OCP/ecbi has forz some time been working on future Arrangements for Inter-governmental Meetings under the UNFCCC, proposing, as indicated in the sub-title of the 2021 Quo Vadis COP? Report that they should become “Settled and Fit for Purpose” (i.e. settled in Bonn with a focus on implementation). Since then, a number of OCP/ecbi publications have followed up on these ideas, among them a 2025 Blog Post “Good COP? Bad COP? Time to reform COP!” (reflecting on COP28 in Dubai) followed in the same year by an Update of the 2021 Report, and (in 2025) a Blog Post on Quo Vadis COP.31? and a Discussion Note on Reimagining COPs and Climate Weeks.
In the course of this work it has become clear that there is a need for clarity on terminology. For example, the term ‘COP’, as acronym of ‘Conference of the Parties’, in the context of the multilateral climate change regime strictly speaking refers to a particular multilateral body, namely the Governing Body (GB) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in the same way in which ‘CMP’ and ‘CMA’ designate the governing bodies of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, respectively. Apart from Governing Bodies, the multilateral climate change regime under the UNFCCC also has ‘Subsidiary Bodies’ (SBs) — usually serving all UNFCCC Governing Bodies — such as the ‘Subsidiary Body for Implementation‘ (SBI) and theSubsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice’ (SBSTA)
The plural ‘COPs’ is used to refer to annual events held under the aegis of the COP and the annual COP Presidencies, beginning (COP.1) in Berlin 1995. COP.30 is being held in November 2025 in Belém/Brazil, in conjunction with sessions of all the other UNFCCC bodies mentioned above (CMP.20, CMA.7, SBI.63, SBSTA.63).
Fig. 1 Quo Vadis COP? 2025 Update
Over time, COPs have evolved into mega-events, not only with respect to their exponentially growing number of participants (Fig. 1), but also in the growing number of associated activities. The 2021 Report divided these into a ‘triad’ of categories: ‘Negotiations’, ‘Summits’ and ‘Expos’, with ‘Negotiations’ used as a short form for ‘Sessions of the Governing (and Subsidiary) Bodies of the multilateral climate change regime’.
Originally, the focus of these Sessions was indeed on negotiating, in particular negotiating international treaties. But they were never just negotiations. They also included ‘mandated events’, and indeed ‘side events’ in the ‘Blue Zone’ where access is controlled by the UNFCCC Secretariat, by contrast to the ‘Green Zone’ where access is controlled by the host country/COP Presidency.
Moreover, all the Blue Zone events during the annual Sessions (other than those in country offices and/or pavilions) were originally managed by the Secretariat. However, over time, the number of pavilions proliferated (see figure below) with the effect that arguably only a small share of Blue Zone side events are under the control of the Secretariat. The 2021 Report Triad-classification (see Box below) included these Blue Zone ‘pavilion events’ explicitly in the ‘COP Expo’ (together with the Green Zone events), as “the pavilion space is not intended as a part of the formal intergovernmental process. Events hosted in pavilions are not part of the official COP programme.”[UNFCCC]
Figure 2. Courtesy of Jen Allan
As regards to the nature of the rest of the COP Session activities it has become clear – and will be addressed in a forthcoming ecbi Report by Stefan Ruchti and Paul Watkinson on Shaping the Sessions to be Fit for Purpose – that these Sessions should be used less for negotiations and more as a forum to exchange experiences between (governmental) implementation practitioners. In that context, it is therefore more appropriate to simply use the term ‘(COP) Session’ rather than ‘Negotiations’ for the first element of the Triad.
In sum the propsal here is the following evolution from the original ‘Triad-terminology’ (see Box 1 below):
‘UNFCCC Sessions’ (‘Sessions’) is to be used to refer to the activities organised by the UNFCCC Secretariat (including negotiations, mandated events, side events) usually organised in the Blue Zone;
‘COP Presidency Summits’ (‘COP Summits’) for the meetings of Heads of Government and State
‘COP Presidency Expos’: the (mega-COP) activities not covered by the above, such as the Green Zone activities, the pavilion activities etc.
The ecbi was founded in 2005 by the late Saleemul Huq (IIED) as Head of the then “Workshop Programme”, and Benito Müller (OCP) as ecbi Director and Head of the “Fellowship Programme” (for more on the ecbi click here). During the 20th Anniversary Oxford Seminar dinner on 27 August 2025 in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, the ecbi Director looked back over the two decades of ecbi activities and highlighted some key accomplishments. This post is based on this summary.
2006-7: Adaptation Fund
The first discernible impact of the ecbi Fellowship Programme was on the operationalisation of the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund in 2007 which took up a number of suggestions of two publications by ecbi Fellows:
2010-12 Establishing the Standing Committee on Finance
The August 2010 Fellowship proposed “A General Blueprint for reforming the UNFCCC Financial Mechanism” including the proposal to establish “a standing committee (‘Finance Committee’)” under the COP. Farrukh Khan, one of the 2010 Fellows, presented the proposal in September 2010 to a meeting of high-ranking representatives from 46 countries in Geneva. COP 16 (November/December 2010, Cancun) decided to establish a Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) to assist the COP in exercising its functions with respect to the Financial Mechanism of the Convention. But it left open how exactly this should be done.
The August 2011 ecbi Policy Brief “What Functions? What Form? Operationalizing the Standing Committee” by Farrukh Khan and Benito Müller was looking looking at the COP functions which the Standing Committee was meant to assist considering, in particular, how such assistance could enhance the implementation of the Financial Mechanism. Based on this analysis, the brief put forward detailed recommendations concerning the functions and the form of the Standing Committee. The SCF was operationalised in the following 12 months, holding its inaugural meeting in September 2012 (Bangkok), where the members were presented with a Note on Reforming the Financial Mechanism reflecting thoughts put together by the 2010 ecbi Fellowship.
2009-2014 Developing and Operationalising “Enhanced Direct Access”
The evolution of the ideas behind the concept of “Enhanced Direct Access” (EDA) and the role of ecbi have been documented in the ecbi Brief History of EDA (Dec 2015) which traces the idea back to a number of historic precursors, such as the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) under the Marshall Plan, the World Bank Kecamatan Development Program in Indonesia, and the Brazilian Amazon Fund. It then follows how the idea evolved under the Bali Action Plan, the Transitional Committee for the design of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and finally, the GCF Board, culminating in the establishment of a GCF Enhancing Direct Access pilot at the 8th GCF Board meeting in Barbados (18 October 2014) with the support of GCFB members Dipak Dasgupta (India) and Amb. Jan Cedergren (Sweden) both long-time ecbi supporters.
