While the Durban decision on the GCF undoubtedly holds the key to unlocking a number of other important negotiation issues, it is by no means the only relevant climate finance one. Four bodies under the climate framework convention will be dealing with financing topics in Durban; these are the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI), the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), the Conference of Parties (COP), and the Kyoto Protocol meeting of parties (CMP). All these bodies will meet in parallel. Some finance issues are more routine than rallying cry. Yet, others go to the heart of Article 4.3 of the UNFCCC, which defines the financial responsibility of Annex II countries. Solving these climate finance issues will be crucial for any real progress in Durban, although the prospects are not very promising.

The least contentious discussions on climate finance should be the ones in the SBI focusing on relevant work under the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC, specifically the annual reporting by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to the COP on financial support provided to developing countries for the preparation of national communications, as well as the guidance parties wish to give the GEF with respect to further actions. Under close scrutiny will be the GEF’s operation of the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) in support of developing countries most urgent adaptation priorities and the progress made. Interesting in this context is that a guidance model such as the one used by the COP for the GEF is the one envisioned by many developed countries for the relationship between the GCF and the COP. In contrast most developing countries are urging a much closer accountability and oversight framework for the GCF. This is one of the still unresolved issues from the design process of the GCF in the Transitional Committee (TC), which can flare up in Durban, particularly if the South African presidency of the COP decides to open up the draft governing instrument for the Fund.

At first glance, the review of the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund (AF) under the CMP, likewise on the schedule for Durban, should not be very controversial, although some observers fear that these discussions could prove to be a “dark horse” of the climate finance talks. The reason for this is that Durban will focus on the institutional arrangements for the AF – specifically its secretariat and trustee. AF secretariat services are currently provided on an interim basis by the GEF, and the World Bank serves as the AF interim trustee, subject to regular review. The World Bank, of course, is the designated interim trustee for the GCF for its first three years of operations. Many developing countries in the TC were urging to include language in the draft governing instrument for the Fund codifying an open, transparent and competitive selection process with clear criteria to determine the permanent trustee of the GCF. They are concerned that the World Bank could be treated as the “default” trustee for the GCF – certainly in line with the preferences of many industrialized countries. In a way, the discussion in the CMP on the AF institutional arrangements and how transparent a selection for a permanent trustee for the AF will be conducted foreshadows the same decision for the GCF and could set the precedent. In this context, it is also thinkable that the discussion about an inherent institutional “conflict-of-interest” of the World Bank might arise again, which had soured some of the TC discussions. The concern here is that the World Bank would serve as financial trustee of the GCF for which it would also serve as important multilateral implementing entity and financing channel.

The most relevant climate finance decisions of the Durban agenda under the AWG-LCA – although climate finance of course is fundamental for a number of work areas still to be concluded such as enhanced actions on mitigation and adaption – are related to the role and function of the Standing Committee created by the Cancun Agreements and the discourse on the sources of long-term finance, which had been left vague in the Cancun Agreements, but was revived as a negotiation topic in the UNFCCC post-Cancun. The discourse on the Standing Committee, which is to assist the COP in exercising its function with respect to the Convention’s Financial Mechanism, is seen by some observers to be mostly one of technical issues that can be resolved – how many members, how they are selected etc. This, of course, increases in complexity when taking into account that one of the functions that the Cancun Agreements ascribed to the Standing Committee is in assisting the COP with the “mobilization of financial resources and measurement, reporting and verification of support provided to developing country Parties”. Here the negotiations about shape and focus of the Standing Committee becomes clearly dependent on progress in securing the sustainability of climate financing long-term, not the least for the GCF. The submission of the African group on the Standing Committee thus proposes that the Committee conduct an assessment of long-term financing options, including assessed contributions by developed countries – clearly a no-go for the Annex II countries. The broader package on climate finance is also inextricably linked to – some would say held hostage by – mitigation issues. However, without any clarity on the sources and the pathway for long-term finance and on how to ramp up from the $10 billion per year until 2012 to the US$100 billion per year by 2020, developing countries fear that in Durban they might be tied to emissions reductions actions which are not able to be funded under the Convention.

On long-term finance itself, most developed countries, including from the EU and the United States feel that the issue is best handled outside the UNFCCC, for example in the G20 context. Point of proof is the recent World Bank/IMF report on sources of climate financing that the G20 finance ministers had commissioned for their November meeting. To the extent that they are willing to have the discussion within the convention context, they prefer it to be treated as an academic discussion more than as a negotiation and eventual decision about options. The latter would constitute, in the words of one insider, “the reddest of red lines.” For the United States in particular, the issue is very dicey domestically; giving the poisonous atmosphere between the two political parties, the Obama administration (which still has to put forward its budget for fiscal year 2013) is avoiding any new international finance commitment before November 7, 2012, the day of the next US presidential election. Developed countries, led by the US, might avoid any specific commitments in Durban, but could conceivably go along with an AOSIS proposal for a year-long work program of technical workshops on long-term finance. Or they could stall by waiting for yet another report on the issue to come out only next year, this time by the G20 Mexican presidency, which supposedly is interested in picking climate finance as its environmental focus. Proponents of resolving the long-term finance debate as part of the Durban negotiations, including the AOSIS and the Africa group are basically pleading for some assurance that climate finance will be delivered from 2013, when fast start finance officially has ended, to 2020.

Enter the Green Climate Fund, the pivot of the complex web of interdependent climate finance discussions at COP17 and center-piece of any possible Durban package. Final negotiations on the GCF will take place in the COP, which has to consider and approve the final report of the Transitional Committee. The document, consisting of a write up of the TC’s activities and process over a seven months period, includes a set of recommendations on how to begin setting up the Fund in a transitional period, as well as in an annex the so-called draft governing instrument for the GCF. The draft governing instrument, by any accounts a less than perfect text, had attempted to balance the often competing and opposing visions the TC representatives from 25 developing and 15 developed countries expressed about the scope, mission, governance structure and financing instruments of the future GCF. While most countries in the TC at is final meeting mid-November had begrudgingly agreed to go along with the document and sent it to the Durban summit for approval, the United States and Saudi Arabia indicated they would not be able to support the text in its current form and demanded further negotiations with significant text revisions.

In Durban, the South African presidency of the COP is now left with several less than perfect options on how to secure consensus and a decision on the design of the GCF and its initial funding. These include recommending to parties to live with a document that nobody really likes (in a weird sense the hallmark of a compromise package…); attempting to carefully tweak the parts in the document that caused the most controversy in a contact group or through informal consultations, or to open it up entirely for a full fledged negotiation among all 194 COP parties. The stakes are high for each of these choices. If South Africa allows a renegotiation of the entire text in the full COP, it is practically assured that many other countries besides the United States and Saudi Arabia demand fixes for the parts of the document they dislike. These include for example a reference to a private sector facility in the new Fund that would allow private investor to be funded directly and which most developing countries oppose or some text provisions that ensure that the Board of the GCF will have a closer relationship with the COP than the one currently existing between GEF and COP. South Africa could attempt to have a small group of hand-picked negotiators work together to incrementally improve on some text language in a contact group, out of sight of the rest of the negotiation hustle and bustle. Or South African leaders managing the summit can delay discussion of the transitional arrangements to start-up the Funds and its draft governing instrument to the second half of the second week of the Durban negotiations, when the ministers are replacing the technocrats at the negotiation table and the real political bargains will be struck.

In any case, it will be inconceivable to have a negotiation package in Durban without a decision on the GCF and its financial sustainability. Giving a clear signal early in the negotiation process that the GCF will be endorsed and funded will help with the controversial debate about the MRV of emissions reductions efforts by developing countries. Or as one expert observer of the process put it: if the Africa group gets disheartened and the discussions about the GCF sour in the first week of negotiations, it will be almost impossible to politically recover in Durban. Failing to reach agreement on the GCF in Durban will not only delay its start – in times of severely constrained national budgets in industrialized countries perhaps indefinitely. It might also shatter any prospects of real progress in multilateral climate talks for the foreseeable future.

Photo: cobalt 123 with Creative Commons License

While most country members noted that they were unable to agree with some provisions in the draft governing instrument, but were willing to go along with it for the process’ sake, only the United States and Saudi Arabia rejected the document outright in its current form, asked for further negotiations and thus denied the unanimous agreement needed to recommend the text to the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for adoption.

Instead, COP 17 in Durban will consider and approve a governing instrument that in all likelihood will be opened up for renegotiation – this time among the 194 members of the UNFCCC, instead of the narrower circle of 40 in the Transitional Committee, making consensus and an agreement acceptable to both developed and developing countries even more elusive. With this development, it is almost certain that the new Green Climate Fund will not be able to start its work in early 2012, if at all. And the obstacles for a successful outcome for global climate negotiations at the Durban “African COP” in early December, of which a carefully designed Green Climate Fund was to be a central piece, have become all but daunting.

A “Take-it or Leave-it” Draft Governing Document at the Final Hour
The “show-down” over the final draft governing document, which co-chairs Trevor Manuel from South Africa and Ketjil Lund from Norway introduced late afternoon on the third day of negotiations in Cape Town essentially as “take-it-or-leave-it” proposal, was preceded by two days of wrestling among the 40 TC members over the right wording and content elements to balance and bridge the essentially contradictory visions and desires for the Fund expressed by developing and developed countries.

