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Adapting to climate change is becoming a routine and necessary component of planning at all levels. In the case of small island developing states (SIDS), the successful development, implementation and evaluation of national-level adaptation policies are especially important because of their disproportionate vulnerability. The status of adaptation policies in these countries, however, is poorly understood and documented, particularly for the Atlantic, Indian Oceans, Mediterranean and South China Seas (AIMS) region. This is so largely because of minimal mainstream research interest in these small nations. This paper helps fill this gap. It develops an Adaptation Policy Assessment Framework that facilitates a rapid qualitative assessment of countries' national adaptation policies. It applies the framework to seven representative policies across six of the nine SIDS in the AIMS region—Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles and Singapore. It finds that countries are mostly successful in identifying climate and climate-related vulnerabilities and linking associated risks to other national development priorities such as poverty reduction. Countries, however, struggle with establishing and maintaining systems to review and improve adaptation interventions, which is not entirely unique to them or their circumstances. This paper's findings provide critical points of reflection for countries preparing and revising their National Adaptation Plans in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They also contribute to a broader understanding of the complexities of climate policy development in small jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The private sector is one of the sources of finance included in developed countries' pledge in the UN climate negotiations to mobilise $100 billion annually by 2020 to support developing countries' efforts to address climate change. For adaptation in particular, it remains unclear what mobilised private finance is. Research so far has focused on its potential and experiences in developing countries, but not on the arguments of those who introduced and continue to advocate private adaptation finance: developed countries. This paper investigates the positions of developed countries and development banks and agencies. In particular, it aims to identify whether those actors can reach a common understanding of private adaptation finance that minimises norm conflicts in a fragmented climate finance system. Empirically, the paper examines the Biennial Reports and submissions on Strategies and Approaches for Mobilising Scaled-up Finance of six developed country parties, as well as data from interviews with experts from development banks and agencies. The analysis finds a number of discrepancies between these sets of actors, for example on motivations for and modes of private sector involvement. This discrepancy is the result of ambiguity around the concept of private adaptation finance in a highly fragmented climate finance architecture. This ambiguity is problematic when the aim of mobilising private adaptation finance is to contribute to the $100 billion commitment. However, if the aim is adaptation in practice, both ambiguity and fragmentation might actually make the climate finance system more inclusive and innovative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paris Agreement's nationally driven structure puts the spotlight on financing strategies at the national level. The role of national funding vehicles in mobilizing climate finance, however, has not received extensive attention. This paper remedies this gap by introducing a novel dataset of national climate funds established in developing countries. The database creates an inventory of national financing vehicles and tracks their major attributes, including scope, legal form, and the host, among others. We show that 39 countries have established national climate funds. These funds seek to access and mobilize finance from various sources, domestic and international. Most of these funds have broad mandates to tackle climate change, while a smaller share has a more targeted, sectoral focus. Funding sources vary from taxes to international aid. The funds offer a limited range of financial instruments, primarily awarding grants. The funds also differ in how integrated they are with overarching climate plans and strategies. We also find that most developing countries use existing budget lines to target finance towards climate change objectives. Only five countries track public expenditure on the basis of dedicated budget codes. This paper contributes to the literature by providing an empirical basis to pursue questions regarding the role and effectiveness of national climate funds. For policymakers, the limited range of instruments at the disposal of many of these national climate funds also suggests a need to ensure that the national climate funds have the design features they need to support the implementation of national policy goals. Key policy insights Systematic data on public climate finance are scarce. Most governments do not use climate change codes to track their expenditures related to climate change. Policymakers should adopt practices that will help instil transparency in public expenditure on climate change. Policymakers have to revisit the design features of national climate funds such as legal form and areas of operation as the wider operating context changes. Funds accredited with multilateral climate funds are underutilized by fund contributors. The Green Climate Fund's direct access modality offers one major avenue to foster synergies between national climate funds and multilateral climate funds. Policymakers have the opportunity to harvest lessons from existing funds and calibrate climate policies accordingly, especially as countries contemplate setting revenue-generating carbon prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is almost unanimously perceived to be one of the greatest environmental and developmental challenges of this century. Implementing climate change response requires not just huge and prudent utilization of financial resources, but also highly efficient financing institutions and systems especially in developing countries where underlying development issues such as poverty, health, etc. exist. This paper attempts to evaluate the operationalization of the Indonesian Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF) as a climate financing prototype in terms of fund mobilization, nature of projects, equity and inclusion, alignment and mainstreaming. This study was conducted through review of relevant and recent literature on climate change governance and financing, supported with information retrieved from relevant official documents as well as interviews of key persons. Our study found the ICCTF most effective in alignment with national development plans and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It has implemented climate change adaptation programmes with the principles of equity and inclusion of various stakeholders. The ICCTF has however struggled to efficiently mobilize funds owing largely to technical ambiguities especially in its legal and institutional frameworks, it therefore yet to be utilized to its maximum potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the climate emergency, it is necessary to model and forecast road transport emissions for implementing more effective climate policy. This paper fills an important research gap by quantifying the challenges, barriers and remedies of achieving road transport emission reduction and air quality improvement in developing countries. It contributes to the debate on top-down and bottom-up approaches to reconcile carbon and other transport related emissions. China and India are chosen as case studies. Using various official statistics and proxy variables, we estimate and compare the road transport carbon emissions of the two countries systematically from 2009 to 2020. Insights from detailed mode-specific estimations of the bottom-up approach are valuable for targeted policies and measures. An analysis of the major components of road transport carbon emissions points to strategies of promoting electric vehicles, reducing transport demand, accelerating modal shift to low-carbon modes, and cleaner electricity to achieve climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based adaptation (CBA) is an approach to strengthening the adaptive capacity of local communities vulnerable to