UNDP-气候融资促进维持和平：使气候融资在受冲突影响和脆弱的环境中发挥作用（英）-2021.12-45页_5mb

Summary of Climate Finance for Sustaining Peace

Core Content

This report, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Climate Security Mechanism and the Nataij Group, explores how climate finance can be more effectively utilized in conflict-affected and fragile contexts to support peace and security. It identifies critical gaps in the current understanding and implementation of climate finance in these settings and offers insights, findings, and recommendations to improve its impact.

Main Points

1. Climate Change and Conflict Nexus

• Climate-related security risks are defined as the adverse impacts of climate change on human security (freedom from fear and freedom from want), as well as on the security of states and international peace.
• Climate change does not directly cause conflict but can exacerbate existing risks, overburden state capacity, and increase vulnerability, thereby prolonging or aggravating conflicts.
• The UN Security Council has increasingly acknowledged the link between climate change and security, with a 2011 Presidential Statement that paved the way for more structured engagement on this issue.

2. Climate Finance in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts

• Climate finance is crucial for supporting vulnerable communities, but access is limited in conflict-affected and fragile contexts.
• Only one of the top 15 recipients of climate finance in fragile and extremely fragile states was extremely fragile, highlighting the uneven distribution.
• Projects in extremely fragile states are significantly smaller in scale compared to those in fragile or non-fragile states.
• Per capita funding is much lower in extremely fragile states ($2.1) compared to fragile states ($10.8) and non-fragile states ($161.7).

3. Co-benefits of Climate Action for Peace and Security

• Co-benefits of climate action refer to positive effects on peace, stability, and security, which are often overlooked in policy-making.
• These co-benefits include health, security, and equity improvements from climate policies.
• There is a need for better understanding and quantification of co-benefits, especially in conflict-affected and fragile contexts, to enhance the effectiveness of climate finance.

4. Challenges in Access and Implementation

• Barriers to access include limited state capacity, lack of historical climate data, and international sanctions.
• Absorption capacity is often low in fragile states, making it difficult to implement climate projects effectively.
• Data availability and comparability are major issues, especially for regional programs and cross-border initiatives.
• Private sector and South-South finance are underutilized and not systematically tracked in many climate finance frameworks.

5. Recommendations for Effective Climate Finance

• Locally-led design and cross-border/ regional approaches are essential to avoid maladaptation and leverage co-benefits.
• Conflict-sensitive programming should be prioritized to ensure that climate finance does not inadvertently worsen insecurity.
• Special vehicles or pathways should be created to integrate climate and security objectives.
• Enhanced data systems and interoperable metrics are needed to better assess and track co-benefits.
• National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) should be used as platforms to mainstream climate-related security risks.
• Grant-based concessional finance is more critical in fragile contexts than loan-based instruments.
• Co-financing requires significant technical capacity and may be a barrier to access in conflict-affected areas.

Key Findings

• Conflict-affected and fragile states are among the least recipients of climate finance, despite being highly vulnerable.
• Adaptation is the most common focus of climate finance in these contexts, followed by mitigation and cross-cutting projects.
• Data and transparency remain major challenges in tracking and evaluating climate finance flows.
• Climate finance must be designed with peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity in mind to ensure it contributes positively to stability and security.

Conclusion

To make climate finance work for sustaining peace, there is a need for intentional design, systematic integration of security risks, and improved access and implementation mechanisms. This requires a shift from traditional approaches to more inclusive, conflict-sensitive, and regionally coordinated strategies that prioritize both environmental and security outcomes.