New Paper in Science on Climate Change Financing

At the 2010 Cancun Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the international community agreed in principle to one of the largest development programs in history. The developed nations pledged to mobilize U.S.$100 billion per year by the year 2020 to “address the needs of developing countries” in responding to climate change (1). The funds, which may apply to adaptation and mitigation, are proposed to flow through multiple channels, including existing development banks, official development assistance, bilateral programs, international private investment flows (e.g., carbon markets), and other public and private mechanisms. Recommendations provided by a transitional committee for the management and operation of the proposed climate change financing will be considered by the parties to the UNFCCC at the upcoming conference in Durban, South Africa (2).

At the center of this climate finance system will be a new international Green Climate Fund (GCF), which is in charge of the initial U.S.$30 billion in fast-track financing, to be raised by 2012, and a “significant” yet undetermined fraction of the eventual U.S.$100 billion per year (1). In designing the GCF, the UNFCCC must heed the lessons of past international development failures and successes to build the capacity of the international institutions and recipient countries to mobilize and manage climate funds and to set a good precedent for other institutions involved in climate change financing.

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Supporting Online Material

www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/334/6058/908/DC1

References and Notes

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