Elges, Lisa Ann --- "Identifying Corruption Risks in Public Climate Finance Governance" [2011] ELECD 994; in Graycar, Adam; Smith, G. Russell (eds), "Handbook of Global Research and Practice in Corruption" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Handbook of Global Research and Practice in Corruption

Editor(s): Graycar, Adam; Smith, G. Russell

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849805018

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Identifying Corruption Risks in Public Climate Finance Governance

Author(s): Elges, Lisa Ann

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

7 Identifying corruption risks in public
climate finance governance
Lisa Ann Elges


Climate change is probably one of the most serious challenges our and
future generations face. Global greenhouse gas emissions have been
rising and a strong body of scientific evidence shows that there are likely
to be severe consequences for the global climate if they are not reduced.
Governments and multilateral organizations have pledged substantial
sums of `public climate finance' to mitigate impacts on the global climate
and to adapt to the consequences of climate change. In order to safeguard
these investments, it is important to ensure exemplary governance in their
administration. Weak governance of public climate finance will compro-
mise transparency and accountability in their disbursement. This opens
the door to corrupted decision making, which risks a misallocation of
funds and threatens the legitimacy of global efforts to work toward the
global public good of a stable climate.
Addressing climate change means taking decisive action to adapt to
present and forecasted climatic impacts (adaptation) and to mitigate
those impacts by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (mitiga-
tion). According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC:
4th Assessment Report: Climate Change, 2007) global emissions need
to at least peak if not decline by 2015 in order to `limit global mean
temperature increases to 2­2.4°C above the pre-industrial level, and
to be around 50 per cent of current levels by 2050'. In 2009, at the
Global Climate Summit in Copenhagen, an Accord was struck to ...