In recent years, leaders in climate-vulnerable countries have reinforced the call for urgent climate action: earlier this year through the Bridgetown Initiative 3.0 and the Vulnerable 20 (V20) Ministerial Dialogue XII Communiqué; in 2023 at the Africa Climate Summit with the Nairobi Declaration, and with APEC’s Golden Gate Declaration; and in 2022 through the adoption of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent at the Pacific Islands Forum, notwithstanding other initiatives such as the Archipelagic and Island States Forum (AIS).
Currently, however, a divergence remains between developed and developing countries in setting a “new collective quantified goal for climate finance” (NCQG) to replace the existing goal of $100 billion per year, which was fulfilled by developed countries a decade late.
Obtaining climate finance, both domestically and externally, is challenging, particularly for developing countries. They often face difficulty combining local knowledge with appropriate technologies and have limited implementation capabilities. Securing external financing can create debt sustainability problems for governments in small and vulnerable countries.
This Call for Papers on Climate Finance and Solutions aims to address these and other problems in scaling up climate financing and strategies that apply innovative policies and promising technologies (including business models and market designs) as solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation, particularly for developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
Submitted papers on these important climate themes could provide valuable inputs for policy proposals that would help individual developing countries, and their cooperation within and between regions vulnerable to the climate crisis. This Call for Papers also aims to strengthen regional and global cooperation among researchers at universities, think tanks, development banks, central banks, monetary authorities, governments, NGOs, and international organizations, which will enhance their collective capacity for evidence-based policy recommendations.
Topics for this Call for Papers are classified into two themes:
Theme 1: Climate Finance
This theme includes both domestic resource mobilization and external financing, from private and public sources. External financing from public sources may be concessional or non-concessional and from bilateral or multilateral organizations. Submitted papers are expected to deal with at least one of these categories or their sub-categories of climate finance in or for developing countries. Papers can be on a sub-category that is currently playing a small role, such as voluntary carbon credits, if it is clarified why it deserves additional focus.
Submitted papers may also assess an ongoing reform of a financial system, check the validity of assumptions underlying an ongoing debate, discuss consistency or inconsistency between reforms, identify a systemic defect, or propose potential improvements in climate finance. For example, attempts may be made to assess the estimated capacities of developing country governments to raise tax revenues, or capacities of multilateral development banks’ (MDBs) financing to mobilize and catalyze private capital, highlighted in recent climate finance debates, and addressed by Benitez et al. (2023), Myoda et al. (2023), and the G20 India Independent Expert Group. Papers could also evaluate the assumptions on the multiplier effects of green spending made by Batini et al. (2022), and Kharas and Rivard (2022), among others.
As developing countries take on substantial additional borrowing, the risk of escalated debt problems will emerge. Zucker-Marques, Gallagher, and Volz (2024) argue that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should consider the necessary spending on climate action and sustainable development, as discussed by the G20 Independent Expert Group (IEG) in their Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA). The authors also propose prioritizing debt relief. Papers that present evidence supporting or refuting these arguments are welcomed.
The papers submitted under this theme need to discuss climate finance in or in relations with developing countries. Papers can address sustainable development finance and climate finance together as both dimensions are inseparable.
Submissions on Climate Finance may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- Adaptation finance gap
- Nurturing voluntary carbon credit markets
- Impacts of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on emerging markets and developing economies (EDMEs)
- Disaster-triggered financial instruments
- Climate and other risk insurance and resilience
- Debt sustainability analysis, debt relief
- Energy transition mechanism
- More funding for nature-based climate solutions with increased greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation
- Impacts of information disclosure related to climate change on EMDEs
- Innovative climate financing (such as green and blue bonds and loans, sustainability or sustainability-related bonds and loans, and debt climate swap)
- Loss and damage fund
- MDBs’ evolution or reform
- Funding for climate-smart agriculture for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries
- Low-cost green building for energy efficiency
- Financing for green transportation and behavioral change for sustainable transport systems
- Financial strategy for enhancing biodiversity-climate-SDGs synergies
- Supporting sustainable forest management for carbon sink and water conservation
- Transparent and efficient carbon markets and accounting.
- Financing local and community-based solutions for adaptation, mitigation, and nature conservation.
Theme 2: Climate Solutions
The term “climate solution” is used here to mean the application of a broad range of technologies related to climate adaptation and mitigation, including business models, nudging, market designs, and regulations and incentives.
Proposals for impactful solutions that have been proven on a small scale and can be scaled up will be evaluated highly, provided they include serious, multi-scale policy assessments. So too will be papers that evaluate and compare potential solutions from the perspective of cost-effectiveness, scalability and inclusiveness based on evidence. Since developing countries need to achieve both climate and sustainable development goals (SDGs), it is desirable for papers to describe what positive or negative impacts their proposed solutions would have on poverty reduction, water and sanitation, food/nutrition security, health, and other SDGs.
