Swedish MEP and GLOBE EU President Anders Wijkman had his own-initiative report on building a Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) adopted at the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg. The report highlights the need for EU external action on the joint challenges of climate change and poverty reduction in developing countries.

It is therefore a step forward in the implementation of the EU Action Plan on Climate Change and Development (2004) and builds on the recognition that we must think differently about development aid as a result of climate change.

The report has two main aims of which the first is to promote dialogue between the EU and developing countries. The second is to facilitate integration of climate change concerns into poverty reduction plans on local and national levels, specifically in the areas of adaptation, mitigation, deforestation, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and integrating climate change into development efforts.

The method by which it proposes to do so is by developing innovative and effective adaptation strategies and by seeking to confront existing obstacles to current international action on adaptation. The GCCA is to be complementary to similar existing organisations, rather than a copy, so as to bring a new approach to the issue. The distinctive feature of the initiative is that it is essentially used for budget support, which means it would put national governments and civil society at centre stage.

The Commission has already earmarked €60 million for the project for the period 2008-10, and is seen as a useful tool for feeding into and assisting the climate change negotiations in Poznan and Copenhagen. This is because it is seen as a way of combating the mistrust that has grown between industrialised and developing countries, by establishing a forum for dialogue between the two.

The report has however also stressed that a great deal more money is needed for the initiative, and consequently that appropriate financial mechanisms need to be put in place. Mr Wijkman has already suggested that one way of doing this would be from money set aside for developing countries from the auctioning revenue in the EU emissions trading system (ETS), although he does not want the money to come from money already set aside for development aid. Instead he proposes that the 25% of EU ETS revenue be put towards projects, such as GCCA, that promote climate change action in developing countries.