Panama, you are my finance hero

By now, I’m 100% confident David Bowie was thinking about Panamá when he sang ‘Heroes’, specifically along these lines:

We can beat them, for ever and ever

Oh we can be Heroes,

just for one day

I don’t know if you noticed, but a few weeks ago Panama pledeged $1 million dollars to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The announcement was made in mid-November, just about the same time Australia was refusing (yet once again) to commit money for the international fight against climate change.

You might be saying now: well, $1 million is not that much. Maybe for the unadverted observer it would seem that way, compared to pledges by Japan or countries of the European Union, but also take this into account: Central America is responsible for less than 0,8% of the worlds greenhouse gases, and Panama has an even smaller share. I haven’t made the math (maybe I should, though) but in comparison to their historical emissions, Panama pledge looks definitely sexy.

The Central American country is not alone among developing nations opening their wallets for the Green Climate Fund. Mongolia is also doing their homework and promised $50.000 for the GCF.

Panama is located on a highly vulnerable region, perhaps one of the most dangerous place to live if we keep warming this planet, other than islands part of AOSIS and some Afrian or Asian regions. Yet they stood up and said: folks, our country is contributing with $1 million. So yes, personal hero.

Let me put that into perspective. A couple on months ago, Costa Rica, another Central American country sharing a border with Panama, got $10 million from the Adaptation Fund and that will help to set rolling dozens of projects. Even when GCF and the Adaptation Fund are separate entities, it’s an awesome way to frame the relevance of Panama’s million-dollar pledge.

I was speaking yesterday with Emilio Sempris, Panama’s Environment Vice-Minister and their spokesperson for the moment, and he was telling me why their pledge was relevant. It’s not about how much money we or Mongolia will give, he said, it’s about sending a message (hello Batman fans).

This is awesome in another way: it also challenges North-South division within the international negotiations. If Panama and Mongolia can, who can’t?

Let me tell you who’s still not willing to make their part: Australia, along with Belgium, Ireland and Austria. As a matter of fact, the four countries were publicly shamed for that with the Fossil of the Day award for not pledging to the Green Climate Fund.

We can dig further into that. Yesterday, Australia went into another level of climate skepticism and backtracked even more (yes, that seems to be possible). Their federal government announced they were cutting its funding for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

They were expected to give $1.2 million to UNEP this year, but they will only commit to $0.2 for the UN agency. And they are even proud about that, talking about how they will “save” those $4 million. Thanks Australia.

So, over the next four years, reflect on this: As Australia is “saving” $1 million every year it won’t give to UNEP, Panama will be committing that same amount to the Green Climate Fund. We have known for a long time Australia is not your role model, but now we are aware of something else: we might have a new finance hero in town.