The meeting in Cape Town worked its way through two rounds of draft documents, namely an October 7th draft compiled by the leadership of the TC and offered at the beginning of the Cape Town meeting for comments, amendments and objections by the TC members, and a second round of redrafted documents, introduced in sections at the third day of the meeting. Early on it had become clear that the main sticky points hindering a wide agreement on a draft instrument continued to be the ones that had been laid out in detail by TC members in the previous three meetings (see in particular the Böll summary of the third meeting in Geneva in mid-September). Those clearly insurmountable differences included: 1) the objectives, principles and mission of the Fund; 2) its relationship with the COP; 3) the legal personality of the Fund; and 4) the role of the private sector in the Fund.

Developing countries throughout the TC process had elaborated on their vision of a GCF close to US$ 100 billion annually by 2020, financed at its core with new and additional, predictable and adequate public contributions by developed countries fulfilling their “common but differentiated responsibilities” under the UNFCCC, which would allow developing countries simplified direct access to funding based on recipient country-preferences in a Fund with its own legal personality and strong accountability ties to the COP. In contrast, developed countries sketched out the outlines of a GCF with very reduced links to the COP and the UNFCCC, in which limited public finance was primarily utilized to catalyze and leverage private sector investments to form the core of the sums needed for transforming economic development in developing countries into ambitious low-emission pathways with measurable and verifiable results on which financing should be based.

While it is unclear if more negotiating time on a concrete draft instrument would have been able to bridge those differences, as the United States suggested in asking essentially for a fifth TC meeting, in hindsight is seems likely that the TC leadership of three co-chairs and two vice-chairs managing the text drafting process during the last TC meeting (from South Africa, Norway, Mexico, Singapore and Australia) might have underestimated the Committee members’ intent and the time needed to engage in concrete and detailed text negotiations, assuming instead they would be able to reach agreement on a more generally worded communiqué-type document. It is also not quite clear if TC members clearly understood the chairs’ intention in introducing the final text to not allow for further changes or another round of negotiations. In fact, the reaction of a number of speakers from both developed and developing countries had made clear that the reservations to certain parts of the governing instrument document were quite numerous from both developed and developing countries’ side – even before the United States and Saudi Arabia voiced their categorical disapproval of the text and blocked a consensus, albeit for very different reasons.

Consensus Denied – Fundamental Objections by the United States and Saudi Arabia
The “red flags” that the United States had put up throughout the TC process in a negotiating position that did not seem to move or advance were basically the same the US negotiator listed as obstacles to the US agreeing to the draft governing instrument and needing further work, chief among them the relationship of the Fund to the COP, its legal personality, and the role of the private sector in the Fund. The United States objected for example specifically to the mention of “the principles and provisions of the Convention” as the guiding principles of the Fund as “overly broad” (para. 3), the endorsement of a GCF host country by the COP (para. 22), the consideration by the COP of a process to select the permanent trustee for the GCF (para 15.h. of the main report), and any COP involvement in the termination of the Fund (para.72). Paragraphs 7 and 8 dealing with legal personality of the Fund (although lacking in outlining a clear process of how to achieve juridical status) were likewise considered unacceptable, with the US restating its earlier opposition that “form needs to follow function” and it was therefore premature to note, what form of juridical status the Fund would need (with the implication that ultimately the status needed could also be derived through an existing international entity like the World Bank; a clear no-go from developing country side).

On the private sector, while the text referenced a private sector facility with the ability to “directly and indirectly finance private sector mitigation and adaptation facilities” (para.41), a bitter pill for most developing countries to swallow, the US felt nevertheless that operational modalities were to heavily tilted in favor of direct access for recipient countries, thus in the view of the Americans limiting the opportunities for private sector activities to engage in transformation activities by bypassing country-ownership too strongly. The restriction of financial inputs to the Fund to those of developed countries (para. 29) as well as to an initial establishment of only two thematic funding windows for adaptation and mitigation (para. 37) was also listed by the US as points needing further negotiations, “so that we would be able to support the process.”

While those substantive objections are no doubt real ones for the United States, it is more likely that the USA wanted to keep a negotiation chip for the COP 17 in not giving away their agreement to a Green Climate Fund too prematurely. Without a concrete American finance pledge on the table and absent a strong own commitment on emissions reductions to compel emerging market economies to make themselves concrete emissions reductions concessions, the US yes to the design of the GCF is their only concrete offer for Durban. Ironic, though, that the USA– insisting on delinking the GCF from the COP with respect to governance and accountability – proved unwilling to separate progress in the TC from the broader UNFCCC negotiations.

Saudi Arabia for its part stated as its main objections to the draft governing instrument the failure of the document to include the priorities of developing countries, chief among them the question of the financial inputs to the Funds (paras. 29 and 30), which should be stipulating public sources from developed countries as core of the GCF financing with private sector investments playing only a supplementary role in the financing of needed climate action. Saudia Arabia complained also that its call for the inclusion of language on response measures (including for example the costs for the diversification of the economies of oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia) were ignored in the document – a request that put the demands of oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia on a par with the urgent financing needs of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LCDs).

Saudi Arabia as member of the G77 negotiating group within the TC had already succeeded in including a reference to financially support technology development and transfer, including for carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the only explicitly named technology into the paragraph on country eligibility to access GCF funding (para. 35). Both Germany and Barbados later asked for that reference to CCS to be deleted. In contrast to the United States, which had urged further negotiations, Saudi Arabia voiced its belief that additional deliberations would not be able to resolve the remaining issues and asked sending the report to the COP as a non-consensus document.

Disagreements Flagged by other TC Members
In presenting the draft governing instrument, Co-Chair Trevor Manuel had pointed out its compromise nature, indicating that if members could not agree on the document, then the GCF would not be starting its work next year. He urged member countries to be brief and succinct in stating their objections, pointing out the time constraint in needing to bring the meeting to a close. Most developing and developed countries alike in their remarks expressed their appreciation for the efforts of the chairs in doing a “good job” (Pakistan) by presenting a “highly balanced” (South Korea), “well balanced” (Burkina Faso) or “strong and balanced” (India) document, with which they were “overall pretty happy” (Gabon), in which the “basic ingredients” (United Kingdom) for a successful fund were covered and which provided a “very good basis for going forward” (China), even if countries individually felt “not a whirl of affection” (Democratic Republic of Congo) for the document, or even “a little unhappy” (Brazil) with the text, recognizing that it presented “not a perfect document” (Barbados), but at least did “not disappoint our own constituencies” (Samoa). They had nevertheless a number of objections and reservations, hoping that in a dynamic, non-static Fund there might be room for improvements (Zambia) and further clarifications (Egypt):

• Objectives and Guiding Principles: In the discussion in earlier TC meetings, developed country members had attempted to introduce wording to capture a high level of ambition for the Fund by utilizing the notion of “transformational change”. However, it became clear that with an accepted definition of what transformational change describes missing, the term itself was too contentious to be acceptable to most developing countries. Instead the draft governing instrument refers now to the “paradigm shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change” (para.2).

• Financial Inputs: In addition to the United States, both South Korea and Germany objected to the restriction of financial inputs to the Fund to developed countries, pointing out recent major changes in the distribution of wealth in the world, including among private sector entities in emerging market economies (para. 29). Brazil on the other hand complained that a reference to a multi-year replenishment process for the Fund, which was contained in an earlier text version, was deleted from the compromise document – essentially making financial contributions to the Fund a completely voluntary, uncoordinated and unscheduled activity of individual contributor countries.

• Relationship COP and Fund : Like the United States, the UK red-lined a provision suggestion that the selection of the host country of the Fund by the Board would have to be endorsed by the COP (para.22). In contrast, several developing countries, including Egypt, Brazil, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Zambia pointed out the weakness of the relationship of the Fund with the COP as codified in the governing instrument and urged improvements. The document as it currently stands does not include several of the accountability provisions that many developed countries had hoped for, including COP endorsements for the Fund’s Board members (para. 11), for the selection of the Executive Director of the Fund by the Board (para. 20) or for the selection of the head of the Independent Evaluation Unit by the Board (para.60).

• Legal Personality: While the draft governing instruments provides for the GCF to eventually have a legal personality (paras. 7 and 8), the language does specify neither the method nor a time-line for seeking the desired juridical status, a shortcoming which was pointed out by South Korea, Ethiopia and Gabon. Developing countries had repeatedly stressed their intention to have full legal personality conferred to the GCF as quickly as possible, a prerequisite for the Fund to engage in legal agreements with both recipient countries and private sector entities. In contrast, several developed countries, including France, Germany and the UK urged caution in moving forward with the legal status in the absence of a clear understanding of the Fund’s intended functions and financing instruments.

• Funding Windows: Under the draft governing instrument, a thematic funding window approach is suggested for the GCF, with initially only windows for adaptation and mitigation (para. 37), although according to the document the GCF Board retains the authority to “add, modify, and remove additional windows and substructures/facilities as appropriate” (para. 39). Zambia on behalf of the LDCs worried about safeguarding the adaptation window and asked that any modification of windows by the Board would have to be subjected to COP approval. Germany voiced the disappointment of several countries (including Belize and the Democratic Republic of Congo) who had hoped for the inclusion of a REDD + window.

