Political Statement: The Mexican-Norwegian Proposal on Climate Funding

The recent debate has focused mainly on the goals the world needs to reach in order to fight climate change, but little has been said about the means of reaching those goals. It is vital that we find a mechanism to provide the resources needed to make a significant impact.

To enhance the certainty and predictability of climate finance and guarantee the availability of adequate and sufficient resources Mexico and Norway are proposing a joint model where funding to enable developing countries to move towards a more climate resilient and low carbon development path is channeled through a new Green Fund.

As an indication, we believe the scale of the Green Fund could start around like 10 bn. USD per year in 2013 and increase to 30-40 bn. USD in 2020. Contributions to the Green Fund should come from different complementary sources of financing: budget funding, international and domestic auctioning of allowances and other comparable sources, and should go to result based mitigation actions and adaptation efforts.

Budget contributions are decided according to a scale based on responsibility (emissions) and capability. Furthermore, a certain proportion of the total UN-allowances should be set aside for auctioning at the international level to support both mitigation and adaptation efforts with fixed percentages for each. Countries without UN-allowances that have national cap and trade systems may also contribute to the Green Fund through auctioning of national allowances.

In the area of adaptation the most vulnerable countries will be given priority, as well as the least developed countries and small island developing states.

The resources available for climate financing in developing countries are clearly inadequate. Mexico and Norway are joining forces to enhance the certainty and predictability of adequate climate financing. We sincerely hope that with this joint proposal we can bridge the gap between negotiating parties and help develop a funding model that everyone can endorse.