Abstract The UN climate conference in Baku resulted in the New Collective Quantified Goal, aimed at tripling climate finance for developing countries to USD 300 billion annually by 2035. However, if past goals, though less ambitious, have largely fallen short, then the climate regime should undergo further reforms beyond setting a higher quantitative commitment. This article assesses why the climate finance legal framework falls short of aligning financial flows with developing countries’ needs. It develops an analytical framework to assess the legal obligations on climate finance in the post-Paris Agreement era. Drawing on an empirical analysis of state practices, patterns of insufficient performance, structural shortcomings, and tensions with principles of the regime—such as the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and the completeness, consistency, comparability, and accessibility of climate finance information—are identified. Finally, targeted reforms to better align the legal framework with the climate finance needs in developing countries are proposed.

Abstract With Article 6.2, the Paris Agreement offers its parties the possibility to engage in cooperative approaches to import mitigation outcomes that have been generated on the territory of another party and use these international transferred mitigation outcomes (itmos) for compliance purposes. While this possibility seems to pave the way to more—and presumably new forms of—climate cooperation outside the UN climate regime, this paper asks whether Article 6.2 is also likely to spark disagreement among states. It is suggested that it bears as much a potential to generate cooperation as to generate conflict. To illustrate that point, the paper explains how Article 6.2 could lead to conflict between developed and developing states over the legality of unilateral restrictions on the admittance of itmos and discusses what such conflict may look like, as well as its possible legal and political implications.

Abstract This article examines the role of the Paris Agreement in enabling developed-country financial contributions aimed at building transparency-related capacity in developing countries. It first analyses the legal means and institutional arrangements utilized by the Agreement to support developing countries in building transparency-related capacity. It then argues that even though the Agreement adopts certain legal and institutional means to foster transparency-related capacity building in developing countries through financial support, it does so in a way that risks undermining the meaningful and accountable use of climate finance, while softening the bindingness of the Agreement’s provisions. The lack of accountability obligations on climate finance for developing countries, the principle of flexibility, and the challenges intrinsic to climate finance, combine to weaken the climate-finance obligation, while calling into question the effectiveness of the Agreement.

There is a lively debate among scholars and policymakers on whether either consumers or producers should be seen as responsible for pollution caused in the production and consumption of traded goods. In this article, we argue that, in conformity with intuitive conceptions of causation, the economic incidence of a Pigouvian tax can be seen as a measure of the relative contribution to pollution of consumers and producers. Taking this perspective on the polluter-pays principle can help increase ambition in climate change action because it reduces the relevance of the question “Who is the polluter?” in climate change negotiations and enables a focus instead on the issue of “What can be done?” to reduce carbon emissions.

Open access to electric markets supports the integration of growing renewable energy resources. This is increasingly important as more US states aim to meet 100 percent of their energy needs with zero-emission resources. Currently states employ a wide variety of renewable energy targets and eligibility requirements. An example of the increasingly complex US state policy patchwork is state-mandated zero-emission credits (zecs) for nuclear facilities. Rather than increase conflict between clean energy goals and wholesale electric markets, there is a need for a more comprehensive regional approach that provides the appropriate price signals for carbon through existing market mechanisms. A carbon charge could be designed to eliminate the need for out-of-market zec payments to nuclear generation and significantly reduce state payments for renewable energy credits. This article examines the growing conflict between regional electricity markets and more localized clean-energy goals and explores how a carbon charge in the US regional electricity markets both mitigate this conflict and expedite the low-carbon transition.