The updated second edition of the Brief History (July 2021)includes a summary account of EDA programmes that have been implemented under the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund, as well as the French SUNREF (Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Energy Finance) programme, and ends with a forward looking section on ‘performance-based’ EDA.
In December 2024, the ecbi Director attended a Workshop on Enhanced Direct Access (EDA) for Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) organised by Anju Sharma of the Global Center on Adaptation together with the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund in Nairobi Kenya, which has given rise to work on an ecbi Concept Note on Local Enhanced Direct Access (forthcoming)
Celebrating the birth of EDA at the 8th Meeting of the GCF Board October 2014 with Dipak Dasgupta and Jan Cedergren
2014 – 2021 Common Time Frames
Following discussions at the Oxford Seminar (August 2014), the Co-chairs of the Paris Agreement negotiation (ADP) Artur Runge-Metzger and Kishan Kumarsingh (both of whom having attended the 2014 Oxford Seminar) stressed in their Scenario Note (8 Oct. 2014) that “it will be important in the October session, to further clarify and flesh out the operational aspects of the agreement. Key challenges that will need focussed attention in our work include: deepening the understanding on the longer-term cycle of contributions/ commitments, including its periodicity (length) and the functions of the steps proposed, such as any periodical consideration or assessment and review”. A number of 2014 Fellows then published an ecbi Concept Note on “A Dynamic Contribution Cycle: Sequencing contributions in the 2015 PARIS Agreement”(October 2014)
On 6 November 2014, Brazil officially submitted its Views on the Elements of the New Agreement under the Convention applicable to all Parties to the UN climate change negotiations regarding the new agreement which is meant to be agreed on in Paris at the end of 2015. The submission contained a “Dynamic Contribution Cycle” (for more, click here).
The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 left the issue of time-frames open to be negotiated with the Paris Agreement Rulebook. The ecbi continued to provide input in its Seminars and through its publications:
Following a presentation at the September 2022 Oxford Seminar on “Funding Arrangements for Loss and Damage” by Michai Robertson AOSIS Finance Lead Negotiator, the ecbi Director and two of the 2022 Fellows (Amb. Diann Black-Layne, HOD Antigua and Barbuda), Kishan Kumarsingh (HOD Trinidad and Tobago, now Head of the ecbi Fellowship and Trust-building Programme) wrote Elements of a Pilot Loss and Damage Response Fund. This was followed by three OCP/ecbi posts on the topic of L&D response in the same year before the COP:
On 20 November 2022 in Sharm el Sheikh, the COP/CMA decided to establish a “Loss and Damage Response Fund” (for more click here), followed by another post on:
While the need for urgent climate finance remains an inescapable priority for countries like Pakistan the key to unlock this, however, still remains a mystery to policy makers. Most of them acknowledge the urgency of climate vulnerability while lamenting the absence of such climate finance as the main bottleneck impeding climate action. Unfortunately, this approach is intrinsically flawed. Claiming climate victimhood, when everyone is now a victim, does not attract climate finance and the demands for justice in an, otherwise, unjust world continue to remain mere demands without generating any resources.
It is now well established that flow of climate finance follows climate action rather than the other way around. Country policies and strategies are all required facilitators but can never become a substitute for demonstrated action. Pakistan’s Nationally Determined Contributions, submitted to the UN, clearly chart out the required climate action pathway for Pakistan. This is premised on the two pillars of building up its green infrastructure, through forestry and protected areas, and to shift towards low carbon development, through deployment of renewable energy and electric mobility.
In a world where climate talk comes cheap, Pakistan now needs to follow up this stated intent with action if it is to become a stakeholder for attracting a slice of the global climate finance flows. More importantly, it needs to learn some important lessons derived from the global financial architecture, namely
if backed with political commitment, a major part of the requisite climate finance can actually be generated domestically. Almost 85% of total climate finance globally is raised and spent domestically while almost half of this is through private sector mobilization.
moreover, acting with domestic funds enhances the country’s green credentials which then creates the traction to attract, not only global appreciation, but also innovative climate financing.
Pakistan has already followed this path, enhancing its domestic funding for green infrastructure manifold during 2018-2022, and then reaping the benefits to achieve global appreciation as well as attracting green finance such as through a $500 million green bonds flotation. Recently, the IMF has announced $1.3 billion in concessional climate funding through its RST (Resilience and Sustainability Trust) for Pakistan while tying it to the country domestically committing at least 1% of its GDP towards climate action. This momentum now needs to be enhanced by coupling with initiatives, such as the CSA, which aim to facilitate, catalyze and leverage additional funding for climate vulnerable countries, who are willing to move beyond victimhood, and show commitment to action by prioritizing domestic funds as well as sourcing through innovative instruments such as climate solidarity levies.
The CSA: Summary for Policy Makers
How does the Climate Solidarity Alliance (CSA) fit in with this? As explained in the Summary for Policy Makers, the CSA is envisioned as a partnership of national and sub-national actors who are willing to show solidarity with the poorest and most vulnerable to help them deal with climate change . A bottom-up voluntary partnership approach is chosen to enable immediate action and to sidestep the complexities of international agreements. The key characteristics of the proposed CSA are: the establishment of national Climate Solidarity Trust Funds (CSTFs) with Loss and Damage (L&D) windows; the use of domestic CSLs to replenish these trust funds; and the use of a specific Solidarity Bonus Mechanism to show solidarity with the poorest and most vulnerable, both bilaterally (North-South and South-South), as well as through multilateral channels, such as the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). The CSA model could be used as a solidarity tool – the way in which to provide solidarity – for the coalition of countries working together through the Global Solidarity Levies Taskforce.
Climate Solidarity Trust Funds (CSTFs): National CSTFs are central to the CSA proposal, with national partners expected to establish these funds with a L&D window designed to finance responses to loss and damage both domestically and internationally. France’s Solidarity Fund for Development and Fiji’s Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund are examples of existing national funds that could be used for this purpose (for more, click here).
Climate Solidarity Levies (CSLs): CSLs are a cornerstone of the CSA. Inspired by the French solidarity tax on air tickets, these levies are nationally determined, designed to be easily collectable at the national or sub-national level, and used for the CSA. They could, for example, take the form of:
Air ticket charges: A flat-rate charge on air tickets, differentiated by class or destination.
Maritime cargo container charges:A levy on cargo containers processed at ports.
For-hire vehicle charges: A levy per trip for for-hire vehicles entering or leaving major airports.
