Climate finance: A costly dodge

WITH the reports of the three working groups of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now in the public domain, the current “official” position on the state of knowledge on the physical basis of climate science, the multiple impacts global warming will have and what needs to be done has been stated. Overshooting the target of limiting global warming to 1.5°Celsius seems almost inevitable, and much needs to be done starting now even if the 2°C level is not to be breached. But an area in which clarity and transparency is particularly lacking is the means through which whatever must be done will be financed. Over the years, since the First Assessment Report in 1990, ways to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions and adapt to the now-unavoidable changes have been set out in much detail. What has been less clear is how the burden of these adjustments will be shared. A crucial aspect of any discussion on burden sharing must be an assessment of who is to finance how much of the required expenditure and where.

The IPCC addressed the issue of financing in a dedicated chapter for the first time in 2014 in the report of Working Group III of its fifth assessment. That discussion flagged the absence of a clear definition and estimation of climate finance flows, which Chapter 15 of the report of Working Group III in the recently released sixth assessment (hereafter WGIII6AR) notes is “a difficulty that…