Climate Policy

Journal: Climate Policy

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

ISSN

1752-7457
1469-3062

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Publications 1 - 10 of 31

Quantifying climate finance needs in the nationally determined contributions of developing countries
Isah, Abdulrasheed; Egli, Florian Manuel; Schmidt, Tobias; et al. (2025)
Climate Policy
Climate finance is critical for developing countries to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Understanding country-specific climate finance needs and priorities is therefore essential for the effectiveness of multilateral climate frameworks in facilitating climate finance flows to developing countries. The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries submit under the Paris Agreement provide information on national climate goals and sectoral priorities. While there is a huge literature on the transparency, accountability, and policy implications of NDC targets, less attention has been paid to the climate finance needs that developing countries communicate in their NDCs. Here, we propose a framework for measuring the specificity of developing countries’ climate finance needs and develop the Climate Finance Needs Specificity (CLIFS) dataset by manually analyzing 251 NDCs – 133 first and 118 updated NDCs. We measure the specificity of climate finance needs across mitigation and adaptation corresponding to the existence and the level of granularity of climate finance needs reported in these NDCs. Our results show an increase in the specificity of climate finance estimates between the first and updated NDCs for both mitigation and adaptation, and at the sectoral and sub-sectoral levels. African countries are more likely to quantify climate finance needs in their NDCs than countries from other regions. Based on data from sample countries, we find that estimated annual climate finance needs exceed $600 billion by 2030. This is double the amount pledged to the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance by 2035 and underscores the need for strong ambition in the implementation of the Baku to Belém Roadmap. We provide policy implications for various stakeholders, highlight the limitations of our study, and outline future research directions related to climate finance and policy.
Strategy in the climate change negotiations
Bailer, Stefanie (2012)
Climate Policy
Climate policy curves highlight key mitigation choices
Hänsel, Martin C.; Bauer, Michael D.; Drupp, Moritz A.; et al. (2025)
Climate Policy
The extent of future climate change is largely a policy choice. We illuminate this choice with climate policy curves (CPCs), which link climate policies to subsequent global temperatures. The estimated downward sloping CPCs highlight the key trade-off between initial policy ambition, expressed via an overall effective carbon price, and the subsequent policy burden left for future generations. We also demonstrate how different CPCs can illustrate the range of climate policy paths towards attaining the Paris Agreement temperature goals. Based on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) integrated-assessment model scenarios, we estimate an implicit CPC, which provides a high-level summary of assumptions underlying the IPCC’s assessment about climate policy trade-offs. We show that by virtue of their reductionism, CPCs serve as a useful model diagnostic and communication tool for climate policy discussions.
Economic crises as critical junctures for policy and structural changes towards decarbonization - the cases of Spain and Germany
Bersalli, Germán; Tröndle, Tim; Heckmann, Leon; et al. (2024)
Climate Policy
Crises may act as tipping points for decarbonization pathways by triggering structural economic change or offering windows of opportunity for policy change. We investigate both types of effects of the global financial and COVID-19 crises on decarbonization in Spain and Germany through a quantitative Kaya-decomposition analysis of CO2 emissions and through a qualitative review of climate and energy policy changes. We show that the global financial crisis resulted in a critical juncture for Spanish CO2 emissions due to the combined effects of the deep economic recession and crisis-induced structural change, resulting in reductions in carbon and energy intensities and shifts in the economic structure. However, the crisis also resulted in a rollback of renewable energy policy, halting progress in the transition to green electricity. The impacts were less pronounced in Germany, where pre-existing decarbonization and policy trends continued after the crisis. Recovery packages had modest effects, primarily due to their temporary nature and the limited share of climate-related spending. The direct short-term impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on CO2 emissions were more substantial in Spain than in Germany. The policy responses in both countries sought to align short-term economic recovery with the long-term climate change goals of decarbonization, but it is too soon to observe their lasting effects. Our findings show that crises can affect structural change and support decarbonization but suggest that such effects depend on pre-existing trends, the severity of the crisis and political manoeuvring during the crisis.
Banks' climate commitments: a silver lining for climate action or just hot air? First evidence from the Swiss mortgage business
Aeschlimann, Mischa (2025)
Climate Policy