• Private Sector Facility: Like Saudi Arabi, China, Egypt, Nicaragua, Gabon, Brazil and India also objected formally to the establishment of a private sector facility in the Fund with direct and indirect financing for private sector activities (para. 41), even if they in contrast to Saudi Arabia were willing to go along with the proposal for consensus’ sake. Concerns of developing countries centered around the possibility of the private sector facility acting as a “fund within the fund” with the Board having the ability to operationalize the facility with different rules, including access modalities, from the rest of the Fund (para.44), not unlike the International Finance Corporation, which has different rules and procedures, including safeguard provisions, from other World Bank sub-entities. In order to avoid this situation, Egypt suggested establishing an outright private sector window instead. Developing countries, including India, Brazil and Nicaragua, also felt that in a country-driven approach private sector activities in recipient countries should not be able to bypass country authorities and would have to be approved by National Designating Entities (para.46). Gabon worried that without a minimum allocation floor for SIDS, LDCs and Africa (allowed for under para 52), the private sector could be in active competition with these countries for GCF funding allocation.

• Coherence and Country Ownership: India, Brazil and the Philippines objected to the notion that the Fund Board, not national entities, would ensure the coherence in programming at the national level through appropriate mechanisms (para.34). They pointed out that likewise it should be country-led domestic entities, such as the National Designated Authorities (NDA) which should ensure funding provided by the GCF is utilized for project and programmatic approaches in accordance with national climate change strategies and plans (para. 36).

Some Civil Society Concerns and Wins
Civil society observers to the TC process found themselves like most TC member countries deeply ambivalent about the text of the governing instrument for the GCF, which is now forwarded as non-consensus TC document to the COP 17 for consideration and approval. They continue to agonize about whether to live with the text as is or to fight for improvement during renegotiation at the COP should the package text be re-opened – a strategy that carries the risk of losing some of the current wins for civil society.

• Active Civil Society Observers on GCF Board: Among the wins for civil society was the inclusion of two civil society representatives, one each from developing and developed countries, as non-voting active observers in Board decision-making(para.16) giving them the opportunity to take the floor and suggest agenda items; likewise, two private sector representatives are to be included as well. Although this falls short of civil society proposals, which would have preferred to see the inclusion of a representative of a project- or programme-affected community in recipient countries on the Board, it is an improvement over existing climate funds under the UNFCCC’s financial mechanism and replicates “best practice” experience of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds.

• Stakeholder participation and safeguards: Civil society observers to the TC also were able to get explicit reference to “private sector actors, civil society organizations, vulnerable groups, women and indigenous peoples” as the stakeholders, whose input and participation the Fund Board will promote in the design, development and implementation of the strategies and activities to be financed by the Fund (para. 71). However, the final governing instrument saw a weakening of the language on environmental and social safeguards, where “best practice” standards to be agreed and adopted by the GCF Board only “shall” be applied (para. 65), with an earlier reference to relevant international conventions deleted in the final text. Several developing countries, led by Brazil, had been worried that safeguards, as well as a reference to the promotion of “environmental, social, economic and development co-benefits” included in the objectives of the Fund (para. 3) could be used as conditionalities to restrict developing countries access to the Fund.

• Accountability and Transparency Provisions: Likewise, while the document lists accountability mechanisms, namely an information disclosure policy to be developed by the Board (para. 67) and an independent redress mechanism to receive complaints from affected people in recipient countries (para. 69), both strong civil society asks throughout the TC process, there is no reference to the GCF’s future disclosure policy as being in line with internationally recognized norms on access to information, or the ability of the redress mechanism to halt funding or implementation of projects and programmes in case of violations.

• Financial Inputs and Balanced Allocation: Civil society observers had demanded a strong commitment on financial inputs for the funds largely in line with developing countries, asking for a minimum of 50 percent of Fund allocations to be devoted to adaptation, demanding the prohibition of earmarking by contributor countries and asking for a strong replenishment or assessed contribution process that would have provided the core of the GCF funding in form of public developed country contributions, while allowing for innovative public sources such as levies and taxes on financial transaction or transport fuels to add to the ongoing Fund capitalization in the near future. None of these demands were included in the final text proposal for the governing instrument. In fact, the text refers not even to innovative public finance sources, but only to “alternative sources” (para. 30).

• Gender-responsive Approach: Civil society advocates were successful – no small accomplishment – in including several relevant references to gender in the governing instrument for the Fund. If retained in a possible renegotiation of the text during COP 17, this would make the GCF the first dedicated climate fund to include gender considerations from the very outset, setting a new best practice example over existing climate financing instruments, which have only begun several years into their operations to integrate some gender language retroactively. In its guiding principles, the Fund is asked to maximize the impact of its funding for adaptation and mitigation, while “taking a gender-sensitive approach.” (para. 3). In the selection of Board members for the Fund, relevant skills and experience are stressed, “with due consideration given to gender balance” (para. 11). Likewise, the staff selection of the independent Fund secretariat will be merit-based and transparent, “taking into account geographical and gender balance” (para. 21). Introducing the section on operational modalities, the Fund is asked to encourage “the involvement of relevant stakeholders including vulnerable groups and addressing gender aspects (para.31). Lastly, the Board is required to develop mechanisms to promote the input and participation of stakeholders, including women in the design, development and implementation of Fund strategies and activities (para. 71).

The Next Steps
The report of the TC to the COP, including the draft governing instrument for the GCF contained in Annex I, is being sent as non-consensus documents to the COP 17 for “its consideration and approval” (para. 14, main document). It will depend largely on how successfully the South African presidency can manage the COP process whether the draft governing instrument is opened up to deal with the numerous objections by both developing and developed countries in the former TC – and potentially new ones coming to the discourse from non-TC Parties – or if the draft governing instrument can be kept closed as a “package of gives and takes”, for example in a separate contact group. This would be, at present, the best case scenario. In this case, COP 17 – rather than re-design the Fund’s governing instrument – could focus on getting the Fund up and running as early as possible by simply taking note of the report of the TC and by approving the governing instrument for the GCF in its present form. The COP 17 would then move ahead in requesting that the UNFCCC Executive Secretary invites regional groups and constituencies to nominate the GCF Board members. It could invite UNFCCC Parties to submit their applications to host the Fund as well as ask for voluntary contributions for the start-up of the GCF.

With luck, political savvy by the COP presidency and a feeling of shared responsibility in the spirit of multilateralism among the TC members and the UNFCCC Parties, the GCF – despite the sub-optimal outcome of the TC process – could then be just a year or two away from making its first funding decision.

Photos: Liane Schalatek

Given that there are just two full days of negotiations in the 4th TC Meeting in Cape Town on October 16th and 17th and a mere four weeks of behind-the-scenes hackling and drafting left to bridge that divide, it is hard to agree with the optimistic assessment of UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres that the TC “is now fully on track to conclude the design of the Fund for the approval by the UNFCCC’s Conference of the Parties in Durban” in late November. The road to Durban remains bumpy, and TC members have little time to cover a lot of distance.

These contentious issues include the legal status of the Fund, its relationship with the COP and other governance arrangements, the engagement of the private sector, key operational modalities (such as the number of windows and financing instruments to be used) as well as overriding objectives and guiding principles to ensure that the GCF is a new kind of climate finance animal, one that fills gaps in the existing climate finance architecture and surpasses existing instruments in ambition, scope, scale and transformational impact.

They do in fact juxtapose two extremely different visions and business models for the GCF – one that foresees a bigger Fund controlled and overseen tightly by the COP which channels largely public budgetary contributions predominantly in the form of grants to developing countries according to their needs and allows them direct access to and ownership over how to spend, implement and account for these sums (the developing country preference); the other focusing on using limited public financial input into a smaller Fund which functions largely independent of the COP with the primary objective to facilitate the entry of private sector investments for developing countries in order to generate the bulk of the US$100 billion in long-term climate finance annually, but which establishes tight accountability, efficiency, results-orientation and fiduciary standards for direct access of GCF financing of recipient countries (the developed country preference).

For sure, the TC will be able to present something to COP 17, even if – as a last-ditch effort – members will have to use the first few days of the Durban conference for a 5th TC Meeting (technically still within their Cancun mandate to have COP approval by the end of COP17 for the proposed Fund design). Unfortunately, that push by the TC to successfully complete its mandate could come at the cost of leaving most of the really tough questions to be sorted out by the future GCF Board – the as of yet unknown 24 men and (hopefully at least some) women, 12 from developing and 12 from developed countries, who will effectively operationalize the new Fund.

Theoretically, such a Board could become functional and start its work as of January 1, 2012; in reality it will take significantly longer, if the four months it took UNFCCC parties to agree on the members of the TC from its regional constituencies are any guidepost.

TC members, if unable to agree on a range of detailed recommendations, could end up sending to the COP little more than an expanded outline, consisting largely of the various headings and discussion points which will include only bullets on Fund objectives and guiding principles, Fund governance, operational modalities as well as monitoring, evaluation and stakeholder engagement to be filled with further life by the future GCF Board. What such a rough framework document with a minimum of agreed language (and some proposed options) could look like, shows the document that the three Co-Chairs (from Mexico, South Africa and Norway), two Vice-Chairs (from Singapore and Australia) and Co-facilitators of the previous thematic working groups of the TC (from Barbados, Spain, Pakistan, Sweden, Australia, Switzerland and the Democratic Republic of Congo) presented on the last day of the Geneva meeting as “draft reflections”. TC members have only until October 5th to further elaborate on or change and amend this draft, having to rely solely on telephone and email exchanges, leaving many developing country members worried about the transparency and inclusiveness of such a process. An updated version of this document incorporating TC members’ comments will then be circulated to all TC members as the draft report of the TC to the COP 17 on October 7th. It will form the basis of negotiations at the 4th TC Meeting in Cape Town on October 16th and 17th. Ideally, the TC members will agree on the draft report and adopt it, effectively sending it to the COP 17 for approval in Durban a few weeks later.

