New and additional to what? Assessing options for baselines to assess climate finance pledges

Abstract

All major climate policy agreements-the UN Framework Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, and recently the Cancun Agreements-have stated that climate finance for developing countries will be "new and additional". However, the term "new and additional" has never been properly defined. Agreeing a system to measure a baseline from which "new and additional" funding will be calculated will be central to building trust and realising any post-Kyoto agreement. We explore eight different options for a baseline, and assess each according to several criteria: novelty to existing pledges, additionality to development assistance, environmental effectiveness, distributional consequences, and institutional and political feasibility. Only two baseline options do well on these criteria and are therefore viable: "new sources only" and "above pre-defined business as usual level of development assistance".

Perceived barriers and policy solutions in clean energy infrastructure investment

“…Under the UNFCCC process developed country governments have pledged to mobilise substantial capital, both public and private investments, over the short (Stadelmann, Timmons Roberts and Michaelowa, 2011b) and medium term (Timmons Roberts, Stadelmann and Huq, 2010). By 2020 $100 billion per year should be invested from developed country finance into developing country projects.…”

Special issue: managing fragmentation and complexity in the emerging system of international climate finance

“…The principle of additionality was included in the Convention (UNFCCC 1992: Article 4(3)) due to the concerns of developing countries that developed countries would divert funds for climate finance from existing flows of development finance. Yet there is no agreed upon baseline against which additionality can be measured (Stadelmann et al 2011).…”

Acting on Climate Finance Pledges: Inter-Agency Dynamics and Relationships with Aid in Contributor States

“…The scant literature on contributor nations' approaches to climate finance mostly seeks to map and compare existing policies and programs, either for climate finance as a whole (Stadelmann, 2012;Buchner et al, 2011Buchner et al, , 2012, or on particular policy issues faced by contributors such as additionality (Stadelmann et al, 2011) and methods for classifying aid activities as climate-related . The literature highlights considerable diversity among contributors on key policy issues and institutional arrangements for delivering climate finance, including effort-sharing, understandings of additionality, allocation priorities and choices about delivery channels, and financing instruments.…”

“…Despite some comparative analysis of contributors' positions on aspects of climate finance (e.g. Michaelowa and Michaelowa, 2011;Stadelmann et al, 2011Stadelmann et al, , 2012, little is known about variations in inter-agency configurations within individual contributing governments that may have influenced those positions. Nor-despite the fact that contributors count the bulk of their climate finance as aid-has existing research systematically identified the specific dimensions along which contributors' climate finance and aid practices 2 align or differ.…”

“…"additional" to existing aid commitments (Stadelmann, et al, 2011); delivered through channels separate from aid; and delivered in a way that reflects their "entitlement" to funds, that is, with minimal conditions attached and preferably in the form of grants rather than loans (Werksman, 2009;Schalatek, 2012). Developed countries have argued for a more integrated approach to climate finance and aid, often emphasizing the complementarities between addressing climate change and promoting development (Michaelowa and Michaelowa, 2007).…”