This commentary is based on a joint analysis by Smita Nakhooda (ODI), and Taryn Fransen of the World Resources Institute (WRI), reflecting on the Fast Start Finance experience on the occasion of the 38th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, as well as the second part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, taking place from Jun. 3-14, 2013, in Bonn, Germany.

Smita Nakhooda, a research fellow with the climate and environment programme of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), writes that although developed countries have on paper donated billions of dollars to Fast Start Finance (FSF), conflicting ways of counting have resulted in major differences between the scale and objectives of their contributions. Countries like the U.S. and Japan, for example, count their pledges under old financial commitments as part of their “new” handouts, while Norway remains the only country to have allocated 0.7 percent of its GNI to official development assistance. These discrepancies reinforce the importance of scaling up finance in order to meet the ever more urgent challenges of climate change.