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Climate Funds - for what, exactly?

Sara Wolcott | Thursday 23rd July 2009

What's worth at least several billions of dollars and it is still not enough money, no matter who you ask?

Climate funds. In case you haven't been paying attention (and not reading Dane's posts), the developed world might very well agree to pay for the irreversable damage that climate change will cause on developing countries. You know, like the Maldives - or bigger islands like Madagascar - going under water, increased desertification, etc. potential mass migration. At the very least, the need to diversify crops.

Turns out carbon-based development is pretty expensive, after all.

There's adaptation funds and there are mitigation funds - both private and public, leaving to billions of dollars.

Right now, there's a lot of debate about what are the best kinds of financial mechanisms to transfer this money. Multilateral, bilateral, conditionality, no conditionality, how engaged should the 'rich' be in the 'poor's use of that money (and how ensure it doesn't just line a lot of already deep pockets). Etc.

But here's the thing - what, exactly, are we funding? What works? What's really going to help people in Zanzibar (I love Zanzibar) adapt? What's going to really create a clean green economy? We know it will take a lot of capacity, and an 'enabling environment' (good policy), good investments, etc. Stop supporting coal, start supporing wind.

But beyond that and a host of other things, do we really know what to do? I've mentioned this theme before, but i've come back to it again after a colleague recently compared this to the challenge of trade. He (who knows much more than I do) said, we've been arguing for the need for developing countries to diversify exports for decades, but we haven't done it. It's not just that we duplicate our efforts, that we aren't as efficient as we'd like to be, that the financial mechanisms are not done right. It's that we don't seem to really know what needs to be done to diversify exports - how to really make it happen.

I've gotta admit that I'm worried about a repeat of that phenomenan right now. The stakes are high - and the potential for corruption and wasted money is also high. there are a lot of good intentions (and a few bad ones) but I haven't seen enough content yet to make me feel easy.

Maybe we should spend a lot more time on the what of these big multi billion dollar projects first.

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Myriam Kaplan-Pasternak DVM | Posted: 22 September 2009

So much of this current enthusiasm reminds me of the reaction after the "We are the World" concert tour of Micheal Jackson in 1985. Projects were re-evaluated, money poured in to support the new age of development. No more high overhead. More money where it is needed impacting the poor. Stopping desertification. 24 years later we are again in a "new age" of sustainable development ( we still do the paying), downplaying charity ( the money is still flowing one way), encouraging microfinance (or is it the start of debt accumulation), and social investing ( or marketing), carbon trading (you stay clean so I can stay dirty?)...... How will we see this picture 25 years from now?

MARLYS APPLETON | Posted: 25 July 2009

Thoughtful post Sara. But how can we know how to adapt and mitigate to entirely new circumstances? There is a lot of global NGO intellectual capacity tackling these issues now (World Bank, WBCSD, Prince's Rainforest Projecct) and probably a lot in academia too that I am not familiar with, working to address adaptation and mitigation. But this is new territory for all and I am sure there will be plenty of blunders.

I like the conditional model where progress has to be achieved for subsequent payouts, which can help ameliorate project risk.

Marlys

Ruchira Shah | Posted: 24 July 2009

I don't know, Sara. It's like ... we can think of it as compensation for damages, almost, right?

Let's say you get hit by a car, and get paid for damages. You deserve those damages even if you spend all the money on alcohol, right?

It's the same thing with Zanzibar. No matter what, they still deserve the money....