Cashing-up: At the end of Fast Start Finance - What can we learn for long-term finance?
While developed countries reported that they over-delivered on their promise to give USD 30 billion between 2010-12 to developing countries for adaptation to – and taking action on – climate change, a number of challenges remain to scale up to an efficient climate finance system by 2020, to serve the new agreement, says our analysis on Fast Start Finance, released at the climate talks in Bonn.
In total, developed country governments reported they had delivered USD 38.9 billion for Fast Start Finance, of which USD 3 billion was in private finance.
One key feature was that the vast majority of the finance (more than 71%) was given for climate mitigation projects, leaving the world’s most vulnerable countries lacking the money badly needed to cope with the impacts of climate change they are already experiencing.
While the reports state that governments delivered what they promised, the broad nature of their commitments and lack of specific objectives are not the type and scale developing countries need to make the transformational change to low emission and climate resilient development.
It will be essential that for Long Term Finance, a programmatic approach is adopted where finance is delivered under agreed global goals and objectives, and aligned with the recipient’s priorities.
It should be aimed at delivering finance to keep global warming below 1.5°C or 2°C – the “paradigm shift” for developing countries that’s at the heart of the Green Climate Fund’s governing instrument.
For more information see our briefing and press release below.