A €729 million ($779 million) climate initiative from the European Commission had no demonstrable impact on countries’ resilience to climate change, failed to focus on the most needy, did too much “capacity building” and not enough concrete action on adaptation projects, and was poorly promoted with too few contributions from other donors, auditors have found.
“Overall, we found that the initiative did not demonstrate its impact on countries’ resilience to climate change,” the European Court of Auditors wrote in their report on the Global Climate Change Alliance, or GCCA, released Wednesday. “In terms of efficiency, completed actions generally delivered their outputs, but sometimes at a high cost.”
The GCCA ran in two phases over 15 years from 2007 and covered more than 80 countries. Mostly working through United Nations and European Union states’ development agencies, the initiative’s main aims were better dialogue between climate-vulnerable countries and the EU, and greater EU support for climate adaptation for those countries.
About the author
Vince Chadwickvchadw
Vince Chadwick is a contributing reporter at Devex. A law graduate from Melbourne, Australia, he was social affairs reporter for The Age newspaper, before covering breaking news, the arts, and public policy across Europe, including as a reporter and editor at POLITICO Europe. He was long-listed for International Journalist of the Year at the 2023 One World Media Awards.