However, while the procedural roadmap for the TC is clear, how to get there in substance still remains a big question and an – at the moment – seemingly insurmountable challenge. TC members had intense discussions – and severe disagreements – on several key issues, five of which were proposed by Norwegian Co-Chair Kjetil Lund for special focus in Geneva as central questions with the potential to “unlock” other open questions. These key issues with significant linkage to other open questions are the following:

1. The Fund’s relationship with the UNFCCC COP: While the Cancun Agreements specify that the Green Climate Fund is under the guidance of and accountable to COP, there is no clear understanding what this means with respect to the role of the COP in selecting Board members, in determining the permanent trustee of the GCF or the head of the Fund’s independent Secretariat and in evaluating and monitoring the Fund’s progress and accomplishments. Developing countries such as Brazil, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, China or Egypt argued largely for a very direct relationship, with the COP approving Board members, giving the direction for the Fund’s programs and strategies and evaluation its effectiveness in a continuous manner. The United States, representing the other end of the spectrum, argued that this would bring the Fund under the authority of the COP in violation of the Cancun mandate. In their view, supervision of the GCF through the COP should only come as part of the COP’s periodic supervision of the financial mechanisms of the UNFCCC. Instead, sole decision-making power for the Fund would rest with the Board as executive authority.

2. The establishment of an independent secretariat: The Terms of Reference for the design of GCF had stipulated the establishment of an independent GCF Secretariat. In the Geneva discussion, a number of developing countries (Egypt, Nicaragua, Brazil, Barbados, India, Pakistan, China, and Burkina Faso) felt the need to clarify that they understood the GCF Secretariat’s independence to mean independence from existing institutions and structures (for contrast, secretariat services for the Adaptation Fund are currently still provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF)), but not from the Fund’s Board or the COP. Several developing countries indicated that the Fund’s Secretariat should be relatively small (Egypt, Philippines, Singapore) as most implementation and oversight would occur in the recipient countries. Members suggested the Secretariat should be staffed with experts from a variety of backgrounds and be geographically and gender-balanced (Nicaragua, Barbados, Korea), while avoiding a potential conflict of interest by drawing staff from Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). TC members agreed widely that the position as head of the Secretariat should be merit-based and selected internationally according to a set of criteria; but they disagreed who (the Board or the COP) should draw up these criteria and make the selection.

3. Funding windows and earmarking: Most members seemed to agree that initially there should be only a small number of windows, primarily for mitigation and adaption with a balanced funding allocation, but that the GCF Board should have the capacity to create, augment or delete windows and delegate some decision-making power sub-committees. Several other windows were proposed, most commonly for REDD+ (supported by Belize, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, USA, Peru) and for LDCs and SIDS (DR of Congo, Samoa, Belize). Other speakers suggested windows or a special financing facility for capacity building (Korea, Brazil), technology transfer (Saudi Arabia, Brazil) or transformational change (Spain, Germany, Peru and Italy) respectively, although the majority of TC members saw the need to integrate capacity-building and technology transfer as cross-cutting issues into all eventual funding windows. Members disagreed on the utility or desirability of earmarking of contributions for strengthening the allocation system of the Fund, with some rejected earmarking as contrary to the concept of country-ownership (Brazil, Philippines, Zambia, Peru and Saudi Arabia) and others seeing it as necessity to ensure that enough funding will be flowing to disadvantaged country and population groups (Belize) as long as some specific criteria and conditions would be observed (Egypt and Korea), or to increase the volume of funding for the GCF (Spain, United Kingdom, United States).

4. The engagement of the private sector: Should the GCF engage the private sector and if so, how would it do so more effectively than existing public climate finance instruments were questions which had been a strong focus of the TC discussions from their very beginnings, with equally strong opinions for and against among members. This became clear in the discussion about a possible private sector window at the Fund, with several countries such as Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States in favor, but the majority of members skeptical whether a separate window would be the right approach – albeit for different reasons. Countries such as Egypt and Nicaragua rejected its as outside the Fund’s mandate of enhancing the implementation of the Convention; several other countries (including Peru, Zambia, Burkina Faso and Nicaragua) felt the inclusion of the domestic private sector should be realized in the country-context of Fund recipients only, for example in the framework of public-private partnerships . Russia, Germany, France, Sweden, Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands and Denmark, while not supportive of a private sector window, called for a special set of engagement rules, financial blending instruments or a financing facility for the private sector in the Fund – a distinction between window and facility that will come down more to form than to function in the end.

5. The Fund’s legal status: That the GCF needs some sort of legal status seems to be in itself not in dispute. Most members have been convinced by the experience of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which depends on its trustee, the World Bank, for support in matters requiring legal capacity, that the GCF must be independent of existing institution for jurisdictional issues, such as its capacity to enter into contractual agreements with recipient countries, a necessity for example for implementing a direct access modality. At question, however, in the TC discussions is what kind of legal status the Fund needs to fulfill its functions (does it need full legal personality or is legal capacity sufficient?); how it should be pursued or conferred (through an international treaty or via a host country government); if an interim solution might be needed in order to avoid delaying the operationalization of the Fund (the intent is for the Board to start its work in early 2012); and at what stage in the TC deliberations a decision on both an interim and a final solution should be made. Several developed countries (most vocally the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and France) have consistently argued throughout the TC deliberations that “form follows function” and that thus a decision of the TC on the legal status of the GCF would be premature. However, another group of TC members have argued that being serious about ambitious objectives for the Fund means for members of the TC to support full legal personality for the Fund rather sooner than later, even if an interim solution might be needed (China, Brazil, Sweden, Pakistan, South Africa, Russia, DRC, Switzerland).

Co-chairs took pains to acknowledge many members’ concerns (including Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua and Philippines, but also the United States or India) that a focus of the Geneva discussions on these five key points would neither imply agreement on other issues not taken up in the meeting nor detract from their importance. Unfortunately, the list of contentious issue still awaiting agreement goes on: What to include in the list of principles and objectives for the Fund, an elaboration on the Fund’s “business model” to be used and its allocation criteria, what assessment and fiduciary standards to apply and if and how to account for the special situation of SIDS and LDCs remain issues fraud with the potential for further disagreement among TC members.

Whether all of these can be resolved in the short time left for the TC process remains doubtful. The facilitator group of 12 country members will no doubt attempt to put “members in a pressure cooker” in order to have a draft outcome for Durban, as Co-Chair Trevor Manuel from South Africa only half-jokingly threatened. What could be helpful at this point in breaking the deadlock and avoiding the last-minute political arm-twisting in the TC process that would undermine wide-spread ownership of and support for the Fund post Durban would be a positive signal.

This should come latest in Cape Town in the form of a concrete financing promise of the developed countries to ensure that the Fund will not start out with empty coffers and the new GCF Board has the financial security to convene in early 2012 in order to work out detailed operational guidelines for the Fund. Equally helpful would be a concrete offer from at least one member country to host the Fund and pursue a legal status on its behalf, ideally with some promised funding to support the seriousness of such an offer. So far, developed countries have not stepped up to the plate.

Photo: Liane Schalatek/Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America

Gender awareness and some gender guidelines are not completely absent from some of the climate financing instruments, nor should they. For example, the World Bank and the regional multilateral development banks implementing the Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) have gender policies on the book for their development financing operations. The World Bank, for example, has a gender mainstreaming mandate. The development banks also have accumulated evidence from development practice over the years that gender equality increases the effectiveness of their development funding. A recent report of the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group has made that point. But gender is not integrated into any of the operations of the Clean Technology Fund, which finances large-scale mitigation objects in emerging market economies and accounts for  roughly 70 percent of the total CIFs funding portfolio of US$ 6.5 billion pledged. In the World Bank’s Pilot Program on Climate Resilience (PPCR), the vehicle funding programmatic adaptation portfolios in a few select developing countries, gender is not part of the PPCR’s operational principles, although some pilot countries phase I proposals have included some gender dimensions in their plans. In the Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Program in Low-Income Countries (SREP), the newest of the CIFs, the suggested structure of the investment plans requests information about “environmental, social and gender co-benefits” and asks for social co-benefits to include “greater involvement and empowerment of women and other vulnerable groups.”

At the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund, project proposals unevenly include some gender analysis; but it is not yet mandatory or a strong consideration for the project approval and subsumed under a vulnerability focus. Hopefully, this will change with the current review and further elaboration of the AF’s operational guidelines. For the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) lastly, which is supposed to fund and implement National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), gender is so far not an obligatory decision criteria for project review and approval. Acting on the prodding the GEF received during its latest replenishment cycle by some Northern contributor countries to mainstream gender into its operations, the GEF is working to improve and implement its own social safeguards and gender mainstreaming policy.  This is bitterly necessary: so far, only roughly a third of the NAPAs include gender analysis or gender indicators. Women’s participation in their development has been likewise uneven, despite clear guidance by the UNFCCC. And most of the handful of NAPA implementation projects funded under the LDCF lack the gender component entirely.

However, it is possible to include gender systematically and effectively in a global financing mechanism devoted to developing country actions for a global public good, such as climate stabilization undoubtedly is. Some “better practice” examples do exist. Both, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) have had either a gender action plan or a detailed gender policy on the book since 2008. In addition, they have a “gender infrastructure” on both funds: a Gender Working Group in the case of GAVI, which includes representatives from all Secretariat teams; in the case of the Global Fund, there are several full time gender advisors as well gender experts on the monitoring, evaluation, legal advisory and civil society outreach teams.