Cruise ship passenger charges: A charge on cruise ship passengers dis-/embarking at ports.
Solidarity Bonus Mechanism: A solidarity bonus mechanism is proposed to encourage developing countries to voluntarily contribute to the FRLD. Developed country partners would provide pay back and bonus payments directly into the L&D window of developing country partners’ CSTFs for their contributions to the FRLD. This offers a direct solidarity benefit and incentivises participation.
Pakistan and the CSA
The proposed domestically sourced Climate Solidarity Funds are an ideal vehicle not only for demonstrating domestic action to attract climate finance in general, but also for attracting matching philanthropic and private sector grant contributions, which are increasingly difficult to capture through traditional channels. They are not meant to supplant these other channels, but simply to supplement them through an innovative pathway. The proposed Solidarity Bonus Mechanism furthermore enables countries like Pakistan to capitalize domestic finance with international solidarity. For instance, a domestic climate levy, while augmenting internal climate funding would also be able to attract matching funds coming from enabling CSA partners.
In short, the CSA makes perfect sense for countries which are on the frontlines of climate impacts and are willing to prioritize climate action through a commitment of domestic funding streams. The CSA then provides an enabling platform to extrapolate this domestic funding through a win-win-win formulation. A win for the climate vulnerable country which gets additional funds, a win for the partner willing to invest in extrapolating home grown climate action and a win for the multilateral climate funds. This is why we propose that such a Climate Solidarity Alliance is the need of the hour and should be launched as soon as possible – in the context of the Brazilian COP Presidency (for reasons explained here) – particularly to make grant funding available to the poorest and most vulnerable, and to those most committed to climate action, while also establishing the framework within which sub-nationals (such as in the case of the US) and multilateral actors can collaborate for enhancing global climate action.
Bridgetown Postscript
On 9 April, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Motley gave a welcoming address to the participants of the fifth meeting of the Board of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, in which she touched on a number of issues that are pertinent, indeed resonate with the ideas behind the Climate Solidarity Alliance proposal. The first part of this postscript presents relevant transcripts of the Prime Minister’s address. The second part puts these in the context of the proposed Climate Solidarity Alliance.
A. The Prime Minister’s Address
Barbados Prime Minister at the FRLD Board meeting in Bridgetown
“God helps those who help themselves!” Establishing a national trust fund for catastrophes, resilience and regeneration.
“We established a catastrophe Fund, which was intended to be able to help those who are the victims of catastrophe, particularly those earning below a certain sum. [T]he government has changed that now into a resilient and regeneration fund, recognizing […] that if we are going to ask the rest of the world to help us, we have to start first with helping ourselves.”
“We have placed a responsibility on every employee in the country and every self-employed person to contribute half of a percent of their salary, and we have removed any cap that may have been linked to social security contributions, recognizing that if you earn 2000 or 20,000 or 200,000 you must still pay half of a percent and it is because we carry a philosophy, share the burden, share the bounty, because we live all together on a small rock.
[Also] employers must match the contributions of the employees.
[Furthermore] we announced in the last budget, a month ago that Barbados will contribute quarter of a percent of its GDP every year to the resilience and regeneration fund”.
Global Solidarity: Top-down
And then there is “the work that we are doing with France and Kenya, President Macron, President Ruto [under the Global Solidarity Levies Taskforce]. Fabulous, and we’re having others interested more and more, even if it is not immediately applicable or enforceable because of countries trying to block it. [W]e need to be able to see progress on global levies, recognizing that those who contribute to the problem must help solve the problem, and those who stand to benefit egregiously from the solution must equally leave a little something on the table, because that is what sharing the burden and sharing the bounty means in real terms.”
“[S]olidarity on levies matters, and whether it is the oil and gas companies or whether it is what is being debated in London this week at the International Maritime Organization – not of a levy, because we’re unlikely to see a levy land – but we can see a pricing mechanism that incentivizes you or punishes you, depending on the fuel being used, and for those ships that are still using heavy fossil fuels, clearly, the payment per ton of CO2 will be higher than those who have already made the transition to be in green shifts.”
“The International Air Transport Association “IATA meets in India at the beginning of June. We have maintained, even as a tourism state, none of us can get through without having to leave something on the table now to be able to save ourselves or to save the planet. […] Would you pay $5 or $10 to help save the planet every time you’ve travelled [economy class]?”
B. International Solidarity: Bottom-up
As it happens, the IMO did actually adopt a pricing mechanism as predicted by the Prime Minister – indeed what is known as a fuel-intensity based cap-and-trade scheme – with revenue collected by a dedicated IMO Net-Zero Fund. However, as concerns solidarity, this is largely related to the maritime sector, and it stands to reason that the same would be the case if a global air-ticket levy were to be adopted by ICAO.
This is why the proposed Climate Solidarity Alliance is based on the bottom-up partnership-model used in the context of the French solidarity air ticket tax (essentially the same as what the PM described) introduced in 2006, in which countries simply get together and do it. With its domestically sourced Catastrophe, Resilience and Regeneration Fund (CRRF), Barbados has all the prerequisite for becoming a founding CSA member, and subsequently using its Solidairty Bonus Mechanism not only to support the FRLD, but also to multiply the revenue of its own CRRF.
Yvo de Boer (former UNFCCC Executive Secretary) and Benito Müller (Director ecbi)
The UN climate negotiations are recognized as essential in the global fight against climate change, praised for what they have achieved, but at the same time derided for the complexity, enormity and slow pace of progress.
A fundamental problem with the mega-events which the Conference of Parties (COP) sessions have turned into over recent years – for a detailed analysis of this evolution see the recently updated ecbi Report on Future Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings under the UNFCCC – Settled and Fit for Purpose – is that fewer and fewer countries, in particular the poorest and most vulnerable ones, are able to host such mega-events, and hence do not put themselves forward to take on the role of COP-Presidency. This, in turn, deprives them of an important tool to bring their unique perspectives to the debate and guide the agenda towards their immediate and urgent concerns such as loss and damage from adverse impacts of climate change.
The ecbi Report divides the mega-COPs into a ‘Triad’ of events: ‘Negotiations’, ‘Summits’, and ‘Expos’. ‘Negotiations’ in that context refers to the sessions of the governing and subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.
“Family photogtaph” of the COP 28 Summit in Dubai
‘Summits’ are the gatherings of heads of state and government which in the last few years have regularly been added to the COPs.
