Climate Finance Policy Briefs

This series of policy briefs provides an independent commentary on current themes associated with the international debate on climates finance. The papers are prepared by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and ODI.

Climate finance for the Middle East and North Africa: confronting the challenges of climate change

Climate Finance Policy Briefs, November 2012

Smita Nakhooda, Alice Caravani and Prachi Seth, ODI and Liane Schalatek, Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America

Responding to climate change presents challenges for the oil producing and water stressed countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but also opportunities to forge new paths to more inclusive and effective development. This brief considers the scope and objectives of dedicated international public finance directed to the region, drawing on Climate Funds Update data.

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Financing readiness: insights from the Amazon Fund and Congo Basin Forest Funds' efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation

Climate Finance Policy Briefs, July 2012
Charlene Watson and Smita Nakhooda

This paper considers the activities financed by the Brazilian Amazon Fund and the Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF) since their inception. Financing readiness: insights from the Amazon Fund and Congo Basin Forest Funds' efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation

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The practical challenges of monitoring climate finance: insights from Climate Funds Update

Climate Finance Policy Briefs, May 2012

Charlene Watson, Smita Nakhooda, Alice Caravani and Liane Schalatek The practical challenges of monitoring climate finance: insights from Climate Funds Update

The practical challenges of monitoring climate finance: insights from Climate Funds Update

Drawing on the CFU experience, this brief highlights and makes the case for a focus on public finance, before considering the adequacy ofinformation available. It concludes by suggesting key priority areas for efforts to harmonise climate finance reporting.

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REDD+ finance delivery: lessons from early experience

Climate Finance Policy Briefs, November 2011
Anna Creed and Smita Nakhooda

Delivering REDD+ finance has taken more preparatory work, capacity and tailoring than initially envisaged. Multilateral institutions financing REDD+ have made significant progress, and experience to date will inform and facilitate future implementation. Alongside this, Annex II countries are providing increasing volumes of finance through bilateral channels. There remains very little transparency around these bilateral arrangements. It is essential to ensure that the lessons learned through experience with multilateral institutions and participating stakeholders inform bilateral financing.

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Climate finance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Climate Finance Policy Briefs, November 2011
Smita Nakhooda, Alice Caravani, Neil Bird and Liane Schalatek

This policy brief reviews general trends in African climate finance. It considers the key actors in the region and their evolving role in negotiations over the global architecture for climate finance, and finds that funding that is currently delivered is far from fulfilling the demonstrated needs of SSA.

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Design challenges for the Green Climate Fund
Climate Finance Policy Briefs 4, January 2011
Neil Bird, Jessica Brown and Liane Schalatek

One of the achievements of the UNFCCC negotiations in Cancun was the decision to establish a Green Climate Fund (GCF). Many are looking to the establishment of this fund as the solution to adequately and appropriately address climate finance; others caution that ambitious steps need to be taken to avoid the ‘Green Fund’ turning out to be an ‘Empty Fund’ whose function is limited to attaining the buy-in of developing countries into a binding international climate policy regime.

The design of the GCF has to address a large number of concerns, the details of which remain unresolved within the negotiations. Issues relating to what role it will play in providing sustainable finance at scale; how it will fit into the existing development assistance and climate financing architecture; how it will allocate finance to developing countries; and how finance will be delivered effectively, all remain to be clarified. This represents an ambitious agenda and much progress will need to be made quickly if a working proposal is to be put to the delegates at the next COP meeting.

This paper offers an early contribution to the debate by highlighting some of the more pressing design issues and describing the implications of these features.

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Direct Access to the Adaptation Fund: realising the potential of National Implementing Entities

Climate Finance Policy Briefs 3, November 2010
Jessica Brown, Neil Bird and Liane Schalatek

The Adaptation Fund (AF), established by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is mandated to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and to allow direct access to the Fund by Parties. It is this latter characteristic – direct access – that has raised considerable interest among the international climate change community. Civil society has praised this development as an innovative element of the Fund’s governance structure that seeks to ensure country ownership. Now that the AF is fully operational, with two projects approved and six more proposals endorsed, what is the evidence that the direct access modality is providing the type of success onlookers are hoping for? This paper explores the current status of direct access and examines the challenges countries face in securing its potential.

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Climate finance additionality: emerging definitions and their implications

Climate Finance Policy Briefs 2, July 2010
Jessica Brown, Neil Bird and Liane Schalatek

This paper explores how climate finance additionality is being defined by different political actors and what the implications are of these different definitions.

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Where's the money? The status of climate finance post‐Copenhagen

Climate Finance Policy Briefs 1, March 2010
Authors: Liane Schalatek, Neil Bird and Jessica Brown

When the dust settled after the near failure of the UNFCCC climate talks in Copenhagen, the issue of climate finance seemed strangely to have been one of the few areas, where despite all procedural and political misgivings, real progress was made. This is important, as finance is one of the most urgent issues that needs to be addressed in order to achieve a comprehensive post‐Kyoto climate agreement. In a last minute face‐saving political effort by a small group of 28 countries who negotiated the text at the request of the Danish COP presidency, the “Copenhagen Accord” was created as a compromise document.

However, it was neither endorsed nor voted on by the full Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen; with the representatives of the 193 parties only “taking note”. Thus, global climate change negotiations face political and possibly legal uncertainty going forward. Some fear that the UNFCCC process has been seriously undermined and its ability to rally the world to a global agreement cast in doubt. Among developing countries, distrust is growing over the possibility that an elite club of countries might attempt to wrestle control over climate talks permanently away from the 193‐member body. These uncertainties and tensions play out as well in the area of climate finance. The “Copenhagen Accord” gives some clear promises and numbers for both short‐ and long‐term financial support by wealthier countries for developing countries, especially the most vulnerable, to deal with climate change. It pledges US$10 billion per year from 2010‐2012 with the promise to increase to US$100 billion per year starting in 2020. However, as the Accord is a nonbinding political agreement, many questions about if and how those commitments can be fulfilled are yet to be answered.

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