The Green Rebound: Mobilising COVID responses for climate neutrality

The document argues that COVID-19 recovery should be leveraged to advance climate neutrality through international solidarity that goes beyond simple cooperation to include reparations and loss and damage. It highlights the tension between short-term survival needs in developing countries and long-term climate mitigation, suggesting that multilateral regimes for conditional debt relief and bottom-up innovation financing in energy and water sectors could bridge this gap. The paper calls for a critical reassessment of globalisation and the use of the Paris Agreement's Article 6 to implement non-market approaches, such as bulk procurement of low-carbon technologies for least developed countries.

• International solidarity in the context of the COVID-19 response must extend beyond general cooperation to encompass committed actions on reparations, resilience, pandemic-induced displacement, and loss and damage.
• Developing countries face a conflict where immediate needs for liquidity and social protection for informal economies and migrant labour may take precedence over climate mitigation, potentially weakening multilateral climate responses due to North-South divides and rising nationalism.
• While conditional debt relief is a short-term option, the document suggests that multilateral regimes with co-developed conditions based on national circumstances—similar to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) model—would be more effective.
• Innovation financing should shift from short-term risk responses toward long-term social capability building and bottom-up empowerment, specifically targeting the energy and water sectors to improve adaptive capacity for future pandemics.
• The document advocates for the operationalization of non-market approaches under Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement, citing the Indian government's LED expansion programme as a successful model for reducing technology costs through bulk procurement and blended finance.

APA

Climate Strategies (2020). The Green Rebound: Mobilising COVID responses for climate neutrality. https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/International-Solidarity-Briefing-Paper_20.05.pdf

Chicago

Climate Strategies. The Green Rebound: Mobilising COVID responses for climate neutrality. 2020. https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/International-Solidarity-Briefing-Paper_20.05.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Strategies |title=The Green Rebound: Mobilising COVID responses for climate neutrality |date=May 2020 |url=https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/International-Solidarity-Briefing-Paper_20.05.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatestrategies2020green, author = {{Climate Strategies}}, title = {{The Green Rebound: Mobilising COVID responses for climate neutrality}}, institution = {Climate Strategies}, year = {2020}, month = may, url = {https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/International-Solidarity-Briefing-Paper_20.05.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }