Positioning Climate Finance in the Post 2015 Development Agenda

Abstract

By the end of 2015, we will see a new global development agenda which will substitute the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). If we look at the years after the adoption of the MDGs, there is no doubt that the development goals have been successful in focusing governments’ attention on poverty eradication, by setting clear outcome indicators and uniting humanity behind a targeted principle. However, despite a goal devoted to ensuring environmental sustainability (MDG7), one of the criticisms of the MDGs has been insufficient attention to the climate issues. Currently, the question of whether climate change is happening is low on the agenda. The world is facing an increasingly volatile and extreme climate, which is impacting the poorest the first and the most. Climate change acts as a ‘risk multiplier’, increasing socio-economic, political, demographic, and resource pressures. It is challenging the economic paradigm that treats the environment and climate change separately. The global climate can now be seen as a crucial public good under threat, as important as the issues of food security, health, and peace.