Seite - (000037) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

mass extinction to be comparedwith the extinction of dinosaurs 65million years ago, and for the increasingpollutionofourenvironmentwithchemical substances, which endanger humanhealth and thehealth of our habitat.1 Afirst indicationof theparadoxand its solution emerged in the comprehensive evaluationsof theGlobalEnvironmentFacility (GEF).TheGEFwasestablishedas (interim) financial instrument of the main environmental conventions resulting from the 1992Earth Summit, on climate change (UNFCCC), biodiversity (CBD) and someof the various conventions on chemicals (most notably Stockholm). For more than twodecades it hadbeen the coreorganization for support todeveloping countriesandcountrieswitheconomies in transition, raisingaconsiderableamount of funding itself, and as a co-funding agency, an even larger amount from other sources. TheGEF is replenishedevery4years by its donors.Oneof the important documentsof this replenishment isanindependentcomprehensiveevaluationof the performance of the institution up to that time. In the fourthOverall Performance Study (OPS4) of the GEF some elements of themicro-macro paradoxwere first explored (GEF/EO2010). Interventions financed by theGEF had started in 1992 and the 2010Overall Performance Studywas the first to be able to report on the longer termimpactof these interventions.OPS4concluded that theprocessesset in motion byGEF co-funded projects were progressing toward longer term impact, providedfollow-upactionswere takenbycountriesandstakeholders.Nevertheless, global environmental trends continued to “spiral downward” (conclusion1, p. 15). A first indication of why this was the case was provided in a calculation of the purchasing power ofGEF funds over time: the fourth replenishment of theGEF, while nominally higher than thefirst replenishment, represented83%of the value of the first replenishment, while at the same time funding needs had increased dramatically (p. 16–18). The Fifth Overall Performance Study of the GEF (GEF/IEO 2014) provides more details to the same arguments. It concludes again that environmental trends “continuetodecline”(p.10),whereasthe“interventionlogicof theGEFiscatalytic and successful in achieving impact over time” (p. 13). LikeOPS4, the evaluation focuses on funding levels to explain the paradox between evidence of impact and declining global trends. This time the context is broadened and includes public funding that leads to environmental decline.At the timeofOPS5, annual commit- mentsof theGEFhadreached the levelofUS$1billion.Overallpublic fundingfor environmental support to developing countries had reached the level of US$ 10 billion annually. However, funding needs for action on global environmental issues “are conservatively assessed as at least US$ 100 billion annually” (p. 17). Thus a funding gap emerges that in itself provides an explanation of the paradox. 1Rijk, vanDuursen andvandenBerg (2016).Health cost thatmaybe associatedwithEndocrine Disrupting Chemicals: an inventory, evaluation and way forward to assess the potential socio- economic impact of EDC-associated health effects in the EU. University of Utrecht. They calculate the cost in 2028 in theEU from €46 to 288 billion per year, if no action is taken. This is just one example of a particular type of chemical substance; new chemical substances are introduced in foodandpackaging everyyear. 16 R.D. vandenBerg andL.Cando-Noordhuizen