Public spending on Climate Change often gets trapped in
translational problems. Even though there is lots of noise around climate
change but it is evident that much less action happens on ground. This is also
mentioned in the recent Lancet
Countdown report of 2025. In this blogpost, I have tried to highlight three
important translation leakages, which could be hampering effective efforts to
address the issue of Climate Change. These are: -
1. Synchronization with Budget Cycles - Government budget (by any
government) is prepared for a specific period of time. The period covered by a
budget is usually a year, known as a financial or fiscal year. However, looking
into the slow process of climatic changes, the policy perspective for Climate
Budgeting has to be longer period of time (say 10 to 30 years). In order to
financially support longer term climate policies through climate budgeting
embedded within the annual government budget, annual budgets allocated to
climate change efforts has to target at incremental efforts distributed across periodically
(annually) managed budgets. This involves act of breaking down of policy led
efforts (tasks) towards climatic changes to smaller parts (sub-tasks). These
smaller parts (sub-tasks) have to be broken down to the extent that they get
synchronized to fit the periodicity of the budget implementation cycle (usually
a year).
The process of breaking down of efforts (sub-tasking) from a
larger policy led effort (task), which is a logical entity under a longer
policy roadmap needs adjustments to get budgetary allocation. These adjustments
include keeping the broken-down effort in tune with the available time (usually
yearly budgetary cycle), keeping the broken-down effort objective for quantified
consumption and utilization of allocated budget (within the timeframe of budget
cycle) and keeping the broken-down effort auditable in tandem with comprehensive
budget outlay of entire budget spanning across all the other priorities. Even
though such adjustments improve fiscal accountability, it carries risk of
dilution and deviation of broken-down effort (sub-task) from policy led effort
(task) in terms of meeting the core objective to minimize the impact of climate
change impact on the planet.
Further, in dealing with public spending, it is observed that
fixed shorter terms of budget-cycles (annual) tend to give preference to those
matters, which are considered needing immediate attention. Often this happens
at the cost of those matters needing long term persistence. Sudden preference
to such matters needing immediate attention may be attributable either to unanticipated
changes in fiscal conditions arising from local or global contingencies or to unexpected
socio-political compulsions faced by governing bodies time to time.
2. Synchronization across Geographies - Climate Change is a global
phenomenon, which needs to be addressed at local levels by locally governing
entities across the globe. This means there should be synchronization amongst
entities governing geographies. But different geographies are diverse in
character and have their own socio-economic and politico-cultural dynamics. It can
be easily observed that different countries face vastly different fiscal
capacities, priorities, and vulnerabilities, making coordinated global action
difficult.
Time and again it has been established that breaking-down collective
actions on the critical issue of Climate Change to be addressed through
regional or country level efforts have been ineffective. (Ref - The
World Is Failing Its 2025 Paris Climate Target. Now What? | TIME)
The translation of a critical issue of global significance, which needs immediate attention gets easily overshadowed by local and regional priorities of individual countries. Collectively all the countries across the globe have not been able to curb the pursuit of growth driven development at the cost of one and another and even at the cost to human existence on the planet. Eventually, this leads to fragmented investments, uneven adaptation, and inefficiencies in tackling the global challenge of Climate Change (ultimately impacting collective public spending patterns at global level).
3. Synchronization across Socio-Political Spheres - Most vulnerable groups to climate
change often are either ignorant about linkages of their problems to Climate
Change or lack the political voice to drive the attention of the governing body
towards lasting solutions to problems faced due to Climate Change. Many
dominant groups with better understanding about climate change or with strong
political voice are not expressive on the issue either due to vested economic
interest (example - fossil fuel industry) or due to indifference towards
vulnerable groups and / or towards future consequences.
What is perceived by politically dominant groups as a problem
of livelihood and health amongst vulnerable groups has a potential to impact entire
societies across the globe in a massive that too way all of sudden. With sincere
efforts by many agencies across the globe through all the possible channels,
the message is reaching loud and clear to all sections of the society.
Therefore, there is an awareness about Climate Change and its possible impact in
the sub-conscious minds of significantly large population (beyond the critical
mass). But this is not translating into collective concern within societal
groups to present a dominant political agenda significant enough to become
universal political consensus transcending all other prevailing issues (many
may be less significant to a rational analysis).
Eventually, such a socio-political scenario presents
institutional fragmentation rather than convergence towards matters pertaining
to Climate Change (ultimately impacting public spending patterns).
In the end, it can be concluded that promising future for
human being can be achieved by avoiding losing in translation in above cases with following
considerations: -
1.
Continuous
Policy Support by appropriately funding Climate Change
2.
Cooperation
at Country Level on the issue of Climate Change
3.
Consensus
within societies for prioritization on Climate Change
The above conclusion can be summed up as 4Cs: -
Coexistence (for Promising Future) = Continuous (Policy Support)
+ Cooperation (Country Level) + Consensus (Inter-Societal)
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Definitions:
Budget - Budget is a plan to show how much
money a person or organization will earn and how much they will need or be able
to spend. Public budget or government budget is the forecast by a government of
its expenditures and revenues for a specific period of time.
(Ref- https://www.britannica.com/money/government-budget),
(Ref- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/budget).
Public Budgeting - Public budgeting is defined as the study of the allocation
of government resources, which involves the development, structure, and
dynamics of political institutions as well as the formation of comparative
fiscal and macroeconomic policies (Ref - https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/economics-econometrics-and-finance/public-budgeting).
Climate Finance - Climate finance refers to local, national or transnational
financing—drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing—that
seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate
change. The Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement call for
financial assistance from Parties with more financial resources to those that
are less endowed and more vulnerable. This recognizes that the contribution of
countries to climate change and their capacity to prevent it and cope with its
consequences vary enormously. Climate finance is needed for mitigation, because
large-scale investments are required to significantly reduce emissions. Climate
finance is equally important for adaptation, as significant financial resources
are needed to adapt to the adverse effects and reduce the impacts of a changing
climate. (Ref - https://unfccc.int/topics/introduction-to-climate-finance)
Carbon Budget - The term Carbon-Budget refers to the total net amount of
carbon dioxide (CO2) that can still be emitted by human activities while
limiting global warming to a specified level (e.g.,1.5°C or 2°C above
pre-industrial levels).
Carbon budgets are part of long term emission reduction
targets which are broken down into annual limits. A climate budget then
integrates these carbon budgets into routine operations and policies.
Climate budgeting enables the identification, classification,
and categorisation of expenditures that are pertinent to climate change within
the scope of a government's budgetary structure. This mechanism allows precise
estimation, diligent monitoring, and methodical tracking of such expenses.
(Ref - https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/faqs/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FAQ_Chapter_05.pdf)
(Ref - https://budgit.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Climate-Budgeting-for-Green-Accountability-1.pdf)
Climate Change - Climate change means a change of climate which is
attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition
of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate
variability observed over comparable time periods. (https://unfccc.int/resource/ccsites/zimbab/conven/text/art01.htm)
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