Monitoring, Reporting and Verifying Climate Finance

The policy brief argues that current systems for tracking climate finance are fragmented and insufficient, calling for a robust MRV framework within the UNFCCC to build trust between donors and recipients. It highlights the political nature of defining 'climate finance' and 'new and additional' funds, while warning against double-counting and the risk of narrow definitions hindering broader development goals.

• Climate finance is characterized by high complexity, utilizing various public and private sources and flowing through multiple channels, including bilateral and multilateral institutions, carbon markets, and NGOs, which makes transparency and accountability difficult to achieve.
• The proposed accountability system consists of three technical functions grounded in political choices: measurement (defining scope and data), reporting (by donors and recipients), and verification (confirming accuracy and effective use).
• No current system adequately meets MRV needs; Parties currently rely on inconsistent tools like the OECD's official development assistance tracking and UNFCCC National Communications, leading to inaccurate and non-comparable data.
• The OECD's Rio Markers are insufficient for precise climate finance tracking because they are too broad, open to interpretation, and lack guidance on how to calculate the specific climate portion of projects with multiple objectives.
• There are significant risks of double-counting in the current system, particularly regarding 'leveraged' finance, overlaps with Official Development Assistance (ODA), and funds reported by both donor countries and multilateral institutions.
• Defining 'climate finance' too narrowly could negatively impact development by concentrating funds on a few specific activities and diverting resources from programs with development co-benefits, such as livelihood strengthening.
• To be effective, an MRV framework must include both aggregated data to identify regional trends and project-level data to verify that funding meets the stated needs of developing countries.

APA

Atteridge, A. (2012). Monitoring, Reporting and Verifying Climate Finance. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-PB-2012-MRV-climate-finance.pdf

Chicago

Atteridge, Aaron. Monitoring, Reporting and Verifying Climate Finance. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2012. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-PB-2012-MRV-climate-finance.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Atteridge |first1=Aaron |title=Monitoring, Reporting and Verifying Climate Finance |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2012 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-PB-2012-MRV-climate-finance.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{atteridge2012monitoring, author = {Atteridge, Aaron}, title = {{Monitoring, Reporting and Verifying Climate Finance}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2012}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-PB-2012-MRV-climate-finance.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }