Introduction by Sven Harmeling:

The climate finance discussion has a full schedule over the summer, despite the lack of an additional formal negotiating session under the UNFCCC. June ended with a GCF meeting taking a number of decisions, followed by the 21st Adaptation Fund Board meeting (July (16th-17th in Manila). August (19th-20th, Bonn) will see the expert meeting of the long-term finance work programme, in which the focus will be on the issue of enabling environments for climate action and the disbursement of climate finance in developing countries, as well as the scaling-up of resources. This is the reason that the CFAS recommended reading (see below) give more background on these issues in particular.

The expert meetings will be important to prepare substantive discussions at COP19, which will include a high-level ministerial on climate finance. However, their impacts will of course be limited if there continues to be a lack of political will to flesh out pathways towards fulfilling the USD 100bn commitment.

In the following sections you will find:

1)  Update on the 4th Meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF)

2)  Update on the 21st Meeting of the Adaptation Fund Board

3)  Recommended reading for the Long Term Finance workshops this summer