Bill Gates pleads for more funds for world’s poorest farmers facing higher risks of climate change

The billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates calls for the world leaders, who will meet in Paris in December for a global deal to fight climate change, to focus on protecting small farmers that are more likely to suffer the most from climate change. Gates aims for more climate finance to focus on the world’s poor from industrialised countries, and for more measures to protect small-scale farmers from the threats of extreme weather.

In a post on his GatesNote blog on Tuesday, Gates said he wants to focus on the world’s poorest farmers because they produce a large and growing share of the world’s food supply. The climate finance from the Green Climate Fund will aid the poorest countries to deal with climate change.

The appeal was in line with Pope Francis’s exhortation, which connected poverty, inequality and environmental degradation in his June pastoral letter. Both appeals indicate that among all the people who will suffer from climate change, the poor are likely to suffer the most.

According to Gates, the priorities to help the poor farmers should include better water management to protect their land against drought, a research to develop seeds that are drought and pest-resistant, without the demand of much expensive fertiliser. And he noted that those poor farmers are living without access to improved seeds, fertiliser, irrigation systems, and other beneficial technologies as farmers in rich countries enjoy.

“He is trying to make sure that that money gets spent on what he would think is the highest priority which is food vulnerability for the poorest people,” said Geoffrey Lamb, the chief economic and policy adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But Lamb said that the people are the ones who are “very vulnerable” to climate change.

To date, governments have pledged only $10 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which was a small fraction of a pledge to produce $100 billion a year by 2020. The Green Climate Fund will be used to help developing economies to curb carbon emissions and protect the populations from climate change.

The Gates Foundation is also working with the Green Climate Fund to decide where to direct climate finance. However, the climate fund has gained criticism for its priorities particularly in dealing with big coal financiers.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is so far considered as the world’s largest private charity, with its $43-billion donation and influence on global development policy. The foundation spends about $390 million on programmes to support small-scale farmers.

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