$650 billion in financing for projects on adaptation, emission cut: UN

PERU: The UN has estimated that there was up to $650 billion in financing for projects aimed at adaptation and emission reduction between 2011-2012.

Additional Economic Adviser Ministry of Finance, Rajashree Ray, said, the figure ranges from $340 billion to $650 billion, given gaps in data and that it includes "all flows from all countries."

The range encompasses project between developed countries as well, which would not benefit developed countries who are in need of the funds.

Ray said that even though the annual flow of funds between developed to developing countries ranged from $40 billion to $175 billion, the range is misleading because "there is no agreed operational definition on climate finance multilaterally" and thus what kind of project funds can be counted in that range is up for debate.

She explained that "in many cases here, the climate is a co-benefit and entire investment is counted as climate finance."

Thus, development and aid projects are being double- counted as climate finance by certain developed countries or the climate financing is not a separate entity, but a subset of the country's development budget.

At the Lima talks on climate change, the UN also stated that "assessing investments in adaptation is particularly difficult often because they can form part of a larger project", this is critical to the understanding of climate finance by developing countries and their formulation of their intentionally determined national contributions.