The UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance (SCF), a constituted body under the Convention and the Paris Agreement, will hold three webinars for country representatives, practitioners and experts for an informal exchange on the development of the Fourth Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows.

The informal webinar provides an opportunity for stakeholders from public and private finance institutions, civil society and governments to reflect on progress made in relation to measuring and assessing climate finance impacts and results. The SCF will also convene this webinar to seek views and input on the work conducted to date. In particular, the webinar follows up on progress related to five key recommendation from the 2018 BA:

• Reporting on impacts of climate finance (recommendation (n): Invite, as in the 2016 BA, multilateral climate funds, MDBs, other financial institutions and relevant international organizations to continue do advance work on tracking and reporting on impacts of mitigation and adaptation finance);
• Reporting on climate-proofing and climate-resilience measures in climate finance (recommendation (o): Encourage all relevant United Nations agencies and international, regional and national financial institutions to provide information to Parties through the secretariat on how their development assistance and climate finance programmes incorporate climate-proofing and climate-resilience measures, in line with new available scientific information);
• Gender and climate finance (recommendation (m): Encourage climate finance providers to improve tracking and reporting on gender-related aspects of climate finance, impact measuring and mainstreaming);
• Domestic level institutional capacities for programming climate action and tracking impacts (recommendation (k): Encourage developing countries to take advantage of available resources through the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism to strengthen institutional capacity for programming their priority climate action, as well as tracking climate finance, effectiveness and impacts).
• Country level reporting (recommendation (g): Encourage developed countries and climate finance providers, as well as multilateral and financial institutions, private finance data providers and other relevant institutions, to enhance the availability of granular, country-level data on mitigation and adaptation finance, inter alia, transport, agriculture, forests, water and waste)

Background

The SCF assists the COP in exercising its functions in relation to the Financial Mechanism of the Convention.

For the fourth time, the SCF will prepare the Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows. The first BA was prepared in 2014.The second BA was prepared in 2016 and the third BA was prepared in 2018. The summary and recommendation by the SCF on the 2018 BA is contained in annex to decision 4/CP.24. The underlying technical reports are viewable here. The Fourth BA will focus on climate finance flows for 2017 and 2018 as well as any identified trends from previous years.

The SCF, through the BA and other activities, contributes to the progressive improvement of the compilation of climate finance information. Additionally, the COP, in decision 1/CP21, paragraph 94 (e), has also requested the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement, when developing the modalities, procedures, and guidelines for the transparency framework for action and support, to consider, inter alia, information in the BA. Furthermore, Parties, in the context of discussions on the development of the modalities and identification of sources of inputs for the global stocktake under the APA, have referred to the BA as vehicle to inform global stocktakes with respect to support to developing countries, as well as the broader climate financial and investment flows.