International climate finance: an estimation in the case of the Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract

International climate finance are funds provided to support developing countries to respond to the challenges and opportunities of climate change aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and/or adapt to the impacts of climate change. In this paper we estimate the received international climate financial support in the Republic of North Macedonia. Data for the analysis are collected using survey approach on a project-based level for the period 2018-2020. We applied the OECD DAC Rio climate markers methodology for weighing climate relevance of project’s budget and used two-year averages to smooth out annual fluctuations in data. Our findings show that in the analyzed period a total of 61 projects have been implemented or are in some phase of implementation, which are related to climate activities for which it is obtained international financial support of $34.4 million. The pandemic of COVID-19 have a negative impact on both, the number of projects which fell from 38 in 2018/2019 to 23 in 2019/2020, and to the international climate financial support received, which declined from $23.2 million to $11.2 million.