Expo City, Dubai
The term ‘Expo’, used in deference to the COP28 venue (Expo City, Dubai), finally, refers to the wide range of climate action events in the multilateral “Blue Zone” and the host country “Green Zone”. The latter is the space for non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and civil society to advocate, showcase innovations, and create alliances and collaborations to support implementation. This broadly construed “Expo” of late also includes the ever-increasing number of pavilions (paid for and hosted by countries and others).
The statistical analysis in the ecbi Report has shown that if the Negotiations are removed from the Summits and Expos, their ‘stand-alone’ size is predicted to reduce to below 5000 participants, which could be hosted by any country, large or small.
As regards COP.31, Australia, for example, could offer to take on the COP Presidency in collaboration with the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) member countries, and share out the hosting of the Triad-events between them. This would help to overcome the exclusion problem as all PIF members could host stand-alone Negotiations (while not all might be able to host a Summit or a mega-Expo).
In demonstrating that stand-alone Negotiations would be manageable in size, such a collaborative COP.31 could reassure small and poor countries and encourage them to put themselves forward for future COP Presidencies. Summits and/or Expos, if deemed necessary, could then be hosted regionally, following the proposed COP.31 collaboration model.
At the end of the day, the ideal solution in our mind would still be to hold the COP Negotiations at the UNFCCC Headquarters in Bonn regardless of who has the Presidency, as happened at COP.23 under the Presidency of Fiji (with the remaining “triad” events taking place in other places). But the main thing at this point is to start holding them as stand-alone events.
Climate Solidarity Alliance (CSA, or Alliance) membership, as envisaged in previous posts (see selected literature list below), presupposes the establishment of national Climate Solidarity Trust Funds (Trust Funds) with Loss and Damage (L&D) Windows to fund responding to climate loss and damage domestically as well as internationally, say through the multilateral Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). These national Trust Funds, in turn, are meant to be sourced by domestic Climate Solidarity Levies(CSLs). At the same time they can serve as National Funding Entities for loss and damage, which can receive contributions from multilateral climate funds, bilateral donor agencies, philanthropy, private sector etc.
The Alliance would allow for both national and sub-national members from both developing and developed countries with different functions and responsibilities. The account of these functions and responsibilities provided here is my personal view of how things could be arranged.
As reflected in Fig. 1, national developed country Alliance members — say France, to keep with Fig. 1 — would have two types of financial obligations:
Multilateral obligations i.e. the financial obligations under the multilateral climate treaties, including the provision of funding to the multilateral climate funds, such as the FRLD.
Alliance obligations, the raison d’être of the Alliance (i.e. without them there would be no reason to form an alliance): If eligible developing country members — say LDCs or SIDS like Fiji (Fig.1) — choose to make a voluntary (CSL) contribution to the FRLD, then developed country members, say France, would have an Alliance obligation to pay at least the same amount as a ‘solidarity bonus‘ directly into the L&D Window of their Trust Fund (to be counted as part of France’s international L&D payments). The precise manner in which this would work, in particular who would be eligible for a solidarity bonus, would obviously have to be agreed by the Alliance membership. (For more on the depicted Trust Funds, see Annex below.)
In keeping with the principle of national fiscal sovereignty, countries will choose what share of their CSL(s) they want to send to the FRLD. However, in order to address the issue of distributive justice — everyone doing ‘their fair share’ under the obligations — it would make sense if the developed country members would settle on a particular percentage to be used for each type of CSL (be it an air-ticket levy, a container cargo charge, or whatever else).
Figure 1. The role of national developed country Alliance members
Sub-National
A recent ecbi Discussion Note explores the potential for implementing CSLs at the sub-national level in two major US cities: New York and Los Angeles. This idea has become very topical as explained in an OCP post by Michael Franczak (of the New York based International Peace Institute), entitled: How US Cities and States can lead on climate action under a second Trump Administration. Sub-national entities do not have multilateral obligations, but by joining the Alliance, they would be expected to supply solidarity bonus payments to the (eligible) developing country members, as indicated in Fig. 2.
Figure 2. The role of sub-national Alliance members (from developed countries)
Developing Country Members
Developing country members do not have an obligation to contribute to the FRLD, nor would they be obliged to contribute to the solidarity bonus scheme, but they could do so as voluntary South-South solidarity payments, as suggested in Fig. 3.
Figure 3. The role of national Alliance members(from developing countries)
On 1 July 2006, France started to collect a solidarity tax on airplane tickets (taxe de solidarité sur les billets d’avion) as a way to help finance the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in severely affected countries.
The tax was initially proposed by Presidents Jacques Chirac of France and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in Paris in September 2005. It was taken up as an innovative funding source for UNITAID (a drug-purchasing organization created by Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom and hosted by the World Health Organization) by the Leading Group on innovative financing for development created in 2006 as an informal network of states, IGOs, NGOs, and other stakeholders “dedicated to the eradication of poverty and the preservation of global public goods (health, education, food security, agricultural development, environment, climate, biodiversity, etc.).”[1]
The level of the French solidarity tax is differentiated by destination (inside or outside the EEA+CH) and travel class (economy or other) and has evolved as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Evolution of charges under the French solidarity tax
The levy is collected by the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation which transfers it not to the general budget, but to a dedicated ‘Solidarity Fund for Development’ managed by the French Development Agency. In 2023 the French tax raised around EUR 370 million, EUR 210m of which channelled towards UNITAID. According to the French government, “no impact has been observed on French air traffic or on tourism following the establishment of the airline-ticket levy.”[2]
Fiji
In 2019 Fiji introduced a national Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund as financing mechanism for its National Planned Relocation Arrangements, as recently described in a submission to the L&D Transitional Committee (TCS). The Trust Fund allows for funding from an array of domestic, private, international, and bilateral sources.
The Trust Fund has been established to operate as a multi-donor trust fund. Funding accrued through different domestic and international sources, mechanisms, facilities, and donors will be pooled and used in the aggregate for the support of planned relocation activities defined by the Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund Act (2019), and the Climate Change Act (2021). The Fund has been designed to leverage financing from a range of different domestic revenue-raising mechanisms such as levies, or taxes.
One of these domestic sources is the Fiji Environment & Climate Adaptation Levy (ECAL), which charges 5% on the gross annual turnover of a number of prescribed services (listed in Table 3). While the Fiji government will contribute 3% of the ECAL revenue, i.e. approx USD 3.6m,[3] to the Fund, “additional international and bilateral contributions are now required to take the initiative to scale.”[TCS, p.9]
Clearly the Fiji Fund satisfies all the hallmarks of a national L&DF and the ECAL contribution could very naturally be extended with an air ticket Climate Solidarity Levy providing direct additional domestic, and as part of a CSA leveraging international funding for loss and damage in Fiji. For example, a (modest) CSL levy of USD 5 per air passenger would currently raise around USD 6.5m[4] which, when contributed to the multilateral LAFD in the context of a CSA, would yield USD 13m annually (assuming a 2-fold solidarity multiplier).
