Publications

This coming Monday will see the start of COP29 – formally the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in Baku, Azerbaijan. The edition is nicknamed “the finance COP” and is important on more than one account, not least as Trump's victory likely leads to a change of course for the US on climate commitment. The volume and structure of the finance mobilised to support developing countries to transition to low-emission and climate-resilient economies tops the agenda.

This autumn’s busy negotiation agendas, offer a window of opportunity to move the reform of the international climate finance architecture (IFA) up one level. This acceleration is urgent if we want to keep pace with the dramatic change in scale needed to finance the climate transition.  In 2023, developed countries announced that they had - for the first time since 2009 - achieved their USD 100bn/year climate finance target to support climate action in developing countries. Just two years later, this target is already obsolete, with needs for emerging and developing economies (excluding China) estimated at around USD 2.4 trillion per year by 2030. 

Options for Public Development Banks. Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, several public development banks (PDBs) have responded with structured approaches to align their operations with the Agreement’s expectations (as described in Section 1). However, many PDBs, particularly those in emerging markets and developing economies, are yet to adopt an approach to align with the Paris Agreement (i.e., Paris alignment). As entities whose investment mandates are established by the Parties to the Paris Agreement (i.e., national governments), PDBs have specific obligations derived directly from these Parties’ commitments to act across all policy and regulatory frameworks under their jurisdictions, including for state-owned or state-mandated institutions and agencies. Accordingly, PDBs are expected to operate in a manner that supports the achievement of the Paris goals. More specifically, they are obligated to integrate their activities within the Agreement’s implementation mechanism by providing financial, technical, and capacity building support that is entirely consistent with national low-emission climate-resilient development pathways.

Rethinking how development can be financed to take into account the rising challenges of our time is a fastidious task, especially when thousands of experts, decision makers and practitioners want to leave their print. The outline of the new international financial architecture is being debated again this week, with more questions open for discussion than consensus on the answers. 

Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, significant strides have been made to foster the commitment of countries and financial institutions to address the climate crisis and ensure that climate risks and opportunities are considered in investments. However, with emissions required to peak before 2025, our window of opportunity is rapidly closing to keep +1.5°C within reach. Financial needs to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to address adaptation priorities are increasing rapidly in the meantime. Luis Zamarioli Santos and Diana Cárdenas Monar, from I4CE, believe that commitment must urgently translate into action, and action must bring the urgent change the world needs. Both governments and public financial institutions have a central role to play to deliver more and better finance, maximising positive impacts. This blogpost highlights some opportunities to advance in the path for a systemic transformation, involving key stakeholders with a whole-economy approach.  

At the Spring Meetings, during an event with senior climate representatives from Multilateral Development Banks, I4CE, E3G, Germanwatch and NewClimate Institute officially launched a common position paper on what ambitous Paris alignment means for public development banks. This paper summarises years of research on Paris alignment to shed light on best practice and hopefully support decision makers in taking and implementing credible climate commitments. 

A couple of months ago, COP28 called for the acceleration of efforts “towards the phase-down of unabated coal power”. Limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C requires stopping the construction of new coal power plants, that’s for sure. But it also requires retiring existing plants before the end of their lifetimes, which can be more challenging. Public development banks (PDBs) are well-positioned to help overcome barriers to coal phase-out and support countries with the transition to decarbonised electricity systems. A growing number of these banks are exploring strategies to accelerate the early retirement of coal plants. Yet these efforts may carry risks of unintended adverse impacts.

Public development banks have the potential to facilitate the transition from coal to renewable alternatives in developing and emerging countries by fostering conditions conducive to the early retirement and repurposing of coal plants. Co-written with NewClimate Institute, this report highlights the challenges associated with the early retirement of coal plants and examines public development banks' role in collaborating with national governments and power producers to support coal phase-out. 

With their historical role in funding coal capacity and public mandate, public development banks have a crucial role in enabling coal phase-out. Co-written with NewClimate Institute, this short paper explores many of the risks associated with proposals for abatement technologies and carbon credits as an input to current discussions on early coal retirement. 

