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Climate and Development Lab

“Informing a more just and effective global climate change policy”

Category Archives: Climate Finance

November 8, 2012 Climate Equity, Not Fossil Fuel Subsidies

By David Ciplet and Timmons Roberts

It’s absurd — the countries least responsible for causing climate change are suffering worst and first from its impacts, including droughts, floods and famines. Meanwhile, wealthy countries continue to feed the problem by directing hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize fossil fuel industries every year. In fact, the support they’ve offered those hit hardest is less than one percent what they give the polluters most driving climate change.

In 2009, these countries promised to end fossil fuel welfare once and for all. It is time that they met this promise. Redirecting this money to the Least Developed Countries and other vulnerable nations would help them to adapt to this new climate reality and level the playing level playing field for clean energy, spurring a transition to a sustainable economy.

In three weeks, representatives of the world’s nations will meet for talks on the United Nations’ climate change treaty. President Obama led the initial charge against handouts to Big Oil, but lost the political will to make it a reality. Hot off his reelection, Obama has a huge chance to be bold and start moving money from the problem to its solution. Sign the petition here – Avaaz.org will deliver the petition to wealthy countries at the climate talks when we reach a critical mass!

May 29, 2012 Got transparency? Leaders and laggards in climate finance reporting

By David Ciplet

The need for transparency in climate finance is plain: unless developing countries know how much money to expect, when and for what, they cannot effectively plan their efforts to address and respond to climate change. But what has been the track record of wealthy countries on this crucial issue?

A new scorecard, released by the organization the International Institute for Environment and Development, reveals that we have a long way to go in making climate finance transparent. Two of the authors, David Ciplet and Timmons Roberts, are from Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab.  The scorecard evaluates the extent to which these countries meet a set of 25 common-sense transparency criteria in their climate finance reports to the UN. The scorecard can be found at: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17100IIED.pdf

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December 2, 2011 Just add cash for climate adaptation

By Spencer Fields

In this 2006 file photo, a woman walks past a building in Brikama, Gambia. Source: REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

It’s really quite simple. For the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), “funding is paramount,” to use the succinct summary provided by Pa Ousman Jarju, the Gambian chair of the LDC Group.

The Least Developed Countries have already written their National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), comprehensive reports on their projects focused on adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.

They have already prioritized the projects in order to address first those that require urgent and immediate attention. There even already exists a funding mechanism – the UN-created and Global Environment Facility-managed LDC Fund (LDCF) – to provide them with the financial resources they need to implement the projects.

As Jarju pointed out this week at the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, all they need now is cash.

Seems straightforward, right?

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November 30, 2011 Innovative Finance: Time for a “Hail Mary” for the Climate

By J. Timmons Roberts, Brown University Center for Environmental Studies/Adaptation Watch

So it’s come down to this, a “Hail Mary pass for the climate.”

At the end of an American football game, the losing team, down by three or four scores with virtually no possibility of winning, often resorts to a “Hail Mary Pass,” in which they line up a few guys to protect the quarterback, send everyone else down into the opposing team’s end zone, and then heave the ball up in the hopes one of their teammates will catch it.

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November 29, 2011 All talk no walk? How wealthy countries can meet their adaptation promises in Durban

By Spencer Fields and Dave Ciplet

As a part of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, the rich nations of the world made a concrete dollar pledge to vulnerable countries experiencing the impacts of climate change worst and first.  Given that developing countries are the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and have the least capacity to fund mitigation, adaptation and disaster recovery, these countries are in dire need of funds.

What have the wealthy nations done to fulfill the pledges they made in Copenhagen and recommitted to in Cancun?  Not nearly enough, according to a recent report published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and authored by members of Brown’s Climate and Development Lab. 

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November 27, 2011 Renegades Keep Climate Finance Tracking a Wild West

By J. Timmons Roberts
 

For a stretch of U.S. history back in the 1800s, two forces struggled to impose their social order on the expanses of the nation’s vast Western frontier.  On the one side were citizen “settlers” and their officials, trying to impose national laws from the East to make the place safe for building a society where joint problems like safety, land ownership, and building basic infrastructure got dealt with in a consensual and predictable way.  On the other side were bands of renegades or “outlaws,” who furtively sought the treasures of the land through their ability to terrorize the settlers and other bands of outlaws.

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April 7, 2011 “A Collective Commitment”? Nailing down Climate Finance in Cancun and Durban

By J. Timmons Roberts & Martin Stadelmann*This article was originally posted on OUTREACH

The surprisingly positive conclusion at Cancun was as much about the process as the substance of the two key texts that are now in place to advance the negotiations over the next year leading to Durban.   There were standing ovations at the transparent and inclusive process that brought the year of negotiations to a close, putting some of the bad feelings of Copenhagen behind us.

However on the crucial details of climate finance, we are scarcely any further along, apart from some progress in establishing initial institutions for the new Green Climate Fund and enhancing transparency. In spite of many concerns expressed throughout the year, deeply problematic language was copied verbatim into the Cancun Agreements from the Copenhagen Accord text.  An opportunity was lost to clarify what has been agreed in Copenhagen.

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