The devastating impacts of climate change threaten to reverse progress in health, security and quality of life made in many developed and developing countries, with particularly severe implications for the poor. But public finance continues to subsidise and incentivise investments in business as usual approaches that will exacerbate the problem. Instead, we need to direct finance to re-orient the global economy around low carbon-climate compatible investment. In the immediate term, clarity on the international public finance that will be made available to support developing countries to take action would be a step in the right direction.

In this opinion piece Smita Nakhooda outlines a roadmap forward for climate finance, arguing for a focus on:

• sustaining political commitment to raising new finance
  
• ensuring that finance is better targetedat reducing emissions and vulnerability
  
• learning and improving from recent experiences, particularly as the Green Climate Fund gets to work.
  

Smita Nakhooda