How Lessons from Development Finance Can Strengthen Climate Finance

Abstract

Tackling climate change and ensuring that there are liveable environments for people, biodiversity and ecosystems to flourish in is part of achieving the sustainable development agenda. Ensuring that communities address and adapt to climate impacts enables them to maintain and strengthen their livelihoods and helps future generations to thrive. It also supports the sustainable development of equitable societies within which citizens have access to education, justice, health and affordable energy. As such, climate finance is a vital and powerful sustainable development tool. This chapter argues that in order for climate finance to adequately support vulnerable communities’ efforts to tackle climate change and develop sustainably: The climate finance agenda must be driven by the most vulnerable: (a) The quality of climate finance must improve, (b) Greater access to new and additional climate finance is needed to minimize debt (c) Climate finance must be gender-responsive. The chapter also highlights lessons learned from long-standing work on development finance that need to be taken into account in climate finance discussions taking place today. The objective of the chapter is to help strengthen synergies between the agendas of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).