COP28 in Dubai kicks off amidst a worrying climate backdrop. For the first time, the threshold of a 2°C temperature rise compared to the pre-industrial era was exceeded in one day. In addition, a report published by the UN this week warns that current policies are placing the planet on a warming trajectory of 2.9°C, and that the chances of maintaining the increase at +1.5°C are now of only 14%. The results of the first Global Stocktake, a worldwide assessment of the actions taken by countries since the Paris Agreement, will be published at the COP and should confirm the urgent need to change the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Much of the discussions at COP28 will focus on the 100 billion USD/year target decided at Copenhagen to support climate investments in the Global South, and on the new climate finance goal set to replace it. But, whilst keeping our eyes on the volumes laid on the table, we also need to look more into the impact of every dollar spent. Identifying and building on the value added of every actor in the economy is essential to avoid overlaps and maximise synergies. Three types of actors have a pivotal role to play in the paradigm shift: governments, public financial institutions and private financial institutions.

NewClimate Institute and the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) submitted a response to a public consultation on the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero’s proposed set of voluntary guidance for financing the early retirement of coal-fired power plants in Asia-Pacific. This blog post highlights key points from our submission. Preventing the worst impacts of the climate crisis, particularly for the most vulnerable, requires halting coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) in the pipeline and retiring a substantial portion of the existing global coal fleet before the end of their technical lifetime. While countries have committed to phase out unabated coal in the Glasgow Climate Pact, 350 GW of new capacity is proposed globally with an additional 192 GW under construction.

The reform for a new global financing pact - as it was ambitiously designated by the French President Emmanuel Macron - allows little time for rest, combining several agendas that collectively seek to rethink how the Global South can finance its low-emission development pathways, with support from the Global North. The sequence of international events that starts this week with the Finance in common Summit, the African climate summit, G20 and followed by World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund’s Annual Meetings will be key to see if the multiple resolutions to reshape development finance outlined during the first semester of 2023 were merely wishful thinking or if they can be seen as the first bricks of a new international financial architecture. 

Sustainable development and climate change are two pressing and interconnected issues that countries have committed to address at the international level. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including climate action, at its core was adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2015. The same year, the Paris Agreement was adopted by Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Both instruments have clear global and national targets in the medium- and long-term that are still far from being met.

On 22nd and 23rd of June, the Summit for a new Global Financing Pact, initiated by Emmanuel Macron and Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, will take place in Paris. This Summit will be a success for climate if it enables us to spend more on the climate transition, to spend better, and if it influences the ongoing reform of international development financing.

This blog-post is conducted by [i4ce] and IDDRI. The international community recognizes that the global development finance architecture is no longer fit for purpose. The World Bank, the IMF, and other institutions of the broader development finance system are today asked to invest more in global goods (specifically to fight against climate change and to preserve biodiversity, but their internal structure and the paradigms on which they ground their decisions have not changed since they were created with development – poverty and macroeconomic stability notably – as their main mandate. In this context, it should be no surprise that the response of these international institutions remains inadequate in terms of volume, structure and accessibility. 

This is it. In a few days, thousands of people from around the world will be gathering in Washington to look back on the latest achievements and discuss the future of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – the two institutions that structure international cooperation for development. But this isn’t just one of a series of biannual get-togethers. These Spring Meetings will be the last for future ex-President of the World Bank David Malpass, who is leaving at what might be a turning point for the institution’s history. The expectations are high: this is the moment where the World Bank’s shareholders will confirm their vision and ambition for the institution by officially including climate in its global mission

After years of waiting, the World Bank finally approved and released its alignment approach with the mitigation and adaptation goals of the Paris Agreement. Presented by the World Bank as “the most comprehensive institutional undertaking ever done by the Bank Group to reconcile development and climate”, this alignment approach is an important step towards the reform of the World Bank currently under discussion. But this approach won’t be sufficient, argue Alice Pauthier and Sarah Bendahou in this blog post. It could be more ambitious.  

After the sudden resignation of David Malpass, the World Bank’s Trump-appointed President, mid-February, Washington surprised the world again last Thursday, with the nomination of Ajay Banga, long-time Mastercard CEO, as his potential successor. Not only was the timing very rapid, but the controversial profile of the nominee also generated some sense of puzzlement. His limited […]

This report co-written with NewClimate provides practical guidance for international financial institutions to support financial institutions’ alignment with the Paris Agreement goals, and to more broadly contribute to transforming local financial systems. This guidance is developed around three pillars: a harmonised alignment assessment; the alignment of financial intermediaries; and the alignment of financial systems at the national level.