Topic: international policy, COP-18 Doha

Japan’s fast-start finance (FSF) commitment is one of the largest amongst developed countries, but it is important to consider the contents of this commitment. Japan has played a significant role in global efforts to finance climate change activities in developing countries, and its FSF commitments account for almost half of the FSF that developed countries have pledged for 2010-2012. However, it is essential to better understand the broad range of instruments and activities that the government includes in its FSF, as different governments consider different types of finance to constitute FSF, so self-reported figures are not directly comparable between countries.

The UK has made a substantial effort to mobilise climate finance. Finance has been channelled through the Environmental Transformation Fund in 2010/11 and through the International Climate Fund (ICF) in 2011/12. GBP 1.06 billion had been spent and committed as of November 2011. It has also committed climate finance beyond the FSF period through the International Climate Fund (ICF), which will spend GBP 2.9 billion between April 2011 and March 2015.

This report considers lessons from the weapons and trade regimes, noting both their successes and failures. It compares these lessons to what has been tried in the climate regime, and offers ideas that might enhance the chances of attaining global action to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

This report introduces the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework, a tool to help governments bring institutional capacity development into their adaptation planning processes. The NAC framework enables its users to systematically assess institutional strengths and weaknesses that may help or hinder adaptation. National adaptation plans may then be better designed to make best use of strengths or remedy weaknesses. The report describes three pilot assessments conducted using the NAC framework in Bolivia, Ireland, and Nepal.

This working paper seeks to identify concrete pathways for building an international “climate change regime.” It surveys and analyzes the academic literature as well as proposals by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments.

This report seeks to ground the debate on climate finance in an objective analysis of ongoing efforts to finance mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.