Papers that address ways to accept and manage mass migration, because of pressures caused by climate change, will be welcomed, in addition to proposals that address behavioural change and explore implementing a circular economy and lifestyles for sustainable development, such as those advanced during India’s G20 presidency under the Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) concept, and elsewhere.
Explanation of the pathway or mechanism through which a proposed solution exert impacts will be highly valued. If sufficient relevance to climate action is demonstrated, discussions on policy makers’ capacity building are also welcome. The analysis of a potential solution will be considered more informative if it is accompanied by the analysis of potential challenges and risks.
Submissions on Climate Solutions may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- Adaptation goal and framework
- Catalyzing biodiversity-climate-pollution synergies
- Transformational adaptation or mitigation in water and sanitation, food and agriculture, ecosystems, infrastructure, health, livelihoods, or cultural heritage
- Scaling better-priced carbon markets
- Energy storage
- CCS or CCUS technology
- Data-driven solutions to just energy transition
- Digital-green industrial policy in developing countries as a solution to SDGs and climate resilience
- Early warning system, evidence, challenges, and solution
- Green shipping technology
- Green or sustainable procurement
- Green economy
- Nature-based solutions to SDGs and GHG mitigation
- Nuclear fusion power generation
- Catalyzing ocean-climate synergy
- Circular economy
- Digital technology as a solution to adaptation or GHG emissions reduction
- Planned relocation
- Solutions to challenges in scaling up the collection of weather and climate data
- UN Climate Convention’s REDD+
Papers dealing with both Climate Finance and Climate Solutions
Some solutions for climate adaptation or mitigation may attract private investors’ attention and motivate their funding, which may in turn enable the implementation of these solutions at scale. Papers with evidence that deal with both climate finance and solutions are welcomed.
Submission criteria
- This Call for Papers aims to bridge research and policy rather than solely promote academic research. Detailed description of the methodology and data used to obtain the evidence should be included in a methodology/data appendix, which is outside of the word limit mentioned below. The quality of evidence that supports the paper’s argument is a critical criterion for evaluation.
- Submitted papers should assess progress on an effort or its prospect of success, propose a new framework, scheme, reform, solution, or measurement indicator, point out an unexpected side effect of a planned or ongoing action, or review the validity of evidence used in climate discussions.
- Both empirical papers and literature reviews can be accepted if they address the themes based on evidence.
- Arguments based on high-quality evidence are highly valued. Clarity and readability are also important evaluation criteria.
- All paper submissions must be unpublished and original and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
- Authors must explicitly disclose the use of generative AI in drafting their initial submissions, or such use should be explicitly disallowed.
- Papers must include the following:
- Title and abstract of 150 words
- Author’s name, position, affiliation and email address
- Description of the research objective, motivation, and original contribution(s)
- Expected implications and policy recommendations
- Optional to include in the 1st submission:
- Methodology and data
- Analysis and discussion of results
Submission Procedure
- Authors should submit a draft paper of around 3,000-4,000 words, via this link by 6 September 2024.
- During the submission please clearly indicate “Theme 1: Climate Finance” or “Theme 2: Climate Solutions” or “Both themes”.
Arrangements for Selected Papers
- Authors of selected papers will be notified before 20 September 2024.
- Authors of selected papers should submit full manuscripts of around 8,000 words by 31 October 2024.
- For selected authors who are citizens of Asian Development Bank member economies, an honorarium of $1,000 will be paid to the corresponding author upon approval of all deliverables.
Authors of selected papers will be invited to present their papers virtually at a hybrid conference to be hosted jointly by ADBI and universities in Baku in November 2024 during COP29. Selected papers on climate solutions will be presented virtually at a hybrid conference co-hosted by ADBI and Azerbaijan Technical University. Selected climate finance papers will be presented virtually at a hybrid conference co-hosted by ADBI and ADA University.
In addition, some authors may be invited to present papers virtually to the Africa-Asia-Pacific Climate Finance Forum organized by ADBI in the Green Zone of COP29 in Baku.
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After rigorous peer review, accepted papers will be included as chapters in an edited book.
Selection Committee (in alphabetical order):
- Ingilab Akhmadov, Khazar University (TBC)
- Mariya Aleksandrova, Senior Researcher, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
- Dina Azhgaliyeva, Senior Research Fellow, Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)
- Nicolas J.A. Buchoud, Senior Consultant and Advisor to the Dean, ADBI
- Sachin Chaturbedi, Director General, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS)
- Feliciano Guimaraes, Academic Director, Centro Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (CEBRI)
- Damjan Krnjevic, Professor of Practice, ADA University (TBC)
- Peter Morgan, Senior Consulting Economist and Advisor to the Dean, ADBI
- Ayaz Museyibov, Advisor to the Executive Director, the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication (CAERC) (TBC)
- Dil Rahut, Vice-Chair of Research and Senior Research Fellow, ADBI
- K E Seetha Ram, Senior Consulting Specialist for Capacity Building and Training Projects, ADBI