Kathmandu, Apr. 12: An agreement has been reached between the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN) and Pioneer Law Associates (PLA) for a policy study on green taxonomy specifically for hydropower projects. IPPAN President Ganesh Karki and PLA Director Anupraj Upreti signed a Memorandum of Understating for studying green taxonomy and climate financing in Kathmandu on Friday. He…

UN Climate Negotiations in Baku: A New Financial Agreement for Developing Nations Negotiators at this year’s United Nations climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, seemed poised to announce a significant agreement early on Sunday. This deal aims to significantly enhance financial support for developing nations, tripling the flow of funds intended to help these countries transition to cleaner…

Urgent Call for Progress in Climate Financing Negotiations Governments must act swiftly to resolve the straightforward points of contention and pave the way for a conclusive agreement on financing the energy transition for developing nations, urged Simon Stiell, the head of the UN body that supervises global climate negotiations. During the opening plenary session of the second week of COP29,…

Excerpt from this story from Mother Jones:

The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2 percent tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise about $313 billion a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality, and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested.

In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and Spain say a 2 percent tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year’s extreme weather events.

“It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods,” the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece. “One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education, and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare.”

Brazil chairs the G20 group of leading developed and developing countries and put a billionaire tax on the agenda at a meeting of finance ministers earlier this year.

The French economist Gabriel Zucman is now fleshing out the technical details of a plan that will again be discussed by the G20 in June. France has indicated support for a wealth tax and Brazil has been encouraged that the US, while not backing a global wealth tax, did not oppose it.

Zucman said: “Billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of any social group. Having people with the highest ability to pay tax paying the least—I don’t think anybody supports that.”

Research from Oxfam published this year found that the boom in asset prices during and after the Covid pandemic meant billionaires were $3.3 trillion—or 34 percent—wealthier at the end of 2023 than they were in 2020. Meanwhile, a study from the World Bank showed that the pandemic had brought poverty reduction to a halt.

The opinion piece, signed by ministers from two of the largest European economies—Germany and Spain—and two of the largest emerging economies—Brazil and South Africa—claims a levy on the super-rich is a necessary third pillar to complement the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and the introduction earlier this year of a minimum corporate tax of 15 percent for multinationals.

“The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2 percent of the wealth of the super-rich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. Those, however, who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good,” the ministers say.

How the EBRD helps partners overcome barriers to climate financing: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is one of the world’s largest multilateral development banks and the organization leading the energy pillar of Egypt’s Nexus on Water, Food and Energy (NWFE) initiative. Its climate-focused regional investment includes agribusiness in Tunisia, Egypt’s Benban solar park,…

Over the past decade, rich nations and private enterprises have raised at least $500 billion to help developing countries cope with climate change. This financing plan, hatched in 2009, was supposed to build to an annual mobilization of $100 billion by 2020, and was designed to offset the unfairness of climate change—of poor countries suffering because rich countries had already emitted their way to wealth.

Developed countries, as we’re finding out now, have missed that $100 billion target. Just as importantly, though, it turns out that no one—no individual, no government, no multilateral agency—knows precisely how all this climate funding is being spent, or even if it’s being spent at all. Even the best such database, maintained by OECD, is a broad-brush one and has many gaps—not least in the details of private financing. The very term “climate financing,” in fact, has often proved to be slippery and malleable, defined by parties according to their own need or convenience.

At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, scheduled to end on Nov. 12, ever-bigger climate financing numbers are being proposed: $130 trillion from a private sector consortium, an annual $1 trillion demanded by India, an annual $1.3 trillion demanded by African nations. But without a way to track how this money is used, these larger numbers “feel like greenwashing,” said Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, a policy think tank headquartered in Berlin. “It isn’t just, ‘Tell me the number,’ it should also be, ‘Show me how the number is computed,’ otherwise it’s a fig leaf.”

‘Climate Financing Continues To Be An Area Of

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that climate financing continues to be an area of worry Washington: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in Washington that climate financing continues to be an area of worry as she flagged concerns over funding mechanism and technology transfer. It is unclear how the USD 100 billion per year commitment given in the wake of COP21 has been…