climate change. The CBA approach increasingly features in discussions among policy makers, planners, advocates, and researchers, and has been endorsed and adopted by numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations. However, to date the CBA approach has lacked conceptual clarity, and the term is interpreted and deployed in various and often contradictory ways. This paper seeks to address this deficit by explaining the rationale put forth for CBA by its proponents, outlining its guiding principles, and theorizing some of its key challenges, which often point to opportunities for the approach to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have been published to evaluate the consequences of different post- 2012 emission allocation regimes on regional mitigation costs. This paper goes one step further and evaluates not only mitigation costs, but also adaptation costs and climate change damages. Three post-2012 emission allocation regimes (Contraction & Convergence, Multistage and Common but differentiated convergence) and two climate targets (2°C and 3°C above the pre-industrial level) are considered. This explorative analysis shows that including these other cost categories could lead to different perspectives on the outcomes of allocation regimes. Up to 2050, the poorest regions have negative mitigation costs under all allocation regimes considered, as they benefit from emission trading. However, these regions also suffer from the most severe climate impacts. As such, the financial flows due to emission trading from developed to developing countries created under these allocation regimes could also be interpreted as compensation of climate change damages and adaptation costs. In the longer run, the sum of climate change damages, adaptation costs and mitigation costs are the highest in the poorest regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, for both climate targets and practically all emission allocation regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about the impacts of climate change necessarily exist within ethical debates and frameworks. This paper discusses the ethical foundations of three discourses concerning climate change: economics of climate change, climate protection as lifestyle, and carbon debt. These approaches are seen to be problematic because they are absolutist, hindering their inter - national acceptance. In contrast, human rights could provide a coherent and worldwide acceptable basis for the ethics of climate change. Here, five normative dimensions of human rights are identified and their possible contribution to a coherent and convincing climate policy is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Developed countries have relied heavily on aid budgets to fulfill their pledges to boost funding for addressing climate change in developing countries. However, little is known about how interaction between aid and other ministries has shaped contributors’ diverse approaches to climate finance. This paper investigates intra-governmental dynamics in decision-making on climate finance in seven contributor countries (Australia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the UK, and the US). While aid agencies retained considerable control over implementation, environment and finance ministries have played an influential and often contrasting role on key policy issues, including distribution between mitigation and adaptation and among geographical regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits from reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions are not limited to a single consumer or group of consumers but are available to a large set of countries and populations across generations. Underprovision and free-riding are thus to be expected in the climate change issue. Optimal provision of this type of public good requires creating incentives for international cooperation. Game theorists have proposed to restructure incentives through issues linkages consisting in exchanging concessions across different policy dimensions. In this paper we discuss the opportunity to link climate change to international trade, technology R&D and diffusion, and greening development assistance. We propose another option, called the “rent-sharing” approach, that would guarantee meaningful participation of developing countries (DCs) without challenging their economic development. Developing countries would have the opportunity to enter the emission markets, and benefit from financial transfers, only if their agree with a rule that would guarantee a gainful domestic participation. Our numerical example shows that China may be better off, while accepting a significant CO2 emission reduction effort. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

International climate policy has assigned the leading role in emissions abatement to the industrialized countries who have assumed historical responsibility for the greenhouse gas problem. Developing countries that remain uncommitted may nevertheless face adverse impacts on their economies caused by international spillovers from abatement in the developed world. In this context, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change guarantees compensation from the industrialized countries to the developing world for induced economic costs under Articles 4.8 and 4.9. In this paper, we shed some light on the difficulties involved in establishing a measurement of bilateral spillover effects that is sufficiently robust to be used in the climate policy debate as a reference point for computing transfer payments. We argue that the decomposition procedure suggested by Harrison, Horridge and Pearson (2000) can reduce arbitrariness in the measurement of bilateral spillovers. Application of the procedure to decompose the economic implications of the Kyoto Protocol at the cross-country level, however, reveals fundamental problems to the issue of compensation. At the bilateral level, developing countries may benefit from abatement in one industrialized country, and be worse off from abatement in another industrialized country. This poses the question if developing countries which are compensated for adverse spillovers should in turn pay for positive spillovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate clubs emerged as a concept to revitalise the international climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and mitigate the free-riding problem. The underlying idea suggests that countries committed to reducing emissions can advance a stable coalition in the form of a club with other countries. As a result, more countries would put forth targets for more ambitious emissions reductions. This article analyses South Africa’s memberships in current climate related clubs. We contextualise South African climate club governance in its wider geopolitical and national context of low-carbon development. The purpose of the analysis is to identify if and how South Africa can possibly contribute to advancing ambition for change within climate clubs. Furthermore, it advances ideas about possible design options for climate clubs that may appeal to developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines key issues in operationalizing a registry of nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) undertaken by developing countries party to the United Nations framework convention on climate change. It analyzes goals, outcomes, and institutional prerequisites underlying various proposals to determine how a NAMA mechanism could work in international climate cooperation. The different proposals for how NAMA shall be designed relate to three basic effort-sharing arrangements in a future climate regime: binding commitments for all Parties, purely voluntary commitments for all, and legally binding commitments for Annex I countries but voluntary ones for others. We conclude that a NAMA registry could be designed so as initially to suit all three types of effort-sharing regimes. The article identifies three areas of potential common ground in a registry irrespective of effort-sharing type: the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the sustainable development objectives of the Convention, and the need for a systemic transition toward low-carbon energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on land use planning topics, including "Historical Amnesia: New Urbanism and the City of Tomorrow," "More Than Sector Theory: Homer Hoyt's Contributions to Planning Knowledge" and "Methodology for the Survival Analysis of Urban Building Stocks."