World Bank « Climate Equity

So much disagreement, so little time: With three out of four scheduled meetings of the Transitional Committee (TC) tasked with designing the new Green Climate Fund (GCF) now completed after the recent one in Geneva, severe differences remain primarily, although not exclusively, between the 25 developing and 15 developed member countries about form and functions of the Fund. This despite the fact that some progress and convergence of opinions on some important matters is emerging, such as that funding decisions should be driven by and consistent with developing countries’ own national climate and development plans. However, the points of divergence and disagreement are too many and too fundamental in nature to simply hope for a rapid alignment or quick compromise between the TC members.

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. (more…)

The World Bank’s series of World Development Reports (WDR)is special: conceived as the “flagship publication” of the international development bank, whose self-declared primary mission is poverty reduction, WDRs are meant to showcase the most advanced thinking from within the World Bank, detailing — and suggesting ways to overcome – major political, social and economic obstacles to global development targeted at development policy makers and practitioners. Given this premise, and the world’s acknowledgement of gender equality as critical for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one might wonder why it has taken the World Bank research staff that long to zoom in on gender equality (the Bank has published 32 WDRs so far since 1978) as the topic for a WDR, with “Gender Equality and Development” now being the official focus of the upcoming WDR 2012 to be released in late 2011.

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. (more…)

…. this is the condensed conclusion of the final report – recently released – of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing (AGF), which was tasked with trying to find ways to raise US$100 billion per year by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation actions in developing countries.  This number — far less than what many experts believe is really needed — was the sort of political compromise, the lowest common financial denominator, leaders came up with at last year’s international climate negotiations in Copenhagen. 

Just a few short weeks before the international climate negotiations head into the next big round of  talks at the COP16 in Cancun, Mexico, the panel hopes that their guardedly forward-looking assessment – it would be too optimistic to call it optimistic — on how the long-term climate funding promised in the Copenhagen Accord can be pieced together, might move global climate talks forward by securing. if not a comprehensive climate deal, so at least a financing package. 

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This entry was written by Janne Rohe, who works at the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Regional Office for Mexico, Centralamerica and the Caribbean.

Climate finance has played an important role in the ongoing debates within climate change negotiations and is one of the relevant issues to be discussed at COP 16. Yet the debate has focused so far more on donor than on recipient countries.

Although in Mexico climate finance has been a popular topic at governmental level and for the Mexican delegation within UNFCCC negotiations, the international debate has not yet reached all sectors and local agendas in the country. This is why the Mexican NGO Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (Mexican Center of Environmental Law) in coordination with the World Resources Institute (WRI), Oxfam Mexico and the Mexican Office of the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (HBS) organized a two-day workshop “Financing the change, without changing the climate” in Mexico City in mid July. Actors from civil society, the private sector and the academic field participated on this occasion and learned about recent international negotiations, finance mechanisms and institutions, open challenges, criteria for a possible agreement and financial options for Mexico. The discussions during the workshop mainly reflected the discourse on the national level. (more…)