Who will manage climate change funds?

Jonathan Busby has been following the Cancun negotiations and filed this update on the question of climate financing, and who will manage funds designated to help developing countries adapt their practices and technologies. Donors want maximal control through institutions they trust like bilateral programs or [the World Bank]. Would-be recipients hope for a new mechanism ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Jonathan Busby has been following the Cancun negotiations and filed this update on the question of climate financing, and who will manage funds designated to help developing countries adapt their practices and technologies.

Jonathan Busby has been following the Cancun negotiations and filed this update on the question of climate financing, and who will manage funds designated to help developing countries adapt their practices and technologies.

Donors want maximal control through institutions they trust like bilateral programs or [the World Bank]. Would-be recipients hope for a new mechanism over which they will exercise more oversight, possibly a stand-alone fund with strong co-governance mechanisms along the lines of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. The distance between these two perspectives may be too wide right now to decide what entity is going to be the final manager of these funds, but negotiators may be able to at least outline a process for reaching agreement at Durban and reaffirm the financing commitments for fast-start and long-term finance agreed in Copenhagen.

As I understand it, the issue could be resolved as early as tonight. Some influential environmental groups have teamed up with developing states to oppose World Bank involvement, arguing that the Bank’s funding of coal projects, in particular, makes it an inappropriate manager of climate funds. For its part, the United States is pushing hard for the World Bank to serve as a trustee for the funds and argues that putting billions under the management of the Conference of the Parties or some ad hoc body that lacks adequate experience will do little more than scare off donors. 

The World Bank, which has been trying to position itself as an active player on climate issues, has a lot riding on the outcome. 

Update:  the final agreement apparently gives the World Bank a three-year trusteeship over the climate change funds but leaves permanent arrangements to be decided upon later.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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