Election results from the US and Germany cast a long shadow over last month’s climate talks (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan. While governments reached agreement on a new global goal for climate finance, it remains far short of developing countries’ needs—nor is its fulfillment guaranteed, particularly in face of the announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement by the incoming Trump Administration.
A growing movement is pushing for new taxes and levies to grow the pot. Also in Baku, the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, co-chaired by France, Kenya, and Barbados, presented its initial recommendations for voluntary national levies on financial transactions, shipping and aviation, and extreme wealth. Drawing on the successful example of Unitaid, which is partly funded by France’s small national air ticket solidarity tax, the Task Force is considering similar mechanisms to fill gaps in climate finance.
It is unlikely that the incoming Trump administration will embrace these efforts. American cities and states are no stranger to this scenario. When President Trump announced the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement in 2017,1 during his first term, many sub-national actors—States, cities, communities—announced “We are still in!”. Yet, as was already recognised at the time, when “in” the Paris Agreement, one cannot ignore its finance provisions. In this case, American states and cities have the capacity to make substantial contributions to global climate finance in the form of local Climate Solidarity Levies (CSLs). These small fees, applied to carbon-emitting activities, could help fund loss and damage response efforts in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, particularly through the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
Implementing such measures will not be easy or straightforward. Local laws and varying political interests complicate the process, making it clear that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. Additionally, taxes are never popular, especially not excise taxes amid lingering inflation. What we need are legal and political roadmaps for how these measures might be implemented by American cities and states.
A recent Discussion Note from Oxford Climate Policy and the International Peace Institute offers potential legal pathways for CSLs on aviation and shipping in New York-New Jersey and Los Angeles. The proposed levies would generate revenue through modest, targeted charges on high-traffic activities at these major ports and airports, with the funds earmarked for loss and damage support in climate-vulnerable countries. While no direct precedent exists for a levy of this nature that earmarks funds for international purposes, similar domestic initiatives suggest that this model may be politically viable, provided there is adequate support from governors, city officials, and voters.
The paper proposes three types of CSLs targeting key transport hubs in New York and Los Angeles, each designed to align with existing practices while generating substantial revenue. The first is a $5 levy per trip for for-hire vehicles (FHVs) entering or leaving major airports such as JFK, LAX, and Newark. This builds on a familiar precedent, as many airports worldwide already impose fees on FHVs (like Lyft and Uber) to manage traffic and mitigate environmental impacts. Notably, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has existing fees for FHVs, demonstrating the practical viability of implementing such a levy.
The second proposed levy is a $10 charge on cruise ship passengers embarking or disembarking at ports like Manhattan or Long Beach. Similar Maritime Passenger Charges are already in use to address environmental and social pressures from tourism, particularly cruise traffic. Charging passengers directly aligns with these established practices. The third levy is a $10 fee per Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) of container cargo processed at major ports. Container fees are common tools for funding infrastructure and environmental programs; for example, the Clean Truck Fee at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach demonstrates how targeted charges can support sustainability objectives.
If implemented, these three levies could collectively raise approximately $458 million annually, providing critical funds for global climate finance. However, success will depend on overcoming political and logistical challenges. State-level cooperation is essential, with governors of New York and California leveraging their reputations as climate leaders. Municipal leaders and port authorities must also align on the value of contributing to global climate justice. Perhaps most importantly, public support will hinge on transparent communication of the levies’ modest costs and transformative potential to address climate impacts worldwide.
CSLs offer a promising pathway for U.S. port authorities to contribute to global climate finance. While their implementation would require navigating legal, political, and public opinion hurdles, the proposed model demonstrates a significant opportunity to mobilize much-needed resources for vulnerable countries. By drawing on existing precedents and leveraging strong state-level climate leadership, CSLs could set a transformative example of solidarity in climate action.
The potential revenue of nearly half a billion dollars annually underscores the importance of exploring this innovative financing mechanism. Could New York and Los Angeles lead the way?
The Climate Solidarity Alliance (CSA) proposal has been elaborated in a number of OCB/ecbi posts (see list of Background Material below). In a nutshell it proposes an alliance of (national and sub-national) actors that are able and willing to introduce a Climate Solidarity Levy (CSL) earmarked as an innovative source of funding for responding to loss and damage from adverse climate impacts, in particular through the new multilateral Loss & Damage Fund (L&DF).
The proposal envisages a number of possible CSL, collected at the national or sub-national level. Their key characteristics are being: (i) easily collectable and (ii) earmarked for loss and damage. The paradigm example is an air ticket charge, akin to the French solidarity tax on airplane tickets of 2006 (see below). It is envisaged that the CSLs be used both domestically and to contribute to the L&DF, according to distribution formula (to be agreed between the CSA members) which could set limits on domestic use and introduce an L&DF solidarity pay-back multiplier for certain contributors, as suggested in Table 1: The developed country members would reward any L&DF contribution by a developing country member with a differentiated multiple direct payback to the domestic Climate Solidarity Fund of the developing country member in question. For example (following the differentiation proposed in Table 1) if Fiji were to contribute USD 100 to the L&DF from its CSL revenue, then the developing country members of the CSA would apply a 2-fold solidarity multiplier and contribute USD 200 to the Fiji L&DF from their CSL revenue as ‘solidarity pay-back’. One of the advantages in this scheme is that countries with domestic Climate Solidarity Funds can receive innovative contributions from a variety of sources, including international ones, for responding to domestic L&D.
Table 1. Possible differentiated participation parameters
CSA Background Material
Climate Solidarity Levies Manifesto (21 April 2023) Given the urgency to provide financial support to the poorest and most vulnerable countries to respond to loss and damage from climate change and given the current global economic and fiscal situation, it is difficult to see how the new Loss & Damage Response Fund could get adequately capitalized without diverting funds from other existing multilateral climate funds. This is why Climate Solidarity Levies should be used as a proven way to mobilize new, additional and predictable innovative resources so as to avoid fund diversions from other climate funds. We call on governments to give Climate Solidarity Levies for the Loss and Damage Response Fund due consideration.
