Funding Climate Change Initiatives: Utilising the Law for Enhancing Financial Management in Cities

Climate change affects cities disproportionately, and some cities have limited fiscal capacity to address climate change. It is therefore necessary to ensure that the climate funds cities do have at their disposal are used in a way that maximises their impact. However, financial mismanagement and corruption have led to significant money losses in climate funds. Although measures against general public sector corruption can be used to improve climate finance management, the climate finance market poses some unique challenges. Traditional anti-corruption measures can be rethought to maintain their effectiveness against corruption in climate finance. Against this background, the article explores how international and regional law can be used by cities to improve the management of climate funds. Eight financial controls are identified and critically discussed to show how they can be effective in the specific case of climate finance. The article also shows some examples of where these financial controls have been implemented in cities