The recent talks in Tianjin, Washington DC and Addis Ababa show that there is serious thought being given to making good the promises on climate finance in Copenhagen (read related blog post by Andrew Steer).

 

I believe that the Montreal Protocol has some lessons to offer for tackling climate change: It is an international agreement that addresses stratospheric ozone depletion and is widely viewed as the most successful response to a global environmental problem to date. One common feature of the ozone and climate conventions is the provision of financial resources to help developing countries pay for the higher costs of measures with global environmental benefits. This topic is high on the agenda for the Cancun climate meeting in December, and is being specifically addressed by a high-level UN Advisory Group on Climate Finance that met last week in Addis Ababa.

 

Since the signing of the Copenhagen Accord last December, much attention has focused on the issue of resource mobilization and specifically how to generate the US$100 billion a year for climate finance promised by 2020. Numerous studies have also been published estimating total costs for developing country mitigation and adaptation requirements─they usually conclude that the needs are in the many billions of dollars.