But a formal gender policy or a gender action plan for a climate financing instrument in itself is not enough. Equally important is the systematic integration of gender equality in a fund’s governance structure as well in its public participation mechanisms. For example, while of the existing multilateral climate funds the AF is the most representative in terms of countries’ inclusion (with a majority of seats for developing countries and a dedicated board seat each for Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing Countries), none of the multilateral climate funds seeks a gender-balance on the board. Also, most don’t allow for an active participation of members of civil society in the respective fund’s board either. Although even there, “best practice” precedent exists: the statutes of the Amazon Fund, the Congo Basin Forest Fund and the UN-REDD Programme allow for representatives of relevant stakeholder groups to be voting members of the fund’s decision-making body. While not going this far, on some climate funds, for example the CIFs, civil society representatives as active observers at least have the right to take the floor, add agenda items and recommend outside experts for consideration by a fund board. At the CIFs, special representation is accorded in the CIFs to Indigenous Peoples with a separate seat that is not counted toward the overall civil society quota.  Women deserve no less.

Gender advocates are therefore putting forward some key recommendations to the Transitional Committee to ensure that gender is adequately considered in the ongoing deliberations on the design of the future Green Climate Fund. Gender is relevant for all of the four working groups of the TC. It truly has to be a cross-cutting issue and one of the guiding principles informing all of the TC’s work, which is currently moving from scoping input to drafting options for adaption by COP17 in Durban later this fall.  Among the most important gender equality considerations for the new Fund:

• Gender-responsive funding guidelines and criteria should be developed for each of the proposed thematic funding windows
• Explicit gender criteria must be included in ex ante performance objectives and criteria to evaluate funding options under the GCF.  Criteria should include a mandatory gender analysis of the proposed project or program, a gender budget and some clear indicators which measure how funded projects and programs contribute to gender equality objectives
• Funding Windows: The GCF Board, by retaining the flexibility and capacity to add new funding windows, sub-windows or focal areas, should consider gender equality as focal area or a special women’s sub-fund.
• Gender-balance in all decision-making bodies should be guaranteed, including the GCF Board and possible sub-boards for individual funding windows. In addition to gender balance, the GCF board must include gender experts. Members of civil society, including representatives of gender equality organizations and women groups, should be given opportunities for active participation in the work of the GCF Board and all of its sub-Boards, ideally as voting members.  Active CSO observers should include gender experts and/or women’s organizations.
• The GCF Secretariat must include gender expertise. This is important to ensure that gender equality principles are considered in program and project review and the monitoring, reporting, verification and evaluation of the funding portfolio, which are among the suggested functions for the GCF Secretariat.
• The input and participation of women as stakeholders and beneficiaries must be guaranteed at each level and step (decision-making, program/project implementation) ex ante, ongoing and ex post.
• The GCF must include a regular gender-audit of its funding allocation in its overview and reporting in order to ensure a balanced (between mitigation and adaptation) and gender-responsive delivery. 

At the second TC meeting in Tokyo just a few days ago, it was encouraging to note that the level of gender awareness among TC members seems to be rising – albeit from a previously pretty low level. Heading into the next meeting in just a few weeks in early September, it is important to keep the gender momentum going.

Photo: Benjamin Stephan with Creative Commons License

Yet, the German experiment can only then be judged a true success, if Germany does not fund its national energy transformation  at the expense of its international obligations and pledges to help developing countries finance their own low-carbon and climate-resilient development.  Funding both the energy transformation at home and internationally at the same time, without short-cuts and excuses:  this  will set Germany apart from the rest of the industrialized world and cement a true German leadership position in climate actions globally …..

The challenge is more than hypothetical. Already, before the recent decision to phase out nuclear energy, Germany has been hard pressed to fulfill its climate finance pledges under the Fast Start Finance initiative to provide a total of € 1.26 billion (or € 420 million per year) from 2010 to 2012 as part of the US$ 30 billion promised. Most of the money provided so far by Germany as fast start funds is clearly not additional to its existing development aid obligations.  Germany will also have to significantly ramp up its spending for international climate action in line with the commitment of developed countries, confirmed at the climate summit in Cancun last December, to raise US$100 billion annually by 2020. However, last fall, almost all of the total € 1 billion in future spending additional to regular budgetary contributions for international mitigation and adaptation until 2017 that the German government had set aside under a new German special purpose energy and climate fund, has been blocked by appropriators in light of budget consolidation talks in Berlin –hopefully only temporarily.  

That special purpose fund, with the aim of promoting environmentally-friendly, reliable and affordable energy at home and abroad, had been set up by an act of parliament (Gesetz zur Errichtung eines Sondervermögens “Energie- und Klimafonds” – EKFG) only last fall following the parliament passage of a new German Energy Concept . Under the concept the operating times of the seventeen German nuclear power plants were extended in exchange for “voluntary” payments by the operators of Germany’s nuclear power plant of close to € 1.4 billion into the special fund until 2017. The other significant source for the special purpose fund was a portion of the revenue from the auction of Germany’s emission allowances under the EU’s Emission Trading System (ETS). 

Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany in April had declared a 3-month nuclear power moratorium, and Germany’s nuclear power companies had suspended their payments into the special purpose energy and climate fund.  With the nuclear phase out now decided, it has become necessary for the German government to revise the special purpose fund, its funding sources and funding purposes.  Starting in 2012, for example, the special purpose fund will receive all proceeds from German’s emission trading under the ETS; this will add up to € 900 million in 2012, but could reach as much as € 3 billion per year from 2013 on, when all German emissions permits will be auctioned off (currently, some energy companies still receive permits for free).  

The first draft proposals have worried civil society observers who fear that the reform of the special purpose fund – while most likely budget-neutral in 2012 — might come from 2013 on at the expense of Germany’s overall support for international climate action.  While the jury is still out – too many of the details are still are not confirmed yet and more conclusive numbers are hard to come by –, German experts following the issue have raised a number of red flags:

• International climate finance is already only one of several funding purposes listed for the special purpose fund; as a matter of fact, with the revision, language so far obligating the spending of the money on energy efficiency, renewable energies, energy storage and grid technologies, improvement of energy systems in buildings and national climate protection in addition to international climate actions will be weakened from a “must” to a “can”- provision. Also, electromobility (so far funded through the normal budget) will be added and could detract hundreds of millions yearly from the other tasks and especially international climate support .
• The draft of the revised bill for the special purpose fund also allows to pay up to €500 million per year starting in 2013 to energy-intensive businesses as compensation for rising electricity costs under new emissions trading schemes – an expenditure in direct contradiction to the intended goals of the fund. 
• According to a note published in the German daily “taz” recently, the German government in an answer to a parliamentary inquiry by the Green parliamentary faction, proposes to use up to 5 percent of the special purpose fund between 2013 and 2016 for the construction of new highly-efficient coal and gas-fired power plants from smaller German power companies controlling less than 5 percent of the German electricity generation market.
• Under the special purpose fund, money provided for international climate action is supposed to be spent in addition to other regular budget appropriations for international mitigation and adaptation support, for example via the budget of the German Ministry for Environment (BMU) and the German Development Cooperation Ministry (BMZ).  This includes initiatives such as the BMU’s International Climate Initiative (ICI), which for the past few years has disbursed close to € 120 million annually.  While the ICI appears to be funded for 2012, starting in 2013 its future is uncertain. Observers fear that while the initiative – which has brought Germany international acclaim – itself will not be cut entirely, its future funding might very well be.
• So far, there is no proposed distribution formula for national versus international climate obligations to be funded under the revised special purpose fund.  This is worrisome; it might encourage a shortchanging of international climate support for domestic climate-related expenditures.  In order for Germany to fulfill its quantitative commitments for long-term climate financing, experts demand that from 2013 on at least a third of the special purpose fund’s revenue should go to international mitigation and adaptation efforts. With an estimated € 3 billion a year in revenue from emissions trading, this could add up to more than € 1billion annually.  However, this money has to be in addition to regular budget expenditures, not substituting for them.

While the discourse over the implications of the costly national energy transformation needed for a future nuclear-free Germany for international climate finance has centered mostly on securing and increasing the quantity of Germany’s support for international climate action, the qualitative dimensions of this discourse should not be forgotten.  Germany’s international climate finance obligations do not exist in a norms-free zone.  International human rights and environmental standards and principles exist that need to guide Germany spending for international climate actions, irrespective of whether allocation and disbursement is channeled via  the special purpose fund or Germany’s normal budget process.  While Germany has taken a number of steps in the right direction, significant improvements are possible and necessary, including more support for adaptation efforts internationally and a larger provision of funding in form of grants to implementing entities on a state and subnational level  in recipient countries. 

A principled approach to Germany’s public climate financing – — one that does not shortchange international climate obligations for domestic energy priorities and does not only increase the quantity, but also the quality of German international climate finance in line with the country’s international obligations in climate, environment and human rights conventions – will go a long way to make sure that its visionary domestic energy transformation can be replicated widely internationally, especially in developing countries.

Photo: 350.org, Marcel Mettelsiefen with Creative Commons License

The “election of officers” was of course one of the items on the tentative agenda for the two-day meeting.  That it was dealt with behind closed doors by excluding all observers – whose right to attend was explicitly confirmed in Cancun – before the actual meeting even started suggest at least two important (and likely recurring) themes for the six-months long process:  first and foremost, this seemingly technical exercise cannot be divorced from climate negotiation politics; second, full transparency will be crucial in order to help ease political suspicions and minimize political arm-wrestling and thus contribute to building the trust and partnership necessary among the 40 TC members if they are to succeed in creating a fundamentally different and better global climate fund for the benefit of developing countries. 

