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A senior environmental expert has called for establishing an international
mechanism to track the compliance of developed nations' financial commitments to
the Global South, as poorly materialized pledges are jeopardizing the trust
seriously needed in the global climate process. He said a similar mechanism is also needed at the national level, as that
will help countries draw a clear picture about existing financial gaps in
meeting their climate targets, based on which global funders can make
contributions. Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO of the Global Environment Facility, made the
remarks in an exclusive interview with China Daily in the run-up to the 28th
Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, or COP28, which is scheduled to start on Thursday. That developed nations should honor their long-standing pledge to mobilize
$100 billion per year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with climate change
has been a topic for years at the annual UN climate gathering. "Expert groups are telling us that we're far from the $100 billion (target),"
Rodriguez said. Only around $83 billion has been mobilized so far, he said,
quoting a recent assessment report, adding that this figure might not be in line
with the actual situation. Established in 1991, the Global Environment Facility is one of the world's
most influential funders of environmental projects. Its grants, blended
financing and policy support help developing countries address their biggest
environmental priorities and adhere to international environmental
conventions. According to Rodriguez, his funding organization contributes about $1
billion, and roughly $3 billion comes from the Green Climate Fund. "So where is
this $83 billion? You put everything there, and a lot of everything is not
directly linked to the Paris Agreement (on climate change)," he said. Noting that this is an "underlying element" that has jeopardized the trust
between developed countries and developing nations, he said, "So how are we
going to agree on a new 2025 financial target if there is no trust?" At COP26, which was held in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, developed nations
were urged to double the collective provision of climate adaptation finance from
the 2019 level by 2025. But "very little is happening", Rodriguez said. He said the introduction of a global mechanism that tracks the compliance may
help address the problems. "I think that it is not until we establish a
reliable, transparent global mechanism of reporting that things will
change." As a former negotiator of Costa Rica in UN climate negotiations, Rodriguez
said he proposed such a mechanism "quite a few times", but received no proactive
response from the Global North. "That's the position I continue to see.... That
is an element that really continues to limit progress." He said that a tracking mechanism also doesn't exist in any of the 144
countries where his funding organization currently has projects. "I think that
we need a decision, so countries should be reporting how much they are investing
from all sources." This is important because it helps countries to have an idea of the gap and
then work out a plan to narrow that gap, he said, adding that his funding
organization can then invest in what these countries have defined in their
plans. Rodriguez, Costa Rica's former minister of environment and energy, also
shared some practices in his country that have helped make its power sector
completely clean and renewable in the past decade. While many countries have separate ministries for energy and environment,
Costa Rica merged the two and established the Ministry of Environment and Energy
in 1986. The same year, about 40 percent of electricity in the Central American nation
was generated using renewables. The proportion has stayed at 100 percent each
year in the past decade, except for 2022, which registered 99 percent, he
said. "The lesson is you need to create an institutional framework that helps,
because there are a lot of conflicts within environment and energy at the
national level," he said. Rodriguez emphasized efforts to mobilize domestic resources as another key
factor for the success of Costa Rica's energy transition. The country invested $9.3 billion in renewables, particularly in
nontraditional types. Costa Rica understood that it is in its own interest to go the renewable way,
while many other developing countries said they are not going to invest in
energy transition unless they get financial support from outside as part of the
$100 billion pledged by developed countries, he said.
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