Publication

Many voices, domestically and internationally, call for the United States to increase its international financing of measures to address climate change. Financing would help low-income countries pay for the extra costs of development incurred to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and to adapt to climate variability and change. The United States and other industrialized countries committed to financial assistance in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992) and the Copenhagen Accord (2009). In the Copenhagen Accord, countries pledged (1) $30 billion in 2010 to 2012 as fast-start financing, and (2) to seek $100 billion annually by 2020, with funds to come from both public and private sources. The Obama Administration has not yet specified what shares of the two pledges it envisions the United States providing, nor a strategy to fulfill the 2020 pledge.