Writing in Progress magazine today, Publish What You Fund’s Federico Pirzio-Biroli warns that there is a real risk that donor countries will get away with this accounting slight of hand at Climate Change talks in Copenhagen unless a transparency measure is included in a climate financing deal. The poverty advocacy group ONE has launched a last ditch attempt to stop aid money being ‘double counted’. Their petition will be handed to the Danish host of the conference next week and asks:

1. That existing aid promises are kept.

2. That additional costs

borne by people living in poverty caused by climate change are paid for by additional money.

3. That countries are transparent about how much development aid is being reallocated to fighting climate change.

As the Global Campaign for aid transparency, Publish What You Fund is working to achieve a significant increase in the availability and accessibility of timely, comparable and comprehensive information on resources flowing into developing countries. These standards are just as applicable to climate financing. This basic information about development aid is an essential pre-requisite for accountability, public participation and effectiveness of these resources.

In Copenhagen, donors could simply agree to bring climate aid into the International Aid Transparency Initiative, thus removing the opportunity for recycling the money, as well as laying a basic foundation to ensure this precious additional resource is being used efficiently.