Climate and Development Lab
Connect with the CDL on Twitter:
  • Home
  • About
    • Authors
    • Alumni
  • CDL in the News
  • Publications
    • Scholarly Articles & Chapters
    • Policy Briefings
    • Books & Special Issues
    • Submissions to the UNFCCC
  • Projects
  • Multimedia
  • Contact

The unfinished agenda of the Paris climate talks: Finance to the global south

12/29/2015

 
By Timmons Roberts and Romain Weikmans
Picture
A sense of measured optimism and achievement emerged from the Paris climate conference. Diplomats, environmentalists, researchers, and other observers mostly felt relieved after years of discussions toward a new international agreement on climate change. Multilateralism had proven it might be up to the task of addressing climate change. But it’s a very mixed picture, and many of us are still trying to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the agreement, the structure for global action it has established, and the momentum around climate action it created. As George Monbiot put it in the Guardian: “By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.”
 
One area where Paris was a failure was in sorting out how adequate funding will reliably and transparently flow to help developing countries make the transition to a low carbon economy and to assist them in preparing for the impacts of climate change. That funding is fundamental to these nations acting ambitiously in the years ahead—as we all need them to do. Major funding is also needed to help them prepare for, cope with, and recover from the climate risks that are arriving and which lie ahead.
A vague but important promise 
​
To salvage the tumultuous Copenhagen negotiations in 2009, developed countries promised to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020. The original promise was formalized the next year in Cancun. The promise was that the developed nations would provide “scaled up, new and additional, predictable and adequate funding … [with] a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion per year by 2020” to address the needs of developing countries.
 
There are two parts of the deal in Paris: the main and long-term “Paris Agreement,” and the “Decision” text on how that agreement will come to pass through shorter-term actions. The wording in the Paris Agreement is maddeningly oblique on the Copenhagen/Cancun pledge: “Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.” It’s not clear which countries (Parties) are delivering how much, and when. The reference to the $100 billion or to any other quantitative target for climate finance is absent, and one would search in vain for clarity in the “Convention,” the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change drafted in Rio back in 1992.
 
Developed countries justified this omission by the fact that including binding targets for Parties would have made it necessary for the U.S. Senate to ratify the new agreement—instead the agreement as it is allows President Obama to ratify it by executive decree. The text of the agreement only acknowledged that “Such mobilization of climate finance should represent a progression beyond previous efforts.” So it should rise above past efforts, hopefully above the promised $100 billion.
 
Rather, the “Decision document” that lays out how the Paris Agreement will come into effect explained that the $100 billion goal would be maintained “through 2025,” but only “in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation,” and that by 2025 they would set a new goal. This is weaker than expected by developing countries who see the $100 billion as a “floor” to be surpassed immediately upon its being achieved by 2020.

Still lacking a definition 

It actually gets worse. In the absence of a clear internationally agreed definition of what counts as climate finance, and of methodologies to measure it, many debates continue on what levels of funding are actually flowing to developing countries for climate objectives. This foundational effort needs to be completed before finance flows will build trust.
 
The Decision text (again of less importance than the Paris Agreement) calls for the development under the UNFCCC of “modalities” to account for financial resources provided to developing countries. It is a step forward that such modalities were slated in the Decision text to be considered by negotiators in November 2018. Such a decision is long overdue: observers–including ourselves–have for many years called for a robust accounting and reporting framework of climate finance under the UN Convention, which is the only globally legitimate forum for such framework to be developed. However in agreeing to postpone to 2018 the formal consideration of such a framework, Parties implicitly accept that we will continue to live in a ‘Wild West’ of climate finance for the next three years, at least. And “considering” proposed modalities in 2018 does not set a deadline for their resolution.

Is it new and/or additional?

