The people of Massachusetts will quickly be able to directly contribute finance to aid some of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries.
A bill likely to be adopted shortly through the state’s legislature allows its citizens to voluntarily make a donation to the Least Developed Countries (LDC) fund when filing their tax statements.
The fund was established through the UN to assist the world’s poorest countries cope with the impacts of global warming. It has financed countless projects worth $1.7bn.
With no opposition to the proposal, the balance would make Massachusetts the only real sub-national authority where citizens can contribute directly to climate finance.
“This is climate justice on the level that lots of people haven't really thought about before,” said Larry Yu, co-chair from the Climate Reality Project Boston Metro chapter, which is supporting the bill.
“Governmental bodies at all levels have to recognise the enormous inequities of the climate crisis,” he said. Massachusetts has roughly 17 times higher emissions per capita than Bangladesh. “So why shouldn't their state contribute, particularly if federal contributions are lagging?”
The idea for sub-national actors to bring about climate finance came from the other side from the Atlantic: in Oxford, UK.
Benito Müller, from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University along with a former adviser to the LDC group of negotiators, has been working on ways to increase climate finance provision for developing countries.
“It became increasingly clear that we need new innovative causes of contributions to these funds, complementing the standard donations by national governments,” he told Climate Home.
Finance to assist the poorest countries deal with climate impacts and cut emissions lag far behind what's been promised. An objective to mobilise $100bn annually by 2023 won’t be met before 2023 and the latest assessment of international climate finance provision through the OECD discovered that merely a fifth from the money reaches LDCs.
Back in Massachusetts, Peter Fox-Penner, director of Boston University's Institute for Sustainable Energy, used the idea with Democratic senator Mike Barrett, who sponsored the balance.
Taxpayers in Massachusetts already have an option to contribute to six charitable causes when filing their taxes. “But none of the six make contact with a real-felt need that my constituents have and that’s global warming,” said Barrett inside a campaign video promoting the balance. “If you think that it matters that there are people living in countries today that'll be under water 3 decades from now, we would provide you with the choice of contributing to the United Nations’ LDC Fund.”
Because only governmental bodies can contribute directly to the LDC Fund, the cash must be raised through the Massachusetts government, which could then spread its citizens’ contributions, without costing it anything.
Advocates for that bill agree the move is much more symbolic than likely to raise lots of cash.
Dorcas Robinson, of Oxfam America, which campaigned for the bill, said it was “a great initial step towards climate justice” and part of an effort to bridge the weather finance shortfall.
“This method can also educate and have interaction more and more people around the requirement for more ambitious climate action,” she told Climate Home.
At a time when president Joe Biden’s flagship climate legislation is stalled in Congress and the US administration only allocated $1bn in climate finance for 2023 – far from the $11.4bn a year Biden has pledged – the balance allows Massachusetts citizen to consider direct action, Robinson added.
While that doesn’t absolve the us government from its climate obligations, “area of the intent for state action would be to help ease the way in which for federal action, to show the us government the public supports doing what's right,” Yu added.
The bill could give a model for the other 41 states across the US that have an income tax. The Oxford Climate Policy group has already engaged with lawmakers in California.
“It would be a powerful example for sub-national bodies abroad too,” said Yu.
