puzzling (except perhaps for the fact that the Fund isn't likely to scrutinise Australia's domestic climate policies). And then there is the question of where in the aid budget the other A$199m of the Green Climate Fund pledge will be drawn from.