What happened at the Thirty-sixth Meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance and how it relates to Loss and Damage

This blog will introduce readers to the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC/ Convention) and will unpack how the work conducted at the Thirty-sixth Standing Committee on Finance Meeting (SCF 36) and onwards into the year relates to Loss and Damage.

What is the Standing Committee on Finance?

At the UNFCCC sixteenth Conference of Parties (COP) in 2010, Parties decided to establish a Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) to assist the COP in exercising its functions in relation to the Financial Mechanism of the Convention. The Financial Mechanism provides financial support to developing countries, featuring funds and operating entities such as the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), the Green Environment Facility (GEF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and the Adaptation Fund (AF). At COP 21 in 2015, Parties decided that the SCF will also serve the Paris Agreement in line with its functions and responsibilities established under the COP. This ensures that, going forward, the SCF will provide guidance to and receive guidance from both the COP and CMA. To assist the Financial Mechanism of the Convention and its Paris Agreement, the SCF must meet at least twice a year to facilitate work towards its mandate of:

(a) improving coherence and coordination in the delivery of climate change financing;

(b) rationalisation of the Financial Mechanism;

(c) mobilisation of financial resources; and

(d) measurement, reporting and verification of support provided to developing country Parties.

The SCF fulfils this mandate through the following activities:

• Organising a forum for communication and continued exchange of information among bodies and entities dealing with climate change finance in order to promote linkages and coherence;
• Maintaining linkages with the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and thematic bodies of the Convention and its Paris Agreement;
• Providing to the COP and CMA draft guidance for the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention, with a view to improving the consistency and practicality of such guidance, taking into account the annual reports of the operating entities and submissions from Parties;
• Making recommendations on how to improve the coherence, effectiveness and efficiency of the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism;
• Providing expert input, including through independent reviews and assessments, into the preparation and conduct of the periodic reviews of the Financial Mechanism by the COP and CMA;
• Preparing a biennial assessment, overview of climate finance flows, to include information on the geographical and thematic balance of such flows, drawing on available sources of information, including national communications and biennial reports of both developed and developing country Parties, information provided in the registry, information provided by Parties on assessments of their needs, reports prepared by the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism, and information available from other entities providing climate change finance; and
• Additionally, the SCF will perform any other functions that may be assigned to it by the COP and CMA.

The SCF must report back and make recommendations to the COP and CMA, for their consideration each year based on the status of this mandated work.

Who is part of the SCF?

The SCF is composed of ten members from UNFCCC Annex I Parties and ten members from non-Annex I Parties who all attain the necessary experience and skills in the areas of climate change, development and finance to sit on the Committee. This includes two members each from the African, Asia-Pacific, and the Latin America and Caribbean States, one member from a Small Island Developing State and one member from a Least Developed Country. See here a list of the current SCF members.

What happened at the Thirty-Sixth meeting of the SCF

The Thirty-sixth Standing Committee on Finance Meeting (SCF 36) recently took place in Bonn, Germany from the 18-19th of February. The agenda items included:

• Election of co-chairs
• Adoption of the agenda and organisation of the meeting
• Mandates from COP 29 and CMA 6 and an updated workplan for 2025
• 2025 Forum of the the SCF
• Draft guidance to the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism
• Preparatory work for the mandates to be delivered in 2026:  
  
  • (a) The seventh Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows;
  • (b) The third report on progress towards achieving the goal of mobilising jointly 100 billion USD per year to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation
• Linkages with constituted bodies of the Convention and the Paris Agreement
• Report of SCF 36
• Other matters

These decisions made on these agenda items are captured in this document. The main SCF 36 agenda item related to Loss and Damage is agenda item 6: Draft guidance to the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism detailed below.

Unpacking Agenda item 6: Draft guidance to the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism

The SCF is mandated to provide draft guidance to the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism with a view to improving the consistency and practicality of such guidance, taking into account the annual reports of the operating entities and relevant submissions from Parties. The operating entities of the Financial Mechanism include the FRLD, the GEF and the GCF. Notably, at COP 29 last year, within the decision on the report of the Board of the FRLD, the COP and CMA requested the SCF take into consideration views and recommendations on elements of guidance submitted by Parties, when preparing draft guidance for the FRLD in 2025. The SCF is also mandated under the COP and CMA to consider inputs provided by the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM ExCom) on the SCF’s work in preparing this draft guidance.

