At COP28, representatives from developing countries, including Belize, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal, shared with the international community how their countries are embracing climate finance transparency to enhance domestic coordination and their ability to mobilize funds for climate action. A new methodology to guide countries in establishing climate finance transparency frameworks was also presented.

Effective climate action requires transparency of climate finance, enabling countries to track, align, and mobilize funds towards their national climate commitments. At a COP28 side-event held on 11 December representatives from three developing countries – Belize, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal – unveiled their countries’ advancements in climate finance tracking, emphasizing its pivotal significance in engaging stakeholders and driving implementation.

Credit: Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP)

Accurate data and accessible reports inform evidence-based decision making and enable rallying stakeholders behind the national implementation plans to address climate change. Climate finance transparency is critical in engaging both public and private finance institutions in advancing the implementation of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), analyzing the financing gaps, and mobilizing additional funds for mitigation and adaptation purposes.

Belize, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal are working with the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) to develop or refine their national climate finance tracking frameworks. The three countries are receiving tailored support and apply a new methodology that ICAT has developed for this purpose.

“Côte d’Ivoire has high hopes for the financing of the conditional measures of its NDCs, as well as for its adaptation to climate change. These objectives cannot be achieved without establishing a framework of trust and transparency with our technical and financial partners.” said the Honorable Minister of Environment, Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition of Côte d’Ivoire, Jacques Assahoré Konan, in a statement delivered by Dr. Kacou CROI, Technical Advisor to the Minister.

Madeleine Diouf, Head of the Climate Change Division in the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Senegal, emphasized the critical importance of tracking climate finance for NDC implementation and for the next NDC update This needed to be considered not only in planning for mitigation, but also for adaptation and loss and damage. Ms. Diouf shared Senegal’s progress, which included the creation of a dedicated team within the Ministry of Environment, and extended stakeholder engagement. She admitted that challenges persisted, for instance in data collection and ensuring data quality. She highlighted the importance of arriving at a consistent and operational definition of climate finance, and the complexity of distinguishing between it and development finance. She also noted that the upcoming biennial transparency reports under the Paris Agreement, which all countries must submit to the UNFCCC by the end 2024, would be a learning process for developing countries.

Dr. Lennox Gladden, Chief Climate Change Officer in the National Climate Change Office of the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management of Belize, underlined that effectively tracking climate finance on the national level required a collaborative approach within the different relevant governmental departments, national and subnational, as well as the engagement of stakeholders from the private sector, including financial institutions, and local and indigenous communities. This was essential for building capacity and enhancing understanding and awareness across the country, including a common understanding regarding the definition of climate finance. In Belize’s experience, a key factor of success was building on existing tracking and monitoring systems, rather than starting the development of a climate finance tracking system from zero. Dr. Gladden also emphasized that a climate finance transparency framework built accountability that, in turn, facilitated mobilizing international funds.

“At COP28, the message that the global stocktake has brought us is that the Paris Agreement is not on track. Climate finance and transparency are key to bringing the Paris Agreement back on track,” highlighted Henning Wuester, Director of the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency, highlighting the critical role of finance in the collective climate efforts. He encouraged countries to follow a holistic approach, tracking finance from all sources, public and private; and domestic and international.

Credit: Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP)

“You can only manage what you can measure also applies to climate finance,” stressed Dr. Wuester.

The methodology on tracking climate finance has been developed by ICAT with the support of the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP). It provides a step-by-step approach to assist countries with setting up climate finance transparency frameworks. It includes five phases of climate finance transparency and offers levels of complexity to meet the needs of countries at different stages of readiness to track, measure and report on climate finance.

The ICAT methodology on tracking climate finance was presented during the side-event by climate finance expert Michel Koehler, ClimateNet. He explained that climate finance tracking frameworks allowed for coordinated and efficient NDC implementation, equipping countries with essential information on the funding needs of different departments and initiatives. This information could be used to optimize public resource management and mobilize additional funding to implement NDCs, long-term strategies and other climate policies. A simple system can be set up to kickstart the work on tracking climate finance, which can gradually develop into a more sophisticated framework as capacity grows and needs evolve.

The COP28 side-event “Climate Finance Transparency: a harmonized framework to mobilize public and private finance” was co-organized by the government of Côte d’Ivoire, the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) and ClimateNet.