Climate Policy & Finance

Twenty years after global leaders convened for the Earth Summit, governments meet again at Rio+20 to explore new approaches to address many of the same unresolved problems of inequities, persisting poverty and ecological overexploitation. Unfortunately, too little has changed and ecological conditions have worsened.

Twenty years after the first United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), delegates meet again in Rio de Janeiro to give sustainable development a ‘new boost’. The Rio+20 is regarded as important for renewing the political commitment for sustainable development, providing an opportunity for global actors to assess progress and gaps in already agreed outcomes of major sustainable development summits, and to collectively address emerging issues.

The  obscurity of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development is not a coincidence, but part of a process that is designed to deflate the importance of the negotiations and of the UN itself in order to facilitate private sector initiatives and the control of large transnational corporations.

A 2011 report from Climate Policy Institute (CPI) estimates that up to now 95 percent (or US$ 92.5 billion) of global financial flows earmarked for climate up were flowing toward renewable-intensive mitigation activities, while only five percent (or US$ 4.4 billion) were directed toward adaptation work under the current financial architecture.

Proponents of the feminist care perspective, in which the focus is on caring for people and nature, consider that the concept of the green economy (as it has been discussed so far) does not lead to fundamental change because it does not break with the dogma of growth or with the economy’s one-dimensional focus on the market and production.

A growing coalition of international civil society organizations works with constructive input and analysis to make the GCF the best multilateral climate fund possible.  Read some of our partners' publications here.

The seven months long process to design a new Green Climate Fund, on which a 40 member Transitional Committee has embarked since the end of April, ended at the fourth TC Meeting in Cape Town with a "sub-optimal" outcome as TC members failed to reach a consensus on a draft governing instrument for the Fund.  

Presentation of winning essays "Impact of the climate crisis on the lives of women in region of Santander, Colombia" by Claudia Gimena Roa"Women at war, nature at peace" by Irina Tasias i Compte

For many years, the belief has survived that we are one global civil society, which – in a historic mission – will save the world in light of the universal failure of state policies. This position is experiencing a renaissance, particularly following the disappointing United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009.

Im Kampf gegen den Klimawandel spielen die Wirtschaftsmächte eine große Rolle. Als Barack Obama zum Präsidenten der USA gewählt wurde, bestand die Hoffnung, dass die USA endlich an Bord der Klimapolitik kommen. Was aus den Erwartungen geworden ist und welche klimapolitischen Perspektiven sich in den Vereinigten Staaten abzeichnen, skizziert Arne Jungjohann in diesem Interview mit dem Münchener Radio Lora.