TEPR  Projects: Climate finance – supporting low carbon, sustainable transport

In order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to levels that will not threaten the future of the planet, there is a need to invest heavily in clean technologies and activities, including those of the transport sector. Hence, it is important that existing funds support climate mitigation and adaptation efforts, and that these do not support activities that lead to increased GHG emissions. In addition, more finance needs to be made available to support climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.  

In this context, there is talk of ‘climate finance’, or financial support to activities that are beneficial to reducing GHG emissions and to adapting existing infrastructure to deal with a changing climate. TEPR, and TEPR’s Ian Skinner, have worked on various projects that have aimed to either increase, or monitor, climate finance. Examples of our previous work include:

• The Landscape of Urban Finance, which was published by the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance and the World Bank. The report estimated the level of current climate finance in cities and made recommendations on how to increase this. Ian Skinner of TEPR led on the estimation of the transport climate expenditure for the report. For more information on the project, including the main reports, see our blog.
• Optimal use of the EU Grant and Financial Instruments in the next Multiannual Financial Framework to support climate change, which involved Ian Skinner as an IEEP Associate. This report looked at how the EU multi-annual budget could best be used to support efforts to combat climate change. There are also annexes to this report.
• Methodologies for climate proofing investments and measures under Cohesion and Regional Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy, which was undertaken for the European Commission’s DG Climate Action. The report, which involved Ian Skinner as an IEEP Associate, set out ways to ensure that the funds under these two policies areas supported the EU’s climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.
• Cohesion Policy and Sustainable Development, which was undertaken for the European Commission’s DG Regional Policy. The report, which involved Ian Skinner as an IEEP Associate, set out ways to ensure that EU regional policy funds supported the EU’s objective of delivering sustainable development. The report was supported by a series of papers, which included a literature review, an evaluation of the performance of previous cohesion policy in promoting sustainable development, the role of other instruments in promoting sustainable development in cohesion policy, a series of case studies and an overview of tools that could be used to support sustainable development.