The task before the 40 TC members and their advisors, selected by countries and regions for their experience and skills with respect to climate change and finance, is indeed a trying one: come up with a “robust, transparent, flexible design”, so UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, that allows for a significant scaling up of current financial flows from developed to developing countries for urgently needed action in mitigation and adaption.  In Cancun, the global community reaffirmed that by 2020 developed countries plan to raise US$100 billion per year. How much of this sum should come respectively from public, private and innovative sources of financing is still up in the air as is the percentage of this sum that should flow through a future GCF. 

In the first TC meeting in Mexico-City, the long-standing differences in opinion in this matter between many developing and developed countries were reiterated. Whereas many industrialized countries – including the US, Germany, the UK, France, Canada and Australia – in their interventions on the purpose of the fund equated its success with the new Fund’s future capacity to leverage private sector investments, G77 countries and China underscored developed countries’ obligation under the Convention to provide for the bulk of the future GCF funding via new and additional public resources as well as innovative financing, with private and carbon market financing serving only a complementary role.

As TC members discussed possible working arrangements for the committee, some obvious tensions within the group became apparent.  Samoa, speaking on behalf of small island states, demanded a discussion on the purpose, scope and the principles for the new fund first, hoping for the articulation of a common understanding for a common vision of the GCF.  Against the objection of the United States, Spain and others who felt that the Cancun Agreements already had elaborated on the mission and vision for the GCF and that the TC’s focus should solely be on technical aspects, a one hour exchange of views on the subject was added to the agenda. China and other G77 countries underscored that the TC’s work on designing the GCF as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the convention should be governed by the UNFCCC principles as articulated in the Bali Action Plan as well as in the Cancun Agreements.  Developing countries stressed the financial responsibility of industrialized countries to respond to a demand-driven articulation of needs by developing countries with adequate and predictable funds that are easily and directly accessible and transformational in purpose. While they emphasized the notion of equity and climate justice as an important guideline for operationalizing the GCF, developed countries avoided any reference to a financial obligation and focused instead on efficiency, effectiveness and results-orientation as the guiding principles for the new global fund, expressing their expectation that it would streamline and reduce the fragmentation in climate funding and provide the scalability and speed needed to support low-carbon development. 

Developed and developing countries also showed a differing appreciation of how pragmatic and flexible the rules of engagement in the TC should be.  While the United States and other industrialized countries like Italy and Canada argued that existing procedural rules under the UNFCCC Conference of Parties should be adjusted and modified as needed in the workings of the TC, developing countries such as the Philippines, Nicaragua, China, India or the Democratic Republic of Congo speaking for the African group stressed that the TC, including its officers, is to operate “under the authority” of the UNFCCC and thus obligated to follow its rules.  This is of course in contrast to the future GCF, which will only follow COP guidance, but not its authority.  For example, they urged a clear and explicit definition of the proposed decision-making by consensus to mean the absence of any formal objection.  This clarification, no doubt, was sought in response to the acceptance of the Cancun Agreements at the COP16 last December despite Bolivia’s formal objection to several of its decision points. The draft proposal on working arrangements, the UNFCCC Secretariat had prepared for the meeting, was sent back for a revision. With no formal decision being taken, it remained unclear how the next TC meeting will deal with working arrangements again.

Indeed, at the first TC meeting, it seemed at times as if members, the new TC chairs and the UNFCCC Secretariat almost felt their way forward with their eyes closed, uncertain on how to proceed and if decisions were formally taken or an agenda point just merely concluded.  The UNFCCC Secretariat, acting as the TC Secretariat but yet without formal guidance by the TC members, for example had prepared a quite detailed proposal for how a Technical Support Union (TSU) for the TC should operate and be composed.  Given the importance of the TSU in preparing design options for the new fund and organizing and providing all expert input into the TC, this was no doubt a sort of test balloon by the Secretariat and Executive Director Figueres to determine the level of oversight and direction the full TC would be willing to provide. 

A number of international organizations, including all regional development banks, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, as well as the GEF Secretariat, the Adaptation Fund Board, UNEP and UNDP, have agreed to second a staff person to the TC process, which will form a resident team of yet undefined overall size to be located with the UNFCCC Secretariat in Bonn, Germany. It is still unclear if and how private sector institutions and civil society experts can be engaged, for example in a proposed raster of non-resident expertise.  However, there was also worry that a powerful TSU, if not given clear instructions by the TC, could become an non-transparently operating black box, set the TC’s agenda rather than following the Committee’s working orders and thereby predetermine outcomes, for example by constricting the design choices presented to the TC. A proposed composition of the TSU, which would have clearly assigned the important role of the funds design specialist to an expert seconded from a multilateral development bank, most likely the World Bank, raised eyebrows.  In the view of several TC members (including Nicaragua, the Philippines and India) such an assignment would clearly constitute a conflict of interest as it would give seconded World Bank staff a role in designing the fund and its governance structures that the World Bank is meant to oversee as interim trustee with fiduciary responsibilities.

While not addressed by TC countries during the deliberations, it is crucial for the TC to include strong and varied expertise on formulating comprehensive social, including gender, and environmental safeguards in the TSU (the draft proposal had only included one such position).  Non-resident experts should be drawn from academia, independent research institutions, labor unions, human rights and women’s rights organizations as well as groups representing climate-affected communities and Indigenous Peoples, taking into account gender and regional balance.

In their discussions during the first meetings, all TC members had stressed an eagerness to have a detailed work plan for the next six months. Three more meetings of the full TC are planned, with the first one likely to be held in Tokyo/Japan the second week of July.  Given the short period of time available for the TC to do its work, the Committee decided to organize its work in four separate work streams or working groups that are to convene and prepare proposals for consideration by the full TC simultaneously. A draft work plan was discussed which outlined most of the respective work stream mandates, but was not considered to be comprehensive at this point.  Following UNFCCC rules of procedure, all four work streams will be headed by a pair of co-facilitators chosen from an Annex I and Non-Annex I country each.

• Spain and Barbados will facilitate Work Stream I, which is to deal with the scope, guiding principles and cross-cutting issues of the future GCF, looking at its size and scalability, its complementarity and value-added to existing funds, and country-led and results-based processes. 
• Switzerland and the Democratic Republic of Congo (representing the African group in the negotiations) will look at governance and institutional arrangements in Work Stream II, which will give suggestions on procedures for the Board, the selection and establishing of an independent GCF secretariat as well as the trustee arrangements and will define the relationship of the GCF with national entities as well as other Convention bodies, including the yet to be formed Standing Committee. 
• Australia and Pakistan are jointly responsible for guiding the work in Work Stream III dealing with operational modalities, potentially the most controversial of the four working groups; it will deal with methods to manage upscaled financial resources from a number of sources, look at ways to leverage private sector finance, will have to devise methods for a balanced allocation between mitigation and adaptation, ensure that appropriate non-binding expert and technical advice is provided to the GCF and ensure stakeholder input and participation.
• Sweden and Bangladesh will organize the work in Work Stream IV which will address monitoring and evaluation by suggesting mechanisms for periodic independent evaluation of the Fund’s performance as well as the performance of the activities supported by the fund, and propose mechanisms to ensure both the financial accountability of the Fund as well as the application of internationally accepted fiduciary standards, sound financial management, and – last but not least – the application of environmental and social safeguards.

Going into the first TC meeting, which was webcast live on the UNFCCC website, many TC members – as well as observers – had felt that there was not enough transparency on who had drafted the working documents for the first meeting and under whose mandate.  They also felt insufficiently informed about members and activities of a group of advisors from observer organizations acting in the capacity of a de facto interim Technical Support Unit even before such a unit had been formally established and tasked by the full TC.  Members therefore urged to increase and guarantee the transparency of the TC by making relevant documents, including all working papers and notes, available at least two weeks before meetings and sessions, Ideally, those documents should not just be accessible to the TC members and their advisors, but to all registered observers and the larger interested public. 

None of the TC members spoke out against a broad inclusion of observers in the TC and work stream meetings, however several countries asked that a distinction be made – and thus preferential treatment given – to observers from countries not represented on the TC over private sector and civil society organizations. And while many TC members from both developed and developing countries welcomed the “wholesale engagement of civil society organizations and the private sector” (USA), non spoke explicitly to the kind of observer role and active participation civil society should play in the TC proceedings. Although the Cancun Agreements had stipulated that the TC be open to all accredited observers of the UNFCCC, it is not yet clear if civil society participants can be “active observers” (following established practice at the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds for example).  This would mean that civil society representatives in any full TC meeting, in the work streams, workshops or other sessions could (a) take the floor and make an intervention, (b) suggest agenda items and (c) be active participants in all drafting groups or executive sessions. 

A hopeful first step in that direction was taken in allowing some civil society remarks to the full TC during the meeting’s first day, although not during the second. Civil society groups are hoping that at a minimum each of the nine formal UNFCCC constituencies (including labor, the business sector, women and gender groups, Indigenous Peoples, environmental groups, research institutions and youth groups among others) will be allowed to have a two minute intervention at each TC meeting.  Indications are that this might be the unrealistic best-case scenario at this point. In a post-TC meeting with civil society groups, Mexican Co-Chair Cordero promised to work with his co-chairs and the UNFCCC secretariat on proposasl for ways to ensure the inclusion of civil society’s technical expertise in the workings of the TC to be discussed at the next full TC meeting. 

