Our climate strategy reflects terribly on seven decades of development experience
This is a rant - on climate finance, on the deceit of public officials talking endlessly about mobilising private finance, and on how we just do not learn.
You can see every bad habit the development sector has picked up at play in the world of climate finance. The top-down project design, technocratic gatekeeping, a poor understanding of contextual risk and how to measure it, the resultant obsession with fiduciary controls, etc!
Meanwhile, the rich world continues to underwrite its own fossil addiction. Forever wars, new wars, energy security, inflation, new-age demagogues and old-school dictators - all of these come together to offer one reason after another on why it is not the right time to ditch fossil fuels. Fossil fuel subsidies are on an upward swing.
This is foremost a political problem. Overbearing and over-cooked bureaucracies are great at signalling urgency but cannot follow through in delivery because they reward compliance over all else - that’s partly the story of the Green Climate Fund
If climate finance is to make a difference, it means bringing about a shift in political power. It requires prioritising adaptation in the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the world, making it easier for communities to access the funds they need, not being shy to talk about historical responsibility, ‘just transition’, etc, and at the same time, emphasising local solutions by devolving finances appropriately.
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Finally - the notion of "mobilising private finance" in development, particularly in sectors like climate is all the rage these days. Donors and governments faced with shrinking budgets talk about it endlessly. In doing so, they ignore the state's duty to allocate public resources effectively to fund critical sectors. Rather than pushing for necessary public investment in the face of mounting development challenges, politicians and technocrats are leaning on market-driven solutions to meet targets. This allows them to avoid politically difficult decisions about tax reforms, national budget allocations, and fiscal responsibility.
And where poorly managed, it exposes communities to the predatory instincts of reckless global financial players.
Take the experience with carbon offsets in Kajiado, Kenya where Maasai communities are resisting carbon credits that look like a land grab. This highlights the dangers of over-reliance on private finance in the climate/conservation world.
A confidential carbon rights transfer agreement obtained by Climate Action reveals the extent of control communities surrendered. The document shows that communities assigned their carbon rights to private brokerage firms while being required to implement specific grazing management plans. The firm retained responsibility for generating and selling credits on voluntary carbon markets, with the community's role largely passive.
This is the risk. A public sector that is being hollowed out and is being allowed to shirk; private capital that is chasing profits at the cost of communities who are stripped of agency - all in the name of new-age climate action.
The search for private finance is the seeking of funds for international bureaucracies now becoming distraught the markets they talk about are coming to cause them to meet market forces - no customers no earnings.
Why not have the private sector working to best effect? Regularly because they will care nothing, nothing, for the common goods. The failure of governance means extractive economics is being perpetuated and those with hold on power will keep hold on power (in all senses of the word with energy generation as well as social, economic and the political capabilities)
"This is foremost a political problem. Overbearing and over-cooked bureaucracies are great at signalling urgency but cannot follow through in delivery because they reward compliance over all else"
We need to separate these elements out Suvo. Political issues, problems, are systems now in the main easy to manipulate where the executive is conflated with the legislative and there is an absence of quality, functional, responsible bureaucracy.
On international bureaucracies, we are witnessing, as we have seen in country systems, bureaucrats looking after their career paths and politicians grandstanding rather than looking at oversight to deliver relevance, effectiveness and revisions to what is called efficiency.