India makes a case for credible fiscal commitments, calls for verifiable and accurate numbers

NEW DELHI: There is need for more credible, accurate and verifiable numbers on the true size of mobilisation of climate change finance commitments and flows from developed to developing countries, the finance ministry said in a discussion paper put out ahead of Paris climate talks.

During the recent Lima World Bank-IMF meetings, India had raised the issue of a roadmap for $100 billion in climate change financing a year by 2020, the ministry noted on Sunday mentioning the paper. The paper, titled ‘Climate Change Finance, Analysis of a Recent OECD Report: Some Credible Facts Needed’, was put out by the Climate Change Finance Unit of the Department of Economic Affairs.

“The paper suggests that much more work has to be done,” economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das said in his foreword to the discussion paper that questions the OECD data on climate change finance flows from developed countries to developing ones. The paper examines the OECD report’s accuracy, methodology and “it finds serious problems on all counts”, the ministry said in a statement. The discussion paper is not the official government view on the subject.

“Numbers were derived on self-reported basis from self-interested players, and open to ‘gaming’ and exaggeration and definitions of climate change finance used were not consistent with the convention – to find more leeway to count progress?” it said. The methodologies used were inconsistent with the literature and best practices and even “bent” in ways to find more flows than reality, it said. It further said “aggregate numbers were reported – with lack of transparency. No serious consultations were done with developing countries themselves”.

The OECD in partnership with Climate Policy Initiative recently released a paper titled ‘Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the $100 billion goal’. The paper has claimed significant progress towards that goal. Its “preliminary estimates” were that climate change finance from developed to developing countries had reached $62 billion in 2014 and $52 billion in 2013, equivalent to an annual average over two years of $57 billion.