During the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, the donor governments promised to make an annual $ 100 billion available to developing countries and emerging markets for adapting to global warming and mitigating this devastating trend. The global south wants the money to be disbursed on top of official development assistance (ODA), but the global north has not committed to doing so. Indeed, the rich nations stressed that climate action cannot rely only on government funding, so they want to mobilise private capital as well. What needs to be done in terms of mitigation and adaptation is a hot topic of debate. And that is equally true of how climate finance is to be handled, and to what extent the lessons of development cooperation will be heeded.
