International Climate Processes

The Katowice UN Climate Change Conference will take place in Katowice from the 3rd till the 14th of December 2018. 

COP 23 was one COP in two zones: The Bula zone was the site of the official negotiations  - with little relevance to what happens in the real world. The Bonn zone hosted dozens of civil society kiosks and hundreds of events searching for real solutions.

What does a normative framing and a push for the gender-responsiveness of climate finance mean for the global climate finance architecture and the Green Climate Fund? A set of four new information briefs as part of an annual update of the Climate Finance Fundamentals (CFF) briefing series explores this relationship.

With states, cities, and citizens willing to double down and move ahead with climate commitments, the global community can still count on many Americans’ willingness to act responsibly in support of global climate actions, even if their White House is not. Unfortunately, such activism will not make up for the failure of the Trump administration to make good on its international climate finance obligation.

At the UN’s COP 22 climate conference in Marrakech, the international community closed ranks despite (or perhaps because of?) the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president.

Marrakech was never going to write history on loss and damage in the same way that Paris did in 2015. Whilst the progress made in the Paris Agreement was tangible at Marrakech, rich countries didn’t allow a real breakthrough yet. The Marrakech talks did, however, lay some groundwork for future progress.

At the UN climate summit in Morocco from November 7 - 18 (COP 22), the global climate community aims to breathe life into the Paris Agreement. However, the real discussion about the most contentious points, including finance and what to do with loss & damage, begins only now in earnest.

As the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change contemplates enhancing its ongoing work program on gender at the next climate summit in Marrakesh in November (COP 22), a submission by hbs North America recommends key goals and principles to really advance gender mainstreaming in the climate process and in implementing climate actions.

When the Board meets from June 28-30 in Songdo, South Korea for its 13th Board meeting, the 24-member body will focus on working towards closing Fund structural and policy gaps in order to ramp up finance delivery to developing countries.  But don’t expect quick one-step fixes.  

Globally, political leaders are lauding the acceptance of the global and legally binding Paris Agreement on Climate Change at COP 21 as a historical moment. It achieves a goal long believed unattainable. However, judged against the enormity of the challenge and the needs and pressure from people on the ground demanding a global deal anchored in climate justice (“system change, not climate change!”), the Paris Agreement can only be called a collective failure and disappointment. Read a critical assessment by hbs colleagues from around the world.