Climate finance is vital to help poor and most vulnerable countries cope with the adverse effects of climate change, but it is still a hotly debated issue at the international level. This policy brief investigates key flaws in existing international climate agreements as well as the consequences of excessive climate finance fragmentation.The document notes that adverse climate-related events are on the rise with severe socio-economic consequences in developing countries. Nonetheless, over the last few years, there has been a proliferation of funds and funding initiatives to support developing countries to cope with climate change. Yet, such an increasing number of international climate funding mechanisms have made it more difficult for developing countries to access climate-related funds.The author shows that in order to simplify the complex network of funding mechanisms, the Cancun Agreement proposed the establishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). However, there is still significant work to do in the coming years.Conclusions are as follows:

donor countries’ non-compliance with existing agreements, increased transaction costs and unbalanced allocation between mitigation and adaptation activities are limiting poor countries’ access to the much-needed climate funds
the issue of how to finance the GCF needs to be sorted out quickly
otherwise, an inadequate capitalisation of this “fund” is likely to produce important knock-on effects on other institutions established in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
in addition, common reporting format for climate finance needs to be defined to ensure comparability, transparency and accuracy of information provided under the UNFCCC reporting guidelines
finally, much more progress needs to be made in finding innovative sources of finance, which are particularly important for supporting adaptation activities