The 28th annual Conference of the Parties, or COP 28, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, ended this week, taking multilateral climate negotiations to their annual climax. At the time of writing this piece, the outcomes of COP 28 are uncertain but there is certainty that climate finance is now an established part of multilateral action and negotiation.
There are many veritable signs of the maturity of multilateral climate finance at the political level: the size of COP 28, wide demand for just transitions, and mainstreaming of climate finance into national agendas.
In parallel, climate finance institutions have proliferated and matured. With the successful second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund, a loss and damage fund now established, and the maturity of the discussions at UNFCCC, climate finance as distinct from development assistance is here to stay. In fact, it is a far larger field than development assistance.
About the author
Archi Rastogi
Archi Rastogi, Ph.D., is an adjunct senior research fellow at National University of Singapore. He has worked in the media, academia, grassroots, and multilateral organizations for 18 years.
