Now that COP22 has kicked off there will be several key issues to pay close attention to over the next week. How the Paris Agreement is implemented and put into practice will be a pivotal part of determine its success. To me the most important issue that will be discussed is climate finance because it is at the very heart of a successful implementation of the Paris Agreement. Developing countries need money, and lots of it, to be able to adapt to the impending effects of climate change and develop into low carbon economies to help mitigate those outcomes. Coming out of Paris the developed countries pledge to mobilize USD 100 billion dollars annually by 2020 for “climate-specific” finance. How they plan on meeting this goal will be an interesting topic to keep an eye on.

Source: Climate Policy Obersver

Source: Climate Policy Obersver

The Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) released its “Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows” last Monday with several recommendations for the COP. These included:

  • Encouraging enhanced availability of country-level data on financial contributions
  • Increasing ability to track private financial flows
  • Make information available on investment needs in developing countries
  • Invite multilateral climate funds to continue working to further harmonize methods for measuring climate finance and to advance comparable approaches for tracking and reporting on impacts.

This shows the pressing need for increased transparency  and clarity in climate financial flows. The job of the countries will be the mobilize the funds, but the job of the COP will be to clarify how to track those flows accurately.

The Paris Agreement also called for a balance of support between adaptation and mitigation funding. The most recent reporting to the UN shows that only 14% of bilateral funding goes to adaptation measures in 2014. There needs to be a clear commitment and plan of action in Marrakech on scaling up adaptation funding and meeting the Paris goals.

After the US election results coming in and hearing that Trump has promised to stop all funding to climate change it will be intersting to See how this affects the negoiations. How all these issues sort themesleves  out will be a telling sign of the success of COP22.

Sources:

http://unfccc.int/files/cooperation_and_support/financial_mechanism/standing_committee/application/pdf/2016_ba_summary_and_recommendations.pdf

http://www.cop22-morocco.com/news/5-climate-finance-topics-to-watch-at-cop22-in-marrakech-84.html