NYU Law's Global Climate Finance Project co-hosts workshop in Abu Dhabi

Photo of Richard StewartInstitutions for climate finance and promoting technology innovation and transfer were the two main topics of discussion at a workshop on climate finance recently held at NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus by NYU Law’s Global Climate Finance Project and the United Arab Emirate’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its newly formed Directorate of Energy and Climate Change.

Proceedings kicked off with a climate finance roundtable, conducted as a side event at the World Future Energy Summit on January 20. The roundtable was chaired by Global Climate Finance Project Coordinator Bryce Rudyk (LL.M. '08).  Rob Bradley of the UAE MOFA set out the challenges and issues raised by climate finance; Professor Richard Stewart discussed the opportunities and challenges for governance within the emerging climate finance regime, and Jake Werksman of the World Resources Institute and an adjunct professor at NYU Law, provided an overview of the main climate finance outcomes from the last Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC in Cancun in 2010.

The formal workshop, which began two days later, brought local UAE government officials together with an impressive group of experts drawing from academia, the World Bank, various NGOs and the private sector. Four panels discussed the outcomes from COP16 in Cancun; the current institutional landscape for climate finance; accountability and transparency of climate finance; and creating demand for climate finance. On the second day, the floor was open for discussion of two pressing issues for the future: technology transfer, and climate finance institutions. Participants engaged in a lively discussion, identifying a number of pressing issues for resolution, areas in which further research is required, and various opportunities for both the UAE and the global community more  broadly, to build an effective regime for climate finance and technology.

Posted February 1, 2011