AR5: Mitigation of Climate Change - Chapters - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Cross-cutting Investment and Finance Issues

16.1 Introduction

This is the first time an assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contains a chapter dedicated to investment and finance to address climate change. This reflects the growing awareness of the relevance of these issues for the design of efficient and effective climate policies.

The assessment of this topic is complicated by the absence of agreed definitions, sparse data from disparate sources, and limited peerreviewed literature. Equity, burden sharing, and gender considerations related to climate change are discussed in other chapters, inter alia Sections 3.3 and 4.6.2. This chapter does not include a separate discussion of these considerations in relation to climate finance.

There is no agreed definition of climate finance (Haites, 2011; Stadelmann et al., 2011b; Buchner et al., 2011; Forstater and Rank, 2012). The term ‘climate finance’ is applied both to the financial resources devoted to addressing climate change globally and to financial flows to developing countries to assist them in addressing climate change. The literature includes multiple concepts within each of these broad categories (Box 1.1). The specific mitigation and adaptation measures whose costs qualify as ‘climate finance’ also are not agreed. The measures included vary across studies and often are determined by the data available.