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Industrialized countries have committed to providing "new and additional" funding to developing countries for climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, lack of a common definition of "new and additional" undermines the climate process. This article aims to contribute to the discussion on the principle of additionality by assessing possible definitions. The article first contextualizes the guiding principles that led to the endorsement of "new and additional" finance within the history of international climate negotiations. Second, we survey definitions of "new and additional" put forward by industrialized countries as well as further proposed definitions put forward by scholars. Third, we assess the respective strengths and weaknesses of these definitions.
Our analysis shows that there is no singular formula that would resolve the problem of how to define additionality. Definitions that would be politically acceptable to developed countries are subject to gaming while definitions that are technically robust are politically difficult. We conclude that a combination of using innovative sources and defining specific future levels of development assistance ex ante may offer the best prospects for resolving the climate finance conundrum.
Apart from the much-debated question of what legal form the 2015 climate agreement is supposed to have, another core issue is the substantive content of countries' commitments. While the climate regime has so far mostly been based on emission targets, literature has identified a broad range of other possible types of mitigation commitments, such as technology targets, emission price commitments, or commitments to specific policies and measures (PAMs). The nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) submitted by developing countries under the Cancún Agreements also show a broad range of different forms of participation. This article surveys the possible commitment types that have so far been discussed in literature and in the UNFCCC negotiations and assesses their respective advantages and disadvantages against a set of criteria: environmental effectiveness, cost effectiveness, distributional aspects and institutional feasibility. The article finds that no commitment option provides a silver bullet. All options have several advantages but also disadvantages. The environmentally most effective way forward may lie in pursuing a multi-dimensional approach, combining emission targets with other commitment types to compensate for the drawbacks of the emission-based approach. However, such an approach would also increase complexity, both in terms of the negotiations and in terms of implementation and administration.
This report analyses the international climate negotiations at the UN climate conference in Warsaw in November 2013. The report covers the discussions under the Durban Platform on developing a new comprehensive climate agreement by 2015 and increasing short-term ambition as well as the issues relating to near-term implementation of previous decisions in the areas of emission reductions and transparency, adaptation, loss and damage, finance and technology. The report concludes that Warsaw once again starkly highlighted the sharp divisions and lack of trust among countries. Industrialised countries' collective lack of leadership strongly contributed to re-opening the traditional North-South divide. As a result, on many issues the outcomes hardly go beyond the lowest common denominator. The conference only agreed on the bare minimum to move the 2015 process forward and also made no headway in strengthening short-term ambition. Some progress was made with the establishment of the "Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts" and the completion of the rules for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. However, here as well further substance, in particular financial support from industrialised countries, is required to actually fill these mechanisms with meaning. If countries want to escape from groundhog day, they will have to start seeing and utilizing the UN climate process rather differently.
Global climate
(2013)
The eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the ninth Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8) came to a close in the evening of 8 December 2012. This report lays out the main developments in Doha and assesses the main outcomes. The first chapter outlines the overall situation coming into Doha. The subsequent chapters cover the negotiations on the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the discussions under the Durban Platform on developing a new comprehensive climate agreement by 2015 and increasing short-term ambition, and further near-term action under the UNFCCC.