Breaking from two decades of environmental treaty-making, the Paris Agreement did not use the term “new and additional” when referring to climate finance. For developing countries negotiators, financial flows provided for climate action should not be diverted international assistance that would have gone for building schools, roads, or hospitals. The language has always been problematic, since many funds are commingled and because climate issues need to be mainstreamed into the rest of development work. The Paris Agreement acknowledged that the provision of climate finance is to be made in continuation of developed countries’ existing obligations under the Convention. Such a provision implicitly refers to this “new and additional” criterion, but poor countries have lost a battle by allowing this crucial principle to disappear from the text of the new agreement. 

Breaking from two decades of environmental treaty-making, the Paris Agreement did not use the term “new and additional” when referring to climate finance. For developing countries negotiators, financial flows provided for climate action should not be diverted international assistance that would have gone for building schools, roads, or hospitals. The language has always been problematic, since many funds are commingled and because climate issues need to be mainstreamed into the rest of development work. The Paris Agreement acknowledged that the provision of climate finance is to be made in continuation of developed countries’ existing obligations under the Convention. Such a provision implicitly refers to this “new and additional” criterion, but poor countries have lost a battle by allowing this crucial principle to disappear from the text of the new agreement.
 
Other areas also represent a backslide from previous decisions agreed by UNFCCC Parties. For example, there is no reference in either the Paris agreement or in the decision taken by the COP to “innovative” finance sources–such as taxes on aviation, on international shipping fuels (bunker fuels), a tiny levy on international currency transactions, or a global carbon tax. These internationally raised, managed, and spent funds are some of the only tools available to assure that climate funds are indeed additional to earlier foreign assistance or other budgets, and that they are adequate and predictable. They also can make climate funding much more sustainable politically, since the money should not have to flow through national government coffers.

Big elephants in the room 
​
Even more troubling is the explicit rejection of any kind of liability and compensation for climate impacts due to big polluters. The question of liability has always been the “elephant in the room” in climate negotiations, even when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was first drafted back in 1992. High emitters and rich countries have now made it crystal clear: they won’t pay for the damage they cause to vulnerable populations due to their disproportionate use of the carbon space in the atmosphere. Some of these issues may become clearer in Marrakesh at the 2016 negotiations, but it could be several years more before we see how risk will be spread and irreparable harm addressed.
 
On a more positive note, the agreement “encourages” Parties not formally defined as developed countries under the UN Climate Convention to provide climate finance voluntarily. This is a big deal, though it may not seems like one. The world has changed considerably in the past 20 years. Now, middle income countries—like China, South Korea, Mexico, and Kuwait—are encouraged to help poorer countries in their efforts to curb emissions and to build climate resilient societies. China has already pledged $3.1 billion to climate efforts in developing countries, to be delivered through South-South financing.
 
The need for public and grant-based resources for adaptation also is recognized in the Paris Agreement. But without a clear quantified target, such a provision is mainly incantatory. The COP decision to decide a new collective target by 2025 from a floor of $100 billion per year may be quickly made obsolete by the next ten years of stronger climate impacts. And on the mitigation side, staying under the aspirational goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is certain to require far more funding than the budget suggests. Trillions of dollars will have to be shifted away from carbon intensive and climate vulnerable investments in the coming decades and toward a new low carbon and resilient economy.
 
But for the poorest and most vulnerable countries climate finance is key to securing a safer and more just future. To hold developed countries accountable for their responsibility in helping those countries fight climate change, a robust accounting and reporting framework under the UNFCCC is paramount. We take up that issue in a series of recommendations released just before Paris. There is also a dire need to have burden-sharing arrangements between developed countries to assure the provision of adequate and predictable climate finance, another central demand of developing nations that has been promised again and again over the years. If there is no appetite or ability to provide national-level targets for finance, then innovative international sources of climate finance are all the more critical.
 
In the current climate finance landscape, each developed country has an interest in maximizing its claimed contribution while putting up the least cash possible, including through non-transparent and “creative“ accounting, and in putting the burden on other developed countries to deliver on their joint financial commitments. The next few years will be crucial in redressing this “non-system” of climate finance. The Paris Agreement offers several opportunities for the necessary changes to happen, but we need to take them.
 
