The topic of long term finance, and pathways to the US$100 billion commitment by 2020, were conspicuous only in its absence in the Workshops on Long Term Finance this week.
So how did we reach this sorry state?
In fact, discussion of how to meet the $100 billion goal has degenerated steadily over the years. The best effort to date occurred with a 2010 report of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Climate Finance that actually looked at new sources of finance and different mixes of sources to meet the commitment. The COP grudgingly took note of this report, then proceeded to create a Long-Term Finance Work Programme. With little to show for two years of work, the COP referred the issue to a series of workshops (like those this week) and Ministerial processes, which to date have fared no better.
In Lima, negotiators discussing the Long Term Finance agenda item under the COP managed to avoid the issue of how to meet the $100B commitment; Long-Term Finance was not one of the crunch issues that kept negotiators up until the wee hours.