May 17, 2021

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On January 21, 2021 CARE published a report analyzing the financial commitments of developed countries to support climate activities.

In this report, in reference to a project in the Philippines from 2017, CARE stated that “France reported $109m of development aid in support of this project to the OECD, all of which was classified as adaptation finance”.

After publication, the provider, the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), contacted CARE to state that although a Rio marker of 2 was applied to this project, implying its principal objective was climate change adaptation, the AFD does not use the Rio marker approach to calculate the adaptation finance resulting from its projects.

The AFD, unlike some other channels used by the French government to extend adaptation finance, makes use of multiple methods to calculate the adaptation finance resulting from their projects, on a project by project basis.

The AFD’s primary method is based on the multilateral development banks’ Common Principles for Climate Change Adaptation Finance Tracking, whilst additional methods calculate adaptation finances using predetermined coefficients in certain circumstances.

The AFD confirmed that only $6.78m, the adaptation specific portion of this project’s budget, had been reported to the UNFCCC as adaptation finance, and that in recent years Rio markers of 2 have not been applied to its projects.

Instead the AFD now applies Rio markers of 1 to its climate-relevant projects.

The assigned Rio marker of 2, in combination with the sizeable total climate-related budget of the project, was the reason this project was included in the research for this report. As the project should never have been marked with a Rio marker of 2, the project has been removed from all calculations and figures in the report.

As a result, the study is now based on 111 projects instead of 112, as was previously stated in the original publication, and both the press release and report have been updated accordingly.

This does, however, not change any of the report’s conclusions or recommendations.

For more information please contact perry@carenederland.org.