Read more about the difficulty in accounting for climate finance in the report Toward Mutual Accountability: the 2015 Adaptation Finance Transparency Gap Report, a twww.adaptationwatch.org
 
This article was originally published here.
 
 


Comments are closed.
    Tweets by @ClimateDevLab
    CDL in the News

    28 Dec 2018 - Edwards in the NYT on electric vehicles in Latin America

    24 Dec 2018 - The Public's Radio RI interviews Roberts on how the fossil fuel industry outspends environmental groups on campaign contributions & lobbying

    19 Dec 2018 - EcoRI News: New Report Claims RI Climate Council Falling Behind Targets

    17 Dec 2018 - 'We must move beyond business as usual,' says new report on Rhode Island's inadequate climate plan.

    12 Dec 2018 - 
    Isabel Cavelier, Guy Edwards and Lina Puerto “COP25 en 2019: reto y oportunidad para elevar la ambición climática en América Latina” El Espectador

    4 Dec 2018 - Whitehouse, Ciciline meet with climate lab

    28 Nov 2018 - Edwards quoted in New York Times story on Brazil backing out of hosting UN summit on climate change

    11 Oct 2018 - Brookings Institute Climate reality requires starting at home: Weaning from fossil fuels

    23 Sep 2018 - Edwards quoted in Financial Times on Argentina energy future

    13 Jul 2018 - Europe and Latin America can blaze a trail on implementing the Paris Agreement
    ​
    1 Jun 2018 - Brookings Institute One year since Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement

    21 May 2018 - Edwards article in World Politics Review: Is the G-20 Heading for a Showdown With Trump on Climate Change?

    11 May 2018 - Edwards Op-Ed in Washington Post 

    22 Jan 2018 - Roberts Op-Ed The climate solution no-one in Davos will be talking about

    ​15 Dec 2017 - Edwards' article on how Regional and domestic politics could sabotage Brazil's bid to host UN climate change talks in 2019 ​
    ​
    8 Nov 2017 - Roberts quoted in Reuters story on financing loss and damage

    9 Oct 2017 - EcoRI article describes Roberts' testimony against the natural gas power plant proposed for construction in Burrillville, Rhode Island

    17 Sep 2017 - BBC Radio 5 featured a live interview with Roberts about Trump's conditions for staying in Paris

    4 Sep 2017 - Roberts comments on the use of his work in a report by Rhode Island Department of Health on the proposed power plant in Burrillville, Rhode Island 

    17 Jul 2017 - Roberts mentioned in NPR's story on the US having a say in UN climate spending
    ​
    15 Jul 2017 - Roberts calls for solid climate policies in RI