Call for an International Climate Solidarity Alliance (16 August 2023) A call on Kenyan President Ruto and French President Macron, as proponents of CSLs announce, to launch an International Climate Solidarity Alliance of countries willing to adopt an International Climate Solidarity Levy, initially focussed on air-ticket levies.
COP28: Call for a Climate Solidarity Alliance (15 December 2023) This post argues calls for a Climate Solidarity Alliance (CSA) as a group of national and sub-national stakeholders who are able and willing to introduce a CSL in their jurisdiction. This is what we need! And when do we need it? NOW! With a possible launch of the CSA at the “finance COP” in 2024.
National Examples
France
On 1 July 2006, France started to collect a solidarity tax on airplane tickets (taxe de solidarité sur les billets d’avion) as a way to help finance the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in severely affected countries.
The tax was initially proposed by Presidents Jacques Chirac of France and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in Paris in September 2005. It was taken up as an innovative funding source for UNITAID (a drug-purchasing organization created by Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom and hosted by the World Health Organization) by the Leading Group on innovative financing for development created in 2006 as an informal network of states, IGOs, NGOs, and other stakeholders “dedicated to the eradication of poverty and the preservation of global public goods (health, education, food security, agricultural development, environment, climate, biodiversity, etc.).”[1]
The level of the French solidarity tax is differentiated by destination (inside or outside the EEA+CH) and travel class (economy or other) and has evolved as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Evolution of charges under the French solidarity tax
The levy is collected by the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation which transfers it not to the general budget, but to a dedicated ‘Solidarity Fund for Development’ managed by the French Development Agency. In 2023 the French tax raised around EUR 370 million, EUR 210m of which channelled towards UNITAID. According to the French government, “no impact has been observed on French air traffic or on tourism following the establishment of the airline-ticket levy.”[2]
Fiji
In 2019 Fiji introduced a national Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund as financing mechanism for its National Planned Relocation Arrangements, as recently described in a submission to the L&D Transitional Committee (TCS). The Trust Fund allows for funding from an array of domestic, private, international, and bilateral sources.
The Trust Fund has been established to operate as a multi-donor trust fund. Funding accrued through different domestic and international sources, mechanisms, facilities, and donors will be pooled and used in the aggregate for the support of planned relocation activities defined by the Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund Act (2019), and the Climate Change Act (2021). The Fund has been designed to leverage financing from a range of different domestic revenue-raising mechanisms such as levies, or taxes.
One of these domestic sources is the Fiji Environment & Climate Adaptation Levy (ECAL), which charges 5% on the gross annual turnover of a number of prescribed services (listed in Table 3). While the Fiji government will contribute 3% of the ECAL revenue, i.e. approx USD 3.6m,[3] to the Fund, “additional international and bilateral contributions are now required to take the initiative to scale.”[TCS, p.9]
Clearly the Fiji Fund satisfies all the hallmarks of a national L&DF and the ECAL contribution could very naturally be extended with an air ticket Climate Solidarity Levy providing direct additional domestic, and as part of a CSA leveraging international funding for loss and damage in Fiji. For example, a (modest) CSL levy of USD 5 per air passenger would currently raise around USD 6.5m[4] which, when contributed to the multilateral LAFD in the context of a CSA, would yield USD 13m annually (assuming a 2-fold solidarity multiplier).
Next Steps
Presidents Lula (Brazil) and Macron (France)
Our approach to establishing a CSA is to complement and indeed collaborate with other initiatives looking into potential innovative global sources (taxes/levies) such as the Global Solidarity Levies Taskforce, launched at COP 28 and co-chaired by Barbados, France and Kenya, by acting now, voluntarily, without the need of a multilateral agreement.
This could be done by the original solidarity tax proponents, France and Brazil, together with likeminded (Taskforce) countries to launch the CSA at the high-level UN General Assembly meeting during the New York Climate Week, or at COP 30 in Belem, under the Brazilian COP Presidency as a concrete flagship outcome in the tenth anniversary year of the Paris Agreement!
[2] Leading Group 2012 , Information sheet on the airline-ticket levy, p.3. Currently nine countries implemented this tax: Cameroon, Chile, Congo, France, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger and the Republic of Korea.
It is three decades since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change came into force in March 1994. Having witnessed most of the subsequent annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs), the recent Dubai COP28 was a reason for both concern and delight.
To see over 80,000 participants in the UN “Blue Zone” (with many more in the adjacent host-country “Green Zone”) and 150 heads of state (see ‘family photo’) at the largest climate event ever held did, on the one hand, lead us to the concern whether this sort of scale was not ultimately detrimental to the objective of a COP. On the other, it was a delight to witness the enthusiasm, and the global and diverse involvement of so many stakeholders from civil society, business, youth, indigenous peoples, philanthropy, and international organizations. Yet, overall we couldn’t help asking ourselves whether this may be time to take a step back and examine how best to maximize the benefit from this enthusiasm without creating detrimental side-effects.
Formally, “COP” refers to the negotiation sessions of the governing bodies of the multilateral climate treaties. However, it now refers, at least informally, not just to the negotiations, but to a whole package of co-located diverse events and activities, among them:
[A] “Negotiations”: We use this term here to refer to sessions of the three governing bodies established by the three treaties: the Conference of the Parties (COP) which is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention, the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), and the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA), as well as their Subsidiary Bodies.
[B] “Summits”: Meetings of heads of state and government, which originally took place only to celebrate “treaty COPs” (Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Paris), but which since 2021(Glasgow COP 26) have been taking place annually.
[C] “Climate Expos”: This is our term for the wide range of climate action events in the multilateral “Blue Zone” and the host country “Green Zone”. The latter is the space for non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and civil society to advocate, showcase innovations, and create alliances and collaborations to support implementation. This broadly construed “Expo” of late also includes the ever-increasing number of Pavilions (paid for and hosted by Parties and others).
According to the Final List of Participants, the total number of Blue Zone participants at COP28 was 83,884 of which 20,204 were (Party) negotiators. Non-governmental observer organizations, whose number is capped, fielded 13,278 participants, while media outlets sent 2,673. However, these three categories (depicted in Fig. 1) made up less than half of the Blue Zone badges issued. The rest (see Fig. 2) consisted of international Agencies (2469), technical and support staff (19,370), and the largest contingent: overflow badges (24,890, 96% of which Party Overflow) allowing access to the Blue Zone but not necessarily the negotiations.