At SCF 36, SCF members agreed on the co-facilitators for this agenda item, Ali Waqas (Pakistan) and Karima Oustadi (Austria), and on the activities that will be conducted in 2025 to prepare the draft guidance. At the meeting, the co-facilitators outlined a new approach to the workplan (compared to last year) that will be untaken by the SCF to compile this draft guidance, detailed in this background paper.

An overview of the new approach is as follows: after SCF 36, Parties, Party groups and stakeholders will be invited to make submissions on their views and recommendations of elements to include in the draft guidance to the SCF by 15 April so the co-facilitators can compile them to present at SCF 37 in June, to inform a zero draft of the draft guidance that will be formulated by SCF members there. After SCF 37, a second round of submissions will be opened (with the expectation that the FRLD, GCF, and GEF boards will have their respective 2024 reports available by then) with the deadline of 25 August. Informed by the 2024 reports, the two rounds of submissions, and and SCF members’ inputs, co-facilitators will present a final draft guidance text to be considered and approved at SCF 38 in September, to then be sent on to the COP and CMA for consideration as the basis for negotiation for Parties.

‍The SCF Co-Facilitators’ Proposed Workplan for the SCF in 2025.

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Some SCF members were sceptical of this new approach, noting that last year the SCF experienced a lack of submissions by Parties —and the submissions that were made were received very last minute, towards the end of the year— which suggests that Parties may not make a submission for both rounds and may not adhere to the deadlines, but that is yet to be seen. Members noted the importance of the request for submissions to be framed in a targeted manner that asks Parties what key elements and themes they want to receive guidance on and how they want the SCF to prepare the document so it can be accepted and used as a basis for negotiations at the COP and CMA without needing to be adjusted much.

Alongside requesting submissions, the co-facilitators will convene informal consultations with Parties intersessionally before SCF 37 to gather views on the draft guidance regarding the policies, programming priorities and eligibility criteria of the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism. Using the outcomes of the informal consultations as a basis, the SCF will begin substantive work at SCF 37 to identify elements of draft guidance. The co-facilitators of the agenda item will communicate with the co-chairs of the FRLD, GCF, and GEF boards to foster alignment with the timelines of their annual reports and the SCF’s draft guidance preparation timeline. The co-facilitators will also continue to engage with other constituted bodies (including the WIM ExCom, Adaptation Committee and Technology Executive Committee) to share activities for preparing the draft guidance and to provide guidance on making submissions.

In light of the failure of the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (negotiated at COP 29, last year) to include dedicated finance for Loss and Damage, it is important that the SCF prepares insightful and practical draft guidance on resource mobilisation for the FRLD for Parties to consider at COP 30 and CMA 7.

Looking Ahead

Whist it would be positive to see many submissions made to the SCF —so that the views and recommendations of Parties, Party groups and stakeholders are reflected in the draft guidance— it is understandable that in reality, many developing country Parties cannot make submissions within the deadlines set due to a lack of capacity and resources. This renders the potential for Parties’ representation of views and inputs to be unbalanced between developed and developing country Parties. In light of these constraints, it will be interesting to see at SCF 37 in June which if any and/or how many Parties, Party groups and stakeholders have made submissions to the SCF on the draft guidance in the first round, especially in relation to the views and recommendations provided on elements of guidance regarding draft guidance for the FRLD, and to further see how the contents of these submissions will inform a zero draft of the draft guidance.

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Note: We acknowledge that the "Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FrLD)" is the designated name as established under the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement. However, we opt to use "Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD)" to maintain the proper way of capitalising proper nouns.

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Mia Partridge is a recent law graduate with a strong background in legal research and policy analysis. Over the past year, she has contributed to technical, policy, and research work in the Loss and Damage and climate finance policy spaces. She also assists with research to address international climate change issues, including the global regulation of fossil fuel production and use, a global just transition, and renewable energy policy.

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