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Beijing, November 18, 2013 | In collaboration with E3G – Third Generation Environmentalism, Germanwatch, the Wuppertal Institute and Stiftung Mercator, chinadialogue produced a special edition of its journal focusing on one of the biggest challenges facing China’s leaders over the next two decades: sustainable urbanisation.

The EU is no longer the world leader on climate policies. Other major countries have caught up or even outpaced the EU, a new study conducted by Germanwatch says. Even the U.S. and China now show at least as much headway in their climate change policies as the EU. This situation is highly problematic, as in the past EU climate action did encourage both OECD and Non-OECD countries around the world to take on more ambitious action.

Overshadowed by the ongoing human catastrophe in the Philippines, Germanwatch presented the 9th annual Global Climate Risk Index at the onset of the Climate Summit in Warsaw. “The index shows that the most severe weather related catastrophes in 2012 occurred in Haiti, Philippines and Pakistan”, says Sönke Kreft, Team Leader International Climate Policy at Germanwatch and co-author of the index. „The landfall of Hurricane Sandy in the US dominated international news in October 2012. Yet, it was Haiti - the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere - that suffered the greatest losses from the same event."

This paper describes policies for financing energy efficiency in buildings in China and Germany. In both countries energy consumption of the building sector constitutes a large share of the overall energy consumption. While the situation in regard to the size and age of the existing building stock and the construction rate of new buildings differs in China and Germany, there are nevertheless some similar challenges where sharing of experiences could be helpful.

This is the Climate Finance Advisory Service (CFAS) Daily Briefing. Produced at key meetings and negotiations by the CFAS expert team, the Daily Briefings try to provide a concise, informative update on key discussions that have taken place at each day of the meeting and give an overview of substantive points of action or progress. Please note that this is an independent summary by CFAS and not officially mandated by the AFB or its secretariat.

The 22nd meeting of the Adaptation Fund Board took place in Bonn from October 31 - November 1, 2013. Please find below the Briefing Paper.

World leaders and governments paved the way for the establishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreements made at the Conference of Parties (COPs) in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancún (2010). The objective of the Green Climate Fund is to achieve a paradigm shift towards low-carbon and climateresilient development pathways. This requires ambition, in the design of funded activities and in the provision of financial resources to the GCF.

The handy leaflet offers useful tips and tricks for changing your lifestyle to a more climate friendly one. It provides ideas for different areas: mobility, living, consumption, nutrition, investment and last but not least political involvement.

For many developing countries ensuring food security remains a key development challenge, often aggravated by climate change impacts. However, a number of governments that set-up national climate change strategies with the intention to improve conditions in the agricultural sector often find it difficult to address climate change mitigation, adaptation and food security elements in a synergy-oriented manner. The question arises what kind of institutional set-up would be required to better address this challenge?

This paper pursues the question of whether revenues from Chinese emission trading scheme (ETS) pilots, and a future national carbon market, should be used for national climate action in China and what topics should be addressed. Firstly, it will discuss why carbon market revenues should be used for climate finance and how this may be accomplished in theory. The paper then describes the experience of other countries, particularly in the EU, in using ETS revenues for climate actions. Finally recommendations are provided for the Chinese pilot ETS.