Figure 2: Total final (in person) participant numbers COP 28
What are the driver behind the extraordinary growth depicted in Fig. 1? As demonstrated in a 2021 ecbi Policy Report, COPs have not been growing because of the negotiation agenda which has been growing roughly at the same pace in both mid-year SBs and subsequent COPs. The SBs can actually be regarded as the benchmark for negotiations in the absence of the exogenous factors driving the (negotiator) numbers of the COPs which have over time decoupled from those of the preceding mid-year Subsidiary Bodies (SB) sessions: COP 4 (1998) saw 3 times, and COP 23 (2017) 5 times the preceding SB negotiator attendance. This already large multiplier has since further increased, with COP 28 seeing more than 10 times the number of negotiators relative to SB 58 in June 2023.
We are currently updating our 2021 Report and will be analysing, inter alia, the reasons for this growth decoupling. The 2021 Report identified the following drivers:
Summit nature of event (both directly through support staff, and likely also indirectly through officials from that country not wanting to be absent in the presence of their leader/minister).
Growth tends to be driven by a few very large delegations, not due to every delegation growing at the same rate.
Presence of officials from many different ministries/units of government. Different ministries/units tend to send several officials when they participate, so any additional ministry being part of the delegation tends to add another team rather than single key individuals and these tend to remain in the delegations in subsequent years.
We argued that the beginning of a new phase in global negotiations on climate change, now focused on the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, would have a major impact on the role and functioning of the various components of the COPs listed above ([A], [B], [C]). The solution, the Report suggested, is to decentralize the various components. This decentralization involves, in particular, the following disaggregation of the above-mentioned current ‘COP elements’:
Negotiations: to be held (purely as sessions of the relevant bodies) in Bonn at the World Conference Center (where the capacity is 5,000 participants), following the model of the mid-year session of the Subsidiary Bodies.
Global Climate Action Weeks (“Climate Expos”) to take place in the Region holding the rotating COP Presidency (but not necessarily in the country of the Presidency). Regional Climate Weeks to be held as usual in the other regions.
Climate Summits, to be held (if possible only in special years when political leadership is required) in the COP Presidency region or Geneva (UN HQ).
We believe such a decentralized format can be more targeted to the functions of each of the three components of the regime identified above. But more of this in our updated ecbi Policy Brief (forthcoming December 2024).
At the beginning, there was the 1991AOSIS proposal for an Insurance Mechanism, submitted by Vanuatu to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The mechanism included an International Insurance Pool to provide financial insurance “to compensate the most vulnerable small island and low-lying coastal developing countries for loss and damage resulting from sea level rise.”[para 1.5] The pool was meant to be funded by “industrialised developed countries” according to a formula involving GNP and country emission figures “modelled on the 1963 Brussels Supplementary Convention on Third Party Liability in the field of Nuclear Energy”[para. 4] The AOSIS mechanism was not included in the UNFCCC, not least because of the its explicit reference to ‘compensation’ and ‘liability’.[2]
The first time L&D made it into a COP decision was sixteen years later in the 2007Bali Action Plan (1/CP.13), where reference was made to “consideration of … means to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change”.[para 1.c.iii] The idea of an “international mechanism to address the unavoidable loss and damage” resurfaced in a submission by the African Group of Negotiators in 2009 (COP 15, Copenhagen) but it was not until 2010 (COP 16 Cancun) that the COP decided to do something on L&D, namely to establish “a work programme in order to consider … approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries …”[para. 26, The Cancun Agreements (1/CP.16)]
Two years later, the 2012Doha Decision 3/CP.18 was the first COP decision dedicated to addressing loss and damage. In it, it was decided (para. 9) to establish in 2013 “institutional arrangements, such as an international mechanism, … to address loss and damage associated with the impacts of climate change in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change”. This duly happened at COP19 with the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM).
In Paris (COP 21, 2015) the negotiating text initially contained “an option from developing countries that included liability and compensation, and another from the Umbrella Group – including the US – that deletes all mentions of the topic altogether.”[CB Timeline] In the end L&D received a dedicated article (Art. 8) in the Paris Agreement focussing on the governance and the activities of the WIM.
L&D got its stand-alone article, yet its formulation was somewhat retrograde: While the WIM is solely about “addressing” L&D,[3] Art. 8 recognizes “the importance of averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change”[emphasis added] thus referring implicitly also to mitigation (averting) and adaptation (minimizing). Moreover, in the Paris cover decision (1/CP.21 Adoption of the Paris Agreement) the COP “agrees that Article 8 of the Agreement does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation”[para. 51] demonstrating that the spectre of liability was was perceived by some, particularly the US, as a live and active problem.
The conceptual triad (‘averting’, ‘minimizing’ and ‘addressing’) dominated the L&D narrative for many yars to come. An OCP/ecbi blog post in October 2022 (The time is ripe … for serious discussions on finance to address and indeed respond to L&D through a dedicated pilot fund) on the eve of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh provides a summary of this and proposes that the Paris-triad be replaced by the notion of ‘responding’ to L&D, to be implemented through a Pilot Loss and Damage Response Fund, the elements of which were elaborated in a separate OCP/ecbi blog post, which illustrated the relevant ‘response’ concept and its components relevant for the fund as follows:
Figure 1. The role of the Response Fund in the L&D Management Toolkit
As reported in the subsequent OCP/ecbi blog post the COP at its 28th Session (Sharm El Sheikh, 2022), acknowledged the “urgent and immediate need” for financial resources to assist particularly vulnerable developing countries “in responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change … in the context of ongoing and ex post (including rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction) action”[4], and decided to “establish a fund for responding to loss and damage whose mandate includes a focus on addressing loss and damage”[5]
This Fund, as mentioned above, was operationalised by the headline decision taken on the opening day of COP 28 in Dubai (2023). It is noteworthy that the Paris concept-triad was superseded by simple references to ‘responding to L&D’[6] and yet the spectre of liability was still present, as witnessed in the CarbonBrief Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Dubai:
“The board will also be tasked with giving the fund a name. This came as the US – which for decades resisted the entire concept of “loss and damage” – pushed back against references to a “loss and damage fund”. Instead, US climate envoy John Kerry repeatedly referred to the “climate impact response” fund. The US State Department declined to comment on the reasoning behind this to Carbon Brief.”