    5 Jul 2017 - Roberts demands swifter action on CO2 release

    5 Jul 2017 - Roberts demands RI Governor Raimondo to take climate action

    30 Jun 2017 - Roberts gives advice on owning and using electric cars

    23 Jun 2017 - Roberts comments on how voters are persuaded by the terms 'climate change' and 'global warming'

    20 Jun 2017 - Roberts' involvement in local climate group is helping to fight fossil fuel development

    3 Jun 2017 - WPRO Radio's Steve Klamkin interviews Roberts on the Paris Agreement

    2 Jun 2017 - Roberts comments on US involvement in the Green Climate Fund

    2 Jun 2017 - BBC Radio 5's Faye Rusco interviews Roberts on Trump's withdrawal from Paris

    2 Jun 2017 - Roberts discusses the role of mayors and private sector companies post US pull-out of Paris

    1 Jun 2017 - Roberts gives more details about the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

    1 Jun 2017 - Roberts organizes emergency protest in RI

    1 Jun 2017 - Roberts comments on the implications of US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

    1 Jun 20117 - Roberts share his views on the US exit from the Paris Accord

    31 May 2017 - Roberts cited on the far-reaching implications of US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

    31 May 2017 - RI left vulnerable if US pulls out of Paris Accord, says Roberts

    24 May 2017 - Roberts chimes in on Trump's proposed EPA budget

    30 Apr 2017 - Roberts helps to 'fact check' Trump's first 100 days in office

    25 Apr 2017 - Roberts lobbies for people's march in RI to mark Trump's first 100 days in office

    23 Apr 2017 - Roberts cautions against threats to science at march for science in Rhode Island

    7 Apr 2017 - White House Chronicle's Llewelyn King interviews Roberts on Trump’s executive order and climate policy directions

    10 Mar 2017 - Roberts quoted in Providence Business News about new proposed fossil fuel infrastructure in Rhode Island

    6 Feb 2017 - Devex article on climate finance under the new administration quotes Roberts

    18 Jan 2017 - Roberts featured in NPR Marketplace segment on Obama's $500m donation to the Green Climate Fund

    29 Dec 2016 - Roberts quoted in Common Dreams article about the state of environmental justice in 2016

    19 Nov 2016 - EcoRI profiles Roberts and the new Civic Alliance for a Cooler Rhode Island

    14 Nov 2016 - Roberts featured in Rhode Island Public Radio segment on Trump and the Paris Agreement 

    12 Nov 2016 - Roberts quoted in Climate Home article on Republican plans to defund climate change programs

    10 Nov 2016 - Roberts quote appears in EcoRI article about Trump and the environment 

    9 Nov 2016 - Roberts quoted in InsideClimate News article on COP22 reaction to Trump's election

    9 Nov 2016 - Science Daily discusses new CDL article on paying for loss and damage

    9 Nov 2016 - Roberts quoted in Climate Home article on COP22 reaction to Trump's election

    8 Nov 2016 - Roberts' paper on paying for loss and damage discussed and quoted in Phys.Org

    7 Nov 2016 - Roberts' paper on paying for loss and damage discussed and quoted in Futurity article

    21 Sep 2016 - Roberts quoted in a Breitbart News article about Clinton's support following shift in climate change language

    20 Sep 2016 - Roberts quoted in a Climate Home article on Clinton's language around climate change after Sanders' endorsement

    5 May 2016 – Climate Home quotes Edwards on the announcement that Patricia Espinosa will lead the UNFCCC from this July 

    5 May 2016 - Dialogo Chino quotes Edwards following announcement that Patricia Espinosa will replace Christiana Figueres as head of the UNFCCC

    24 Apr 2016 - Deutsche Welle quotes Edwards on how ratifying Paris Agreement can boost prosperity in Latin America

    23 Mar 2016 – Edwards provides extended quote to Dialogo Chino on Obama’s trip to Cuba and Argentina
     
    25 Dec 2015 -  ConexiónCOP conversó con Guy Edwards sobre el nuevo acuerdo climático y America Latina

    14 Dec 2015 - Rhode Island Public Radio quotes Roberts on how Paris Climate Pact should steer New England toward clean energy

    11 Dec 2015 - Associated Press quotes Romain Weikmans on “Wild West” account on climate finance

    10 Dec 2015 -  Climate Home talks to Roberts about the lack of an independent system on climate finance

    Read more...

    Archives

    December 2018
    October 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    April 2012
    December 2011
    February 2009
    December 2008

    Authors

    The pieces featured in the blog are authored by CDL members and a diverse group of partners from around the world. The opinions expressed in these articles are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not reflect those of Brown University. 

    Categories

    All
    Civil Society
    Climate Finance
    Conference
    COP17
    COP19
    COP20
    COP21
    Energy
    Equity
    Latin America
    LDCs
    Legislation
    Loss And Damage
    Mitigation
    Policy Brief
    Publications
    Rhode Island
    Small Island Developing States
    UNFCCC
    United States

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly