How Much Will the Paris Agreement Cost?

How much is required to fund the Nationally Determined Contributions of developing countries?

Demand Climate Justice activists at #COP24 demand an end to fossil fuel finance and the start of real climate finance to deliver the promise of the Paris Agreement to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees. Photo Credit: APMDD

As Ministers descended upon Katowice for High-Level meetings of COP24 United Nations climate change talks all eyes are on the critical issue of climate finance.

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed countries have committed to mobilise $100 billion in climate finance per year, but are falling far short of this goal. To date, just $10.3bn has been pledged by developed country parties to the Green Climate Fund.

The committed $100 billion was agreed by countries to be a minimum amount. They also agreed that a new goal will be renegotiated before 2025. It is vital that the new global goal on finance reflects the actual needs and priorities of developing countries in order to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal of staying below 1.5c warming.

However, throughout the negotiation of a set of guidelines to implement the Paris Agreement, developed countries have resisted rules for them to provide transparency on climate finance under Article 9.5 and 9.7 of the Agreement.

Now, a new analysis performed by International Justice Initiative at the University of Tasmania, and available to view for all here, shows clearly that:

The total cost for developing countries to implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) is more than US$4.4 trillion. This is based on the costs developing countries have included in their NDCs for implementing their plans for climate change mitigation, as well as adapting to its impacts and addressing the loss and damage it causes.

The total of $4.4 trillion includes costs intended to be met by both domestic and international sources of finance. This number represents a conservative estimate of the total cost for developing countries: more than 40% of developing countries (defined as non-Annex I countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) did not include costs of implementation in their NDCs. Further, where a range was given by a country for the estimated cost of implementation, only the lowest end of this range was included in the calculation. This means the real finance needs are likely much higher.

While not all of the $4 trillion is expected to be provided through international climate finance, the figure throws the inadequacy of the $100 billion goal into sharp relief and demands a dramatic re-think from Ministers in Katowice, who are unlikely to even offer concrete pledges to meet the inadequate $100 billion.