Banks worldwide have pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in their lending and investment portfolios by 2050, raising hopes that the finance industry is about to leverage its full power to limit global warming. However, net-zero implementation efforts in banking are nascent, and their likelihood of meeting reduction targets remains unclear. To clarify uncertainties surrounding the mitigation outcomes of such climate commitments, this study investigates net-zero target operationalization in Swiss mortgage portfolios through extensive consultation with stakeholders directly involved in their implementation. The findings show that although banks have measures to achieve net zero by 2050 at their disposal, implementation is prevented by banks' institutional fears about experiencing market disadvantages should competitors fail to follow suit. Without regulatory interventions, the voluntary net-zero efforts of Swiss banks will be limited to measures with anticipated limited to negligible impacts on decarbonizing financed buildings that are insufficient to meet pledged climate targets. This scenario resonates beyond the Swiss context, and great caution is warranted concerning the expected impact of voluntary climate commitments by banks worldwide. Further research is required to determine the extent to which similar dynamics constrain impactful climate target operationalization across asset classes and countries.
Political conflict and climate policy: the European emissions trading system as a Trojan Horse for the low-carbon transition?
Markard, Jochen; Rosenbloom, Daniel (2020)
Climate Policy
Many economists, businesses, and policymakers view carbon pricing as the single best policy approach to address climate change. Such optimism, however, tends to neglect the political conflicts surrounding climate policy and the necessity to accelerate the ongoing low-carbon energy transition. To unveil these conflicts, we analyze the responses of key actors to public consultations in 2015–16 concerning the EU emissions trading system (ETS) and the EU renewable energy directive. From this, we identify a prominent policy position contending that climate policy should focus on the ETS given its purported efficiency. Some actors who share this position use the ETS as a Trojan Horse–a strategy to divert attention from, and fend off, more ambitious climate action in the form of complementary renewable energy policies. Such political strategies do not just undermine carbon pricing but impede the energy transition at large. However, we also find energy industry incumbents that express support for a much stronger ETS and more effective climate policy. Therefore, it seems that the ‘Trojan Horse strategy’ may fail and the low-carbon transition might gain increasing support from a broad range of stakeholders. Even so, we argue that any singular climate policy approach risks political capture and that a mix of policies will be necessary to accelerate the ongoing transition. Key Policy Insights Major European industry actors tend to advocate the EU ETS as the primary climate policy instrument. Some European industry actors have used the EU ETS as a Trojan Horse–to fend off strict climate action and to slow down the low-carbon energy transition. Political conflicts surrounding individual climate policies reflect much larger struggles over the direction and pace of the energy transition. Climate policy should not rely too heavily on a single instrument but rather include a mix of measures that promote both low-carbon innovation and the decline of carbon-intensive industries, technologies and practices. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Civil society lobbying and countries' climate change policies
Böhmelt, Tobias (2013)
Climate Policy
Managing the transition to climate stabilization
Richels, Richard G.; Rutherford, Thomas F.; Blanford, Geoffrey J.; et al. (2007)
Climate Policy
Political populism, responsiveness, and public support for climate mitigation
Huber, Robert A.; Fesenfeld, Lukas Paul; Bernauer, Thomas (2020)
Climate Policy
Harnessing oil and gas superprofits for climate action
Egli, Florian Manuel; Grubb, Michael; Stünzi, Anna (2024)
Climate Policy
Climate change disproportionately harms low-income countries, whilst international climate finance to support them remains inadequate. Negotiations about the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) centre around how to cover increasing needs of developing countries. Windfall profits of the fossil fuel industry, which benefits from this dominant source of greenhouse gas emissions, could contribute to mobilizing more finance, both for the NCQG and wider needs of domestic and international climate finance. We find that the energy crisis of 2022 led to oil and gas industry ‘superprofits’ in the same year – defined as being above the stated expectations at the beginning of the year – amounting to about half a trillion dollars (US$490 bn above the $753 bn projected by the companies). Over $200 bn of this accrued to companies directly controlled by governments, two-thirds of which do not have a historical commitment to contribute to international climate finance. The remaining $280 bn of superprofits went to privately controlled companies, of which over 95% are headquartered in countries currently contributing to international climate finance. We argue that there is a clear case to include fossil fuel profits on the agenda of UNFCCC climate finance negotiations and to pursue an international agreement on minimum fossil fuel production taxes. Given that most privately controlled superprofits occurred in G20 countries and the group's ability to reach agreement on corporation taxes recently, the G20 could be a natural forum to pursue such policy action.

Publications 1 - 10 of 31

Journal: Climate Policy

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