Photo: Schalatek

ClimatEquity (CE): In Cancun, there was a spirit of optimism expressed by many government negotiators and civil society representatitives. Is any of this spirit still palpable in Bangkok?  

Hans Verolme (HV): While the hangover from Copenhagen may have lifted in Cancun, it is my view that the Cancun Agreements were to some extent merely a translation of the Copenhagen Accord into the UNFCCC negotiating text. They also represented an acknowledgement by the world’s governments of their lack of political courage to translate a rather vague, rhetorical ambition to prevent dangerous warming into a fair and binding agreement. The existence of this large (some 10 gigatonnes!) gap between ambition and action is now central to the NGO work here. This sobering but realistic assessment also leads many NGOs to focus on very concrete issues such as how to deliver technology and finance support.

Overall, civil society (and donor) interest in these negotiations has dropped significantly. Where in the run up to Copenhagen the meeting rooms were too small to handle the throngs of activists and the streets of Bangkok were full of protesters, all that remains is a small core of NGO representatives, often members of Climate Action Network with longstanding expertise in these negotiations. Unfortunately the growing climate movement is not felt here.CE: Which are the most important issues and topics this week?  And is there any one government dominating the debatte?  Are their – pleasant or unpleasant – surprises?

HV: Apart from discussions over the work programme for the year ahead, governments have presented more details on their pledges for 2020 emissions cuts. Following the presentations by the developed countries, there is now a palpable sense that the Kyoto Protocol is at risk!

While for several sessions people like me have pointed to the likelihood of a gap between commitment periods (i.e. entry into force of an agreement was unlikely to take place on 1 January 2013 thus requiring a decision on provisional application), now the likelihood of there being no second commitment period to Kyoto at all has entered the awareness. This is largely due to the positions taken by Umbrella Group countries.

But the Umbrella Group has been aided and abetted by Europe. While in Cancun under the Belgian Presidency the EU took a balanced approach, right now it emphasizes that it prefers a single agreement – but without any agreement being in sight. Developing countries’ insistence on a second commitment period is sounding shriller and shriller.
The lack of EU ambition is now also clear for all to see. We have helped to increase awareness of the fact that if the existing efficiency and renewables targets are met the EU will in fact hit about -25% by 2020. So how can -20% constitute international leadership? This is not helped by the EU position (or lack thereof) on its emissions from forests (using so called reference levels instead of measuring what the atmosphere sees) and the carry-over of carbon credits (AAUs) by East European countries. Ironically those credits will be worthless were the Kyoto Protocol to expire…

CE: The agreements in Cancun are seen by many as the death knell for globally binding climate goals and as a confirmation of a system, in which every country just brings to the table what is deems to be „nationally appropriate actions.“ Is there any realistic hope for a global climate compact being negotiated by COP 17 in Durban, South Africa?

HV: Assuming the gloomy scenario of a collapse of the Kyoto Protocol plays out, I do not believe such a collapse will happen this year. South Africa as a country that sees itself as one of the progressive forces in the world will do its utmost to prevent a failure of the talks. Governments will keep on talking and if Durban is inconclusive it is likely that Heads of State will be asked to revisit the issue when they meet in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 for the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit. The position of the USA merits special mention here. It is clear to the world that the USA lacks ambition and will not in the near future put comprehensive Federal climate legislation in place. It is even less likely the USA will ever ratify an international binding treaty that commits it to fulfill its moral and legal dual obligation to cut emissions and support other countries to both deal with the unavoidable consequences of climate change (adaptation) and shift to a green low carbon economy (mitigation). The Copenhagen Accord was an attempt to use a political non-binding approach to replace the binding Kyoto Protocol with the pledge and review approach to international cooperation. In Bangkok, the USA even more aggressively than in Cancun defended its view of the world by refusing to agree to common accounting (that would make it easier to compare the efforts of countries) or to agree to discuss how one can structure compliance with the pledges that have been made. Thus reducing “review” to its bare bones. This would be the worst possible model of pledge and review possible and a far cry from what we have been pressing governments to build: a fair, ambitious and binding agreement with the kind of ambition that limits warming to 1.5 degrees C.

CE: What role does the nuclear disaster of Fukushima play in Bangkok? Is this havarie ultimately a chance or a risk for climate protection efforts globally?

HV: When considered narrowly in the context of these negotiations, the events in Japan are most likely to undermine international efforts. Firstly and most obviously, a significant share in development and climate assistance by Japan is expected to be reduced. While the size of those cuts are yet unknown, this is obvious. But it is the situation in Japan that may in retrospect prove to have been a tipping point. You will recall Japan in Cancun, the country that most publicly opposed a second commitment period of the KP with Russia, the USA, and Australia in open support of that position. They have not (yet) declared force majeure and will according to Japanese colleagues here still meet their KP target for 2012, but with rolling blackouts and the need to bring generating capacity online fast the obvious choice, if not the healthy choice, is fossil especially natural gas. There will even be some pressure to ‘diversify’ and build a coal-fired plant for base load and plenty of countries lining up to sell them the coal (again the USA and Australia, but also Indonesia). There is scope for more efficiency and renewables, too, but bureaucrats and politicians seem to favor the obvious carbon-intensive option.

CE: What circumstances would have to be fulfilled to declare the climate negotiations in Bangkok a success at this end of this week?

HV: Success in Bangkok is best judged after the fact and in the context of progress made by Durban. For those of us working the inside track it is encouraging to hear that a lot of the concerns NGOs have put forward are entering the rhetoric of the negotiators, but the political mandates have not changed. For the EU members, this is work that needs to happen at home and in Brussels!

Photo: private

But if a first 65-page draft outline of the possible several hundred pages long final report is any indication, the World Bank’s staff, despite its stated intention to use the WDR to take a look at the “various dimensions“ of gender equality, will not be able to overcome its own parochial view of women and gender equality.  Missing most prominently: an understanding of development in the context of sustainability, which – in the day and age of persistently high poverty rates, food insecurity, gender inequalities, environmental destruction and climate change globally – should be redefined as low-carbon, climate-resilient, livelihood focused, gender equitable development.  After all, almost 20 years after the Earth Summit, next year a serious reconsideration and refocusing of the concept in the context  of Rio+20 seems unavoidable.

The draft outline of the WDR on Gender and Development does nothing in this respect; instead it approaches the subject by solely attempting to make ‘a business’ case for giving men and women equal opportunities.  Its narrow focus on women as entrepreneurs and economic actors and gender equality as “smart economics” (the descriptive title of  World Bank’s Gender Action Plan as the Bank’s primary effort in the recent past in integrating gender into its operations) allows for an analytical framework for gender equality based on economic costs and efficiency only.  Its sole way to conceive of environmental concerns or the global systemic threat of climate change is as a “risk” or “shock” to economic and particularly income growth.  The dominant growth paradigm with unsustainable production and consumption patterns, which the World Bank continues to subscribe to, is never questioned in this outline. No apparent readjustment is made in World Bank thinking to the kind of development that would be needed to allow for the equitable (across gender and generations) and sustainable use of the world’s natural resources, which acknowledges both the human rights of individuals as well as collective, common rights.  

Incidentally, the WDR outline very carefully avoids framing gender equality in terms of a basic human right, probably mostly since the World Bank itself has been reluctant to acknowledge a human rights framework as normative for its own operations.  And it is thus not very surprising that even a clear violation of fundamental human rights, for example the right to political participation denied many women, is seen primarily as “political market failure”, resulting from  insufficient information (namely, that women do make pretty good, or at least not worse political leaders than men). Remove the market barrier, seems to be the implied message, and you remedy women’s inequality – irrespective of the fact that for example political participation, or the lack thereof, is a matter of existing societal and gender power relationships and resulting human rights violations, not of unrealized market opportunities.

While the WDRs are not meant to be an introspective exercise for the World Bank’s own work, it would not hurt the topic of gender equality if it were.  The resource-wasting growth paradigm the World Bank perpetuates with its investment decisions even today, is itself a main contributor to persisting global gender inequality, thereby actively violating women’s human rights.  This, by the way, is contrary to international obligations of most World Bank member countries under the gender anti discrimination convention CEDAW.  Of the hundreds of millions of people living in poverty, the majority (some estimates claim 70%) are women – a proof that trickle-down does not work and the interests of those excluded from public participation and political power because of gender and social norms remain the last to be considered. Climate change, caused to a large extent by the externalization of environmental costs by dominant economic approaches, likewise affects women in the poorest developing countries disproportionally worse than men.  That nearly 1 billion people globally remain food-insecure – a crisis bound to be worsened by rising oil-prices – is at least in part a lasting consequence of structural adjustment policies the World Bank pushed in the poorest developing countries since the 1980s. In the agriculture sector, this included a bias of Bank investments for carbon-intensive agriculture focused on export production at the expense of national food security. Subsistence farmers, their livelihoods and interests, a majority of them women, were neglected (To be fair: the agriculture sector in developing countries was largely neglected by development banks up until just a few years ago, when plans for rapid industrialization didn’t materialize for most developing countries).  It was the same development thinking that state agricultural extension services fell victim to as part of a general private sector investment strategy propagated by the Bank that considered most public service provision to be inefficient.  Among those public services privatized under World Bank mandate over the past decades were many basic and social services, such as provision of water and energy, education or health care, making them often unaffordable for the poorest. Traditionally, women have had to pick up the provision of these care services as part of their family duties and existing gender norms. Where states severely curtail them or don’t provide them at all,  for example in times of an individual developing country’s economic or debt crisis, it is on women’s backs that families and communities cope.  The last global economic crisis, which severely impacted the poorest countries and societal groups within countries, was no exception. 

