On 26 September 2023, ecbi Director Benito Müller gave a presentation on Innovative Sources of Climate Finance at the first 2023 ‘Séminaire Environnement et Relations Internationales’ organised by the Centre for International Studies at Sciences Po, Paris. Given the urgency of providing financial support to the poorest and most vulnerable countries to respond to loss and damage from climate change and given the current global economic and fiscal situation, it is difficult to see how the new Loss & Damage Response Fund established at COP 27 in December 2022 can be adequately capitalised without diverting funds from other existing multilateral climate funds. This is why Müller argued that  raising innovative sources of funding for this new Loss & Damage Fund is needed.

In that context, Müller highlighted the idea of International Climate Solidarity Levies (ICSLs) as an already proven way to mobilise new, additional and predictable innovative resources to avoid fund diversions from other climate funds. In particular, he discussed a recent call for Kenyan President William Ruto and French President Emmanuel Macron, as proponents of ICSLs, to launch a Climate Solidarity Alliance of countries willing to adopt an ICSL, initially focussed on air-ticket levies. He also introduced the idea of introducing a Share of Proceeds in the Voluntary Carbon Market and the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).

The session was hybrid, attended in person by Jean-Christophe Donnellier (French Transitional Committee member) and Brice Lalonde (former French Environment Minister), and virtually by Christopher Bartlett (Head of Vanuatu’s Climate Diplomacy Program, and lead negotiator on Loss and Damage) and Chathrin Wenger (lead author of the forthcoming mapping and feasibility study of report on Loss and Damage Financing Solutions for the Nordic Council of Ministers).