Postface: fragmentation, failing trust and enduring tensions over what counts as climate finance

Abstract

The Paris Agreement commits nations in Article 2(1) to ''Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.'' However there is an absence of internationally agreed accounting rules that would permit overall assessments of progress to this goal and any meaningful comparisons of performance between countries. This is true also for the quantitative Copenhagen/ Cancun promise by developed nations to jointly mobilize US$100 billion by 2020. Our goal is to provoke discussion about the depth of the problems this lack of a functional definition and accounting system have created and perpetuated. We do so by describing the fragmented system of national reporting of climate finance and how the OECD's Rio Marker system is serving neither contributors nor recipients. More than a trust issue between developed and developing countries, we argue that the lack of modalities to account for climate finance also considerably impedes the effective functioning of the bottom-up approach that now prevails under the UNFCCC. The deadline to propose ''modalities of accounting climate finance'' by 2018 is a crucial window in which to address this chronic issue in international climate policy.

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

“…A second objection is that climate finance is characterized by poor accountability and weak governance mechanisms to a degree where it does not make sense to talk about a functioning system for governing climate finance (see Roberts and Weikmans 2017). Here, it is important to distinguish the question of whether a system is dysfunctional from the question of whether it is a system at all.…”

“…Some articles explore the ways in which divergent interests and norms as well as epistemic uncertainty-about the impacts of climate change and the appropriate responses to those impacts-can foster fragmentation (Hall 2017;Roberts and Weikmans 2017;Betzold and Weiler 2017). A further question concerns how domestic fragmentation-for example, in the form of norm contestation among or within bureaucratic agencies or political partiesinfluences and drives international fragmentation (Skovgaard 2017;Pickering and Mitchell 2017).…”

“…A web of different institutions with different accounting standards makes it difficult to track and hold to account actors involved in raising or managing climate finance (see Delina 2017;Hall 2017;Roberts and Weikmans 2017). Furthermore, climate finance flows-however defined and measured-are subject to volatility arising from domestic political factors due to the large measure of discretion according to wealthy countries in how they fulfill their pledges (Pickering and Mitchell 2017).…”

“…Given the recurring theme of ambiguity, it is not surprising that numerous contributions call for clearer definitions, agreed accounting standards and better oversight to make the climate finance system more accountable and effective (Betzold and Weiler 2017;Hall 2017;Pauw 2017;Roberts and Weikmans 2017). While the development of common standards is a high priority, in the interim individual actors can take steps to reduce norm conflicts within their own policies and practices.…”

“…Despite recent pledges to the Fund and for climate finance more broadly, there is still an undisputed gap between available finance and the $100 billion target for mobilizing public and private finance by 2020 (Nakhooda 2015). Estimates of current flows (of public as well as private finance) use widely varying definitions and thus generate divergent conclusions (UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance 2014; see Roberts and Weikmans 2017). Concerns remain that some pledged funding has not reached its intended beneficiaries (UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance 2014: 49) and is not clearly additional to existing aid flows or targets (Nakhooda et al 2013: ii; see Sect.…”