10 December 2014: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) jointly organized an informal meeting on climate finance tracking on the sidelines of the Lima Climate Change Conference. The meeting reflected on lessons learned from collaboration over the course of 2014, the challenges identified and important topics for discussion among practitioners in 2015.

CPI led a discussion of tracking the gaps, noting the very limited amount of data on public domestic budgets for renewable energy, energy efficiency, transport, forestry and adaptation, as well as for private sector flows to transport and adaptation. Other remaining issues identified by CPI include: differing accounting methods; differing reporting approaches; and a lack of a common operational definition and qualifying criteria (particularly for adaptation).

EIB explained the approach of the Joint Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) Reporting Initiative, which defines which projects qualify as climate adaptation activities. The EIB presentation specified that “Adaptation is purpose, context and activity based.” EIB informed participants that this means the context must demonstrate climate vulnerability, the project’s intent must be to improve climate resilience, and clear and direct links between the activity and climate vulnerability must be demonstrated.

A presentation describing the International Development Finance Club’s (IDFC) green finance tracking methodology pointed out that after three years of improvement, some weak areas remain, many of them in common with other methodologies, such as specificity and defining adaptation.

The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Secretariat gave a presentation highlighting that the “DAC Statistical system presents for the first time an integrated picture of bilateral and multilateral climate-related development finance” both from the recipient and donor perspectives. However, the Secretariat noted some future work, challenges and opportunities, including the need to improve, inter alia: coverage and timeliness of reporting; Rio marker definitions; and quantification of Rio marker data.

The OECD Rio Markers were created to help countries complete their National Communications (NCs) to the three Rio Conventions—the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the UNFCCC. [OECD Workshop Webpage] [CPI Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2014 Webpage] [EIB Joint Report on MDB Climate Finance 2013 Webpage] [IISD RS Coverage of the Lima Climate Conference]