Climate finance in a fractured world

Climate Finance in a Fractured World

Although there has been significant growth in climate finance in the last decade, developed countries still struggle to meet the goal of raising USD 100 billion annually as decided at the 2009 COP15 meeting in Copenhagen. Beyond issues of quantity, concerns persist regarding a potential financing gap - such that accrued resources do not flow to projects which require them most - and the continued favouring of mitigation efforts over adaptation projects. Furthermore, the lack of consensus on a universal standard for defining, categorising, and accounting for climate finance limits possibilities for meaningful comparison between developed state contributions and hampers effective allocation of resources to critical sectors or regions. The need for collective action by states, international organisations, and private actors to address climate challenges remains pressing, raising important questions of how the world should proceed. #LSEGEGC #LSEGlobalGovernance

Watch

This webinar was held on Thursday 23 March.

Meet the speakers and chair

Patricia Espinosa (@PEspinosaC) is Founding Partner and CEO of onepoint5, an ESG consulting firm specialized in climate change. A career diplomat, she is a respected leader on the global stage with more than 35 years of experience at the highest level in diplomacy, multilateral negotiations, and international relations. Prior to founding onepoint5, Ambassador Espinosa served as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2016-2022), Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico (2006-2012) and Mexico’s Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (2013-2016), and to Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia (2002-2006). In 2012, she was appointed Ambassador Emeritus of Mexico, the highest recognition the Mexican Government awards its diplomats. She has also been decorated by the governments of Germany, Argentina, Austria, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, El Salvador, Guatemala, Netherlands, Paraguay, and Peru. Ambassador Espinosa is widely recognized as an authoritative voice on issues related to sustainability, environmental stewardship, gender equality and the protection of human rights.

Sandeep Sengupta is currently the global policy lead for climate change at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) based in Switzerland. He has worked for over 15 years on a wide range of environment, development and natural resource management issues across government, academia and international organizations. He holds a doctorate in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a masters degree from the London School of Economics (LSE). His academic research has focused on the global politics of climate change and its evolution over the last three decades. He is also a visiting faculty at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, where he teaches courses on climate change politics and governance.

Robert Falkner (@robert_falkner) is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. He serves as the Academic Dean of the TRIUM Global EMBA programme, a partnership between NYU Stern, LSE and HEC Paris. His research interests are in international relations, global environmental politics and international political economy. He has published widely in these fields, including books on Great Powers, Climate Change, and Global Environmental Responsibilities (co-edited, 2022) and Environmentalism and Global International Society (2021). Until 2022, he was the Research Director of the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.