As developed and developing countries alike pledged contributions to the Green Climate Fund at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, which ended over the weekend, the urgency of mobilizing climate finance was further emphasized. But the lack of a clear definition for climate finance may complicate just how — and where — this money will be spent.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for instance, considers projects whose primary or secondary objective includes climate or the environment as climate-related activities.
Using this definition, OECD-Development Assistance Committee members committed nearly $21.9 billion in climate finance in 2013. These commitments were mostly in the infrastructure sector. Rail transport ($4 billion), environmental policy and administrative management ($1.7 billion), power generation ($1.4 billion), electrical transmission and distribution ($984.4 million) and multisector efforts ($941.9 million) were the five areas in which climate assistance was concentrated.