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Canadian Political Science Association2025 Annual Conference Programme
The Politics of Belonging: Conflict,
Community, Curriculum
Hosted at George Brown College, Toronto, CANADA
June 3 to June 5, 20252025 Annual Conference Programme
The Politics of Belonging: Conflict,
Community, Curriculum
Hosted at George Brown College
June 3 to June 5, 2025
Workshop 1 - Environmental Politics (Presented by the Law And Public Policy Section)
W102 - Workshop 1 - Environmental Politics. Author Meets Critic Session: The Political Economy of Climate Finance Effectiveness in Developing Countries - Carbon Markets, Climate Funds, and the State (OUP 2024)
Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location:
Mark Purdon (Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM))Mark Winfield (York University)
Keith Brownsey (Mount Royal University)
Abstract: This session brings together experts on climate change policy to discuss a recent book published on international climate finance. Experts will reflect about the role Canada is and should be playing with regard to international climate finance in light of arguments presented in the book. Should Canada participate in the (re)emerging carbon market under the Paris Agreement? Or should Canada be according greater resources to climate funds instead? Maybe a combination of both? Canada's response to these questions will have profound implications for Canadian foreign policy as well as international climate cooperation. Book summary: There is ample evidence that engaging developing countries on climate change mitigation would have significant impacts on global climate efforts. There is much debate, however, on the most effective strategy for unlocking these low-cost mitigation opportunities. While the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) emerged as the main climate finance instrument for engaging developing countries under the Kyoto Protocol, the carbon market approach it embodied would largely be replaced by an array of climate finance instruments that would come to be based on climate funds—including Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). The turn toward climate funds has been part of a broader shift within the UN climate change regime from liberal environmentalism associated with the Kyoto Protocol towards developmental environmentalism of the Paris Agreement. In The Political Economy of Climate Finance Effectiveness in Developing Countries, the author argues that despite this shift in global environmental norms, differences in domestic political economy—particularly the ideas and interests of the state—explain enduring patterns of climate finance instrument effectiveness across Tanzania, Uganda and Moldova. Through detailed, field-based research into the effectiveness of three different climate finance instruments across these three case-study countries over a 10-year period (2008 to 2018), the author demonstrates that the CDM, REDD+ , and NAMAs have consistently been more effectively implemented in Uganda and Moldova than Tanzania—despite differences in state capacity between East Africa and a country of the former Soviet Union. Rather, given low levels of climate finance offered by the international community, effectiveness has depended on the interaction between the development policy paradigms and interests of the state in promoting various sectors of their economies. Climate finance instruments were most effective when used to extend the implementation of policy activities already being pursued by the state for developmental purposes. While these results are altogether rather sobering, they point to a better strategy for engaging with developing countries on climate change mitigation. While neither climate finance instruments derived from liberal environmentalism (CDM) nor developmental environmentalism (REDD+ and NAMAs) have proven sufficiently effective, a combination of elements of both holds promise: liberal developmental environmentalism.