Regaining momentum for international climate policy beyond Copenhagen

The 'Copenhagen Accord' fails to deliver the political framework for a fair, ambitious and legally-binding international climate agreement beyond 2012. The current climate policy regime dynamics are insufficient to reflect the realities of topical complexity, actor coalitions, as well as financial, legal and institutional challenges in the light of extreme time constraints to avoid 'dangerous' climate change of more than 2°C. In this paper we analyze these stumbling blocks for international climate policy and discuss alternatives in order to regain momentum for future negotiations

Identifying Where REDD+ Financially Out Competes Oil Palm in Floodplain Landscapes Using a Fine-Scale Approach

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) aims to avoid forest conversion to alternative land-uses through financial incentives. Oil-palm has high opportunity costs, which according to current literature questions the financial competitiveness of REDD+ in tropical lowlands. To understand this more, we undertook regional finescale and coarse-scale analyses (through carbon mapping and economic modelling) to assess the financial viability of REDD+ in safeguarding unprotected forest (30,173 ha) in the Lower Kinabatangan floodplain in Malaysian Borneo. Results estimate 4.7 million metric tons of carbon (MgC) in unprotected forest, with 64% allocated for oil-palm cultivations. Through fine-scale mapping and carbon accounting, we demonstrated that REDD+ can outcompete oil-palm in regions with low suitability, with low carbon prices and low carbon stock. In areas with medium oil-palm suitability, REDD+ could outcompete oil palm in areas with: very high carbon and lower carbon price; medium carbon price and average carbon stock; or, low carbon stock and high carbon price. Areas with high oil palm suitability, REDD + could only outcompete with higher carbon price and higher carbon stock. In the coarse-scale model, oil-palm outcompeted REDD+ in all cases. For the fine-scale models at the landscape level, low carbon offset prices (US $3 MgCO2e) would enable REDD+ to outcompete oil-palm in 55$27 million to secure these areas for 25 years. Higher carbon offset price (US $30 MgCO2e) would increase the competitiveness of REDD+ within the landscape but would still only capture between 69$380–416 million in carbon financing. REDD+ has been identified as a strategy to mitigate climate change by many countries (including Malaysia). Although REDD+ in certain scenarios cannot outcompete oil palm, this research contributes to the global REDD+ debate by: highlighting REDD+ competitiveness in tropical floodplain landscapes; and, providing a robust approach for identifying and targeting limited REDD+ funds

Climate finance governance: Fit for purpose?

Abstract: This article consists of a critical review of the conceptual scholarship on the governance of climate finance and includes an overview of the institutional arrangements and governance logics that provide climate finance. New decentralized, polycentric structures allow for climate finance to more effectively reach the sub- and non-state actors most directly implementing climate change governance. However, the expansion of climate finance into market-inflected forms of blended finance, as well as debt-based financing, express a neoliberal logic that shifts power to market actors. This may challenge the efficacy of climate finance. We suggest that further research is needed on polycentric systems in climate finance, since an apparent expansion in the diversity of providers is also accompanied by a counterintuitive concentration of decision-making power with financial fund managers. We join others in suggesting that the weight of scholarship advocates for a strong return to public authored finance and governance, under the auspices of Green New Deal programs and more widely. This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance

New and additional to what? Options for baselines to assess "new and additional" climate finance

All major climate policy agreements - the UN Framework Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, and recently the Cancun Agreements- have stated that climate finance for developing countries will be ”new and additional”. However, the term “new and additional” has never been properly defined. Agreeing a system to measure a baseline from which “new and additional” funding will be calculated will be central to building trust and realising any post-Kyoto agreement. We explore eight different options for a baseline, and assess each according to several criteria: novelty to existing pledges, additionality to development assistance, environmental effectiveness, distributional consequences, and institutional and political feasibility. Only two baseline options do well on these criteria and are therefore viable: "new sources only" and "above pre-defined business as usual level of development assistance"