The unpaid care services women provide as part of their gender roles – and without which states poor and rich would collapse –are not captured in the economic statistics and income growth parameters on the basis of which the World Bank defines development. Essentially, the substantial contribution that women are already making to development – even before they become more active market participants– are not taken into account, mainly because the market has not attached a value to it.  In this way, the Bank continues to treat women’s care provision as another “externality” to the economic process, similarly to ecological concerns, which do likewise not enter internal cost-benefit assessments of certain policies and actions.  This fundamental short-coming persists at the Bank even a decade after the organization has instituted an official gender mainstreaming strategy.  It is accompanied by a systematic failure in form of structural shortcoming and policy implementation weaknesses that a recent report of the World Bank’s internal watch-dog, the Independent Evaluation Group has highlighted with the World Bank’s effort on gender mainstreaming.  Among them (see also a recent Boell analysis):

• Gender is only selectively integrated, not gender mainstreamed, with unnecessarily narrow entry points through Country Assistance Strategies (CAS) only consider gender implications of policy areas.
• Only a minority of WB loans are gender-aware. Development policy loans (for structural reforms) are not covered under the World Bank’s existing operational policy on gender.
• Gender coverage in country loans remains uneven across sectors, going from a high in health and education with more than ¾ of loans being “gender-informed” (although there is no definition of what this entails) to only 9 percent of loans in energy and mining.
• Gender funding at the bank is not tracked systematically and not funded as a “core business”.  The Gender Action Plan, the main instrument of the World Bank in the past years to achieve gender equality, was funded by a separate contribution of a few World Bank member countries.
• The staff, management and incentive structure at the Bank remains largely gender-unaware: less than one percent of World Bank staff are gender experts; gender awareness is not made an indicator, and thus seen as a plus, for staff promotions, and there is no existing gender accountability and monitoring framework.

Given this list of shortcomings, the WDR will most likely be a missed opportunity for the Bank.  It is certainly laudable, some would argue overdue, that gender equality gets the serious consideration it deserves in the current international development discourse, and having a WDR exclusively focused on gender equality gives it yet another ‘stamp of approval’ of being an intrinsic development issue. Too bad, that the World Bank is not using this occasion to accompany the academic exercise, whose recipients will be mostly found outside of the World Bank, internally with a serious reflection and reconsideration of the Bank’s own understanding of and approach to gender equality.  This would then really be an action-oriented WBDR (a World Bank Development Report) on gender equality.

Photo: sijeca with Creative Commons License

Alas, it is not to be.  At least, not yet.  After the UNFCCC Secretariat announced just a little while ago that Mexico, which is currently holding the presidency of the Convention Parties, would host the first meeting of the Transitional Committee in mid-March in Mexico-City, anticipation turned to confusion, turned to further delay, this week.  Apparently, the TC wasn’t ready, or, to be more precise, some of the regional groupings – Asia was named as one culprit – have not been able yet to agree on whom to send to the TC.  Which is why, just a day after accepting the applications of civil society observers to a first TC meeting, the UNFCCC Secretariat had to backpedal and to inform that the TC expert group would now not meet ”until the latter part of  April”, more than four months after Cancun.

This is sad, no bad, actually: both sad and bad! 

For one, it narrows even further the short window of time – only until the next COP in late November – the Transitional Committee has to figure out the operational set-up and procedures for the new Green Climate Fund.  The issues are complex, and meeting time is short, which is why the Cancun Agreements had stipulated a quick first TC meeting.  Secondly, it (for)casts a more than symbolic shadow over the willingness of countries to come together in a cooperative spirit and find common funding ground in order to make progress in getting desperately needed funding for climate action to poorer regions. Remember, the future Green Climate Fund is supposed to be the conduit for a “significant share” of any new multilateral funding for adaptation.  With adaptation financing still being the unloved, and severely underfunded step-child to climate financing favorite mitigation and recent newcomer forest conservation (REDD+), setting up the new Green Climate Fund quickly and with a strong adaptation focus should be a common interest.  If it is already such a big problem among countries to decide who should sit for regional groupings in the meetings, just imagine how difficult it will be to decide on financing modalities, governance of the new fund and stakeholder participation.

Thirdly, speaking of governance, this delay might just strengthen the hands of those who are reluctant to give the fund a lot of authority (and money) as the primary player in a global climate finance architecture, because they see the UN system as ineffective in “getting the job done”.  As it happens, this was the main argument by industrialized countries for pledging more than 6 billion since 2008 to a new set of Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) at the World Bank, but not to exiting UNFCCC adaptation funding instruments managed by the Global Environment Facility.  Several of the main contributor countries for the Green Climate Fund, first among them the United States, are still favoring a stronger role of the World Bank in the Green Climate Fund.  Under the Cancun Agreements, the World Bank is currently confirmed as the new Fund’s interim trustee for the first three years. However, many observers think it is more than likely that the World Bank – with support of some major donors – is actively angling to take over the Secretariat function of the new global climate fund.  Incidentally, among the first people confirmed for the Transitional Committee – while countries are still squabbling amongst themselves over whom to send as their representatives – is a strong team of World Bank experts, which the Bank’s senior management has helpfully seconded.  Needless to say these World Bank folks were previously involved in setting up and managing the Bank’s own Climate Investment Funds and are certainly ready to suggest that the CIFs would be a good “best practice” model for funding windows under the GCF.  And since the World Bank has already expertise in managing these, why not allow the Bank to help out the new fund on the bloc more formally…

So, if developing countries are not careful and acting quickly and jointly  – and agreeing on their own representatives for  the TC is only child’s play in comparison with the tasks ahead in the next few months – they might end up with the very fund model to which the Green Climate Fund was supposed to be a more equitable and developing country-driven counter project.

The climate framework convention text – in contrast to other Rio Convention texts on desertification and biological diversity – does not even mention “gender” or “women” once.  Gender references have been absent for many years in the millions of pages of decision drafts, agreements and analytical and technical papers, the climate secretariat has published since 1994.  This linguistic– here nomen is indeed omen – gender void in UNFCCC documents has lasted for most of the duration of the climate talks. Only since Bali have we seen some first signs of (con)textual gender awareness. That is has taken so long is not due to a lack of engagement of women and gender activists with the UNFCCC. Gender groups have been advocating for the inclusion of women’s concerns into global climate negotiations since some of the earliest summits.  And it wasn’t like the notion of gender equality has never come up in the global discourse around environment and development before. To be clear, the Rio Declaration, the outcome document of the Earth Summit in 1992, the global meeting which gave birth to the climate framework convention, highlights the role women play for environmental management prominently in Rio Principle 20.  

At last, almost two decades later, with Rio +20 forecasting its shadow, and in year 17 of global climate talks, gender references are creeping steadily and unstoppable into the negotiation language.  While this is overall a good sign, it is still too slow to yet make a real difference for the millions of women, many of them poor, who find themselves disproportionally affected by climate change’s worst impact or who see their ongoing contribution to save the climate ignored by the climate process and its decision-makers.

The Cancun Agreements were not the big push forward wish respect to gender equality that a true gender-coherent UN system would demand. But they weren’t a complete wash-out either. In fact, the reference to a framework of human rights – including gender rights – has now been firmly enshrined in the preamble of the outcome text for long-term cooperative global action on climate change (AWG-LCA). The text also recognizes that a shared global long-term vision to combat climate change needs to realize gender equality and allow for the full participation of women in order to be effective (Par. 7).  This is probably most pronounced in the area of adaptation, but not only.  Gender-sensitivity is described as an important characteristic of any strengthened action on adaptation, on equal footing with country-ownership and a fully transparent and participatory approach (Par. 12).  For mitigation actions, the Cancun AWG-LCA outcome text asks for gender considerations to be included in any national strategies to combat deforestation and forest degradation, commonly referred to as REDD (Par. 72), and it recommends taking into account gender aspects in support for capacity-building efforts in developing countries (Par. 130).

Interesting is a reference in the text pointing to the need to achieve gender balance when nominating senior experts for a new Technology Executive Committee (Annex IV), which is to be set up under the Cancun Agreements. This is important since gender sensitivity, while not a gender-differentiated characteristic in itself, nevertheless is more likely to be displayed in any board, panel or committee that has an (at least close to ) equal number of men and women serving on it.  And this would be entirely in line with the mandate for UN-wide coherence on gender equality.  However, no such reference was made in the Cancun language describing the formation of the new Green Climate Fund or the composition of its board, the gender-balance among the 40 climate finance experts that countries are supposed to nominate for the Transitional Committee that is to design the Green Climate Fund, or the Standing Committee, which is supposed to advice the member countries on climate financing decisions going forward (Par. 102-112). This is not only unfortunate, but shortsighted. 

In times, when public resources for climate action are scarce and slow in coming, how those public funds are spent – how effectively, equitably and efficiently – matters.  Excluding gender-awareness from the decisions about how funding for global climate action is to be mobilized, governed and distributed ignores – to speak with UN Women’s Michelle Bachelet – a large part of humankind’s untapped resources so urgently needed to deal with global climate change.  This ignorance is even worse, when it happens in the context of a UN convention as part of a United Nation system that has pledged to deliver “as one,” especially acting on climate change.  Coherence matters.  Within the UN system, gender coherence is not an option, but a must.  It is time for Michelle Batchelet and Christiana Figueres, the UNFCCC Secretary, to develop a new joint action plan.

Photo: Dow Punpiputt/Oxfam with Creative Commons License