The required mobilisation of funds for a Paris-compatible development urges for an improved coordination between all of the actors involved in the low-emission transition as well as demands comprehensive knowledge base to address the systemic challenge of financing sustainable economic development. This publication is part of a project enhancing the exchange of experiences between experts, business community and civil society policymakers to improve the assessment and design of domestic climate finance investment environments. It describes existing methods to track climate finance and illustrates how these can be helpful for different stakeholders, with a specific focus on Poland.
Conclusions:
The examples presented in this policy brief demonstrate the unprecedented scale of investment needs in Poland arising both from the near-term priorities of the Polish government and the global climate commitments. The required mobilization of funds urges for an improved coordination of efforts between all of the actors involved in the process of the transition as well as demands comprehensive knowledge base to address the systemic challenge of financing sustainable economic development. Polish government will soon face the challenge of designing policies which will redirect substantial share of current financial flows towards the sectoral low-emission transition challenges. Thus, implementation of the climate finance tracking methodology in Poland may provide crucial support for complex policymaking processes which will occur in the next few years.
At a national level, domestic climate investment and finance Landscape studies have already been implemented in several European countries such as France and Germany. They have provided a framework for devising the financing plans encompassed in the national strategic documents (e.g. NECPs). Polish stakeholders can thus benefit from the international exchange of lessons learned as the uptake of best practices – tracking of climate finance, will enable improved assessment of current investment levels and will support an increase in financial flows towards sustainable solutions.
The best practices identified by the broader stakeholder community, if tailored to the local specificity and demands of the country’s policymaking objectives, have great potential to improve the assessment and design of domestic climate finance investment frameworks. In the Polish case, implementing an extensive analysis of climate finance flows within the economy is needed for the decision-making process both in the public and private sector, to provide the highest value added both in terms of the cost-efficiency and climate benefits.
Urging Polish policymakers to address this global trend and act pre-emptively by assuming the results based approach, WiseEuropa (Poland) together with the NewClimate Institute (Germany) and I4CE – Institute for Climate Economics (France) facilitate the process of the uptake of the domestic Landscape methodology and ultimately through its implementation foster a more targeted and systemic support for climate action. The ongoing discussions with public sector stakeholders that were initiated in 2018, will not only allow for further tailoring of the methodology to the needs of Polish stakeholders, but also for the transfer of best practices between countries that have implemented it or are in the process of implementation. Furthermore, the organisations have established the EU Climate Investment and Finance Tracking Contact Group – a unique platform for cooperation that enables exchange of experiences between institutions and stakeholders working on this topic. This vehicle, provides the necessary structure enabling a debate on methodological issues, whilst improving the visibility of the need and value of this type of work for achievement of European climate and sustainable finance objectives.