Given the long-term problem of US governments with the “loss and damage” narrative due to the spectre of liability outlined above, it is not difficult to guess what the reasons for this is. And given that it was most likely that very same issue which prevented progress on the issue of responding to adverse climate impacts over the past twenty years, it might be not unreasonable to try out the climate impact response narrative, if only to remove the liability spectre as a reason for not participating meaningfully, which cannot be said of the US pledge in the initial pledging round in Dubai (see UNFCCC pledge tracker and Fig. 2): The US pledged USD 17.5million! Of the 15 country pledges, 9 were larger than that in absolute terms, two of them (Italy and France) almost 7 times more. The picture becomes even clearer if we look at relative measures, such as the pledges as share of GDP: all but one country made a pledge double digit larger than the US, indeed, the UEA pledge relative to its GDP is a staggering 287 times larger than that of the US.
Anything to enable the US to participate meaningfully must be worth trying. If not “Climate Impact Response Fund” then maybe “Climate Impact Recovery, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation (CIR3) Fund”? The fact is, a name can be a sign of something to come, an omen. What we need to avoid is that it is regarded as a bad omen, if we want to avoid what happened over the last thirty years!
Last but not least, I was told that the Fund will indeed need to be given a proper name (not just ‘Fund’) if it is to obtain legal personality as was decided in para. 15 of the Dubai Decision. So the Board of the Fund will have to face this issue, sooner rather than later.
[2] All that remained was a reference to ‘insurance’ in Art. 8.]
[3] The COP “1. Establishes the Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage, […], to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change,”[Decision 2/CP.19, 2013]
Activists participate in a demonstration for loss and damage at the COP28 UN Climate Summit, Monday, 4 December 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
1. The World Climate Action Summit:
Launching the International Taxation Taskforce
As announced in a press release of the Élysée Palace, “Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, France, Kenya, and Spain jointly launched a new taskforce on international taxation, with the support of the European Climate Foundation” on 1 December 2023 during the World Climate Action Summit that preceded the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Taskforce members “reaffirmed the urgent need to mobilize new, additional, predictable, and adequate financial resources – in addition to current commitments – to support developing and vulnerable countries’ transition to a low carbon and nature positive economy, while addressing the adverse effects of climate change, including loss and damages [and] the need to consider all options available in a spirit of international solidarity and equity.”
The Taskforce emerged from discussions on the possibility of developing new taxation instruments that took place during the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in Paris in June 2023, and from the Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change, the outcome of the Africa Climate Summit (ACS, Sept 2023), which urges consideration of a global carbon taxation regime.
Building on this momentum, “Kenya and France proposed the establishment of a taskforce to examine possible new revenue streams to unlock additional financial resources to tackle the joint development, nature and climate agenda, notably through innovative taxation mechanisms.” The Taskforce “brings together a coalition of countries committed to the progress on international taxation for sustainable development and climate action, with the aim to identify the most promising avenues and formulate concrete proposals at COP30, to be implemented by the relevant decision-making institutions and frameworks.”
As confirmed by Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, France’s Minister of State for Development, the idea is for the Taskforce to identify international taxes to “be negotiated in relevant international institutions, like the OECD, the UN, or the G20.”[1] It would be excellent if such international levies for loss and damage could be negotiated. However, for reasons I explained in an earlier OCP/ecbi post (Call for an International Climate Solidarity Alliance), I am not convinced that this could be done, at least not in a reasonable amount of time. This is why in that post I called for the formation of an International Climate Solidarity Alliance (ICSA) between national governments willing to set up domestic Climate Solidarity Levies (CSL) as innovative sources for loss and damage, both at home and for the new Loss and Damage Fund (L&DF) formally established on the first day of COP28.
In my presentation, I described the key features of such CSLs as:
Collection (‘off-budget’) in a dedicated Fund at the national level to be used for in-country L&D expenditures and as contributions to the L&DF; and
Simplicity of collection, such as through (differentiated) flat-rate air ticket or cargo container charges.
I also highlighted the possibility of restricting domestic use of the revenue from CSLs, and an L&DF contribution payback for developing countries, to incentivise their participation (for example, the Alliance would pay them back a multiple of what they contribute to the L&DF).
What about the Taskforce?
The presentation concluded by looking at the the present revenue potential of Taskforce members if they were to collect an €/$ 5 (undifferentiated) solidarity L&D air ticket charge, comparing it (where applicable) to the L&DF pledges that were made at COP28.
The €/$ 5 per ticket charge was chosen purely for illustrative purposes. It corresponds to the average undifferentiated charge that would generate the €160 million currently actually collected by the existing French Solidarity Levy for HIV/AIDS (UNITAID), which, nota bene, has had no effect on passenger numbers (so no threat to tourism dependent economies).
The reason for singling out Taskforce members in this manner was simply to call on them not only to discuss the feasibility of global tax instruments over the next couple of years, but to do something now! That is, they should implement an air-ticket levy to help address their own L&D needs, as well as to help others by providing regular and predictable contributions to the L&DF now. Generating a global solution in a bottom-up, step-by-step manner is not always possible, but when possible, we should at least try (the chances of success are at least as good as getting a global top-down agreement). What is needed now is a ‘leading group’ of countries who not just talk-the-talk, but walk-the-walk, and Taskforce members are ideally placed to do precisely that – in parallel to their global deliberations.
3. The Final Call
Personally, the best thing about the side event was chatting with Stephen Hammer, who had just become founding CEO of the New York Climate Exchange (NYCE). When complaining about being told that a national application of a CSL in the US would be very difficult as Congress would have to be pass it, he suggested directly approaching some of the relevant authorities, such as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ).
Having myself ‘gone sub-national’ in my quest for innovative sources of funding for climate change before (see Box 1), I was delighted by the suggestion and am more than happy to follow up and collaborate with him and the NYCE on the idea!
Box 1. Some past ideas on sub-national sources for multilateral climate funds
As it happens, the figure of $5 used above for illustrative purposes fits in very well with the charges already collected at NY/NJ airports. Thus, for my last economy class trip to New York, I paid around the same for using the immigration and customs services at JFK airport (see my airline ticket receipt below).
So, the scale of the proposed solidarity charge should not be an issue. What could one expect to raise?
Stephen told me that the PANYNJ last year handled around 113 million passengers (La Guardia 29m, JFK 55m, Newark 29m) [2], which means $5 passenger climate solidarity charge would have generated $565 million, a sum which, when augmented by a $10 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) cargo container charge would have reached $639 million,[3] just under the combined total of country pledges to the L&DF to date. It therefore makes eminent sense to pursue such sub-national Alliance members and thus drop the ‘international’ from the name and simply call for a Climate Solidarity Alliance (CSA) as a group of national and sub-national stakeholders who are able and willing to introduce a CSL in their jurisdiction. This is what we need! And when do we need it? NOW! With a possible launch of the CSA at the “finance COP” in 2024.[4]
