About the IKI
The International Climate Initiative (IKI) is an important part of the German government’s international climate finance commitment. IKI is implemented on behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) and the Federal Foreign Office (AA).
Through the IKI, the ministries jointly support approaches in developing and emerging countries to implement and ambitiously develop the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) anchored in the Paris Agreement. This includes measures to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to conserve and rebuild natural carbon sinks, taking into account environmental, economic and social concerns. The IKI also supports its partner countries in achieving the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The three ministries jointly agree on the basic IKI framework. This includes the instruments that help ensure and verify the values and responsibilities of the IKI, the various funding calls and external communication.
Two global framework agreements are superordinate to the IKI:
- The Paris Agreement:
With the Paris Agreement in 2015 the global community agreed that all countries would reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The richer countries must support the poorer ones with this. The agreement concretises the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was adopted in 1992. The basic idea behind the Paris Agreement is that consistent climate protection in all areas of society protects people’s lives and ensures their survival. Particularly relevant starting points here are energy generation and energy consumption.
At the same time, measures to adapt to the impacts of climate change should help, for example, to protect against extreme weather events and prevent floods or droughts.
Climate action and adaptation help prevent damage to infrastructure or losses in agriculture, which is ultimately less expensive than having to pay for the damage afterwards.
- The Convention on Biological Diversity:
A similar principle applies to the conservation of biodiversity: if we protect complex ecosystems and the species within them, this helps to keep the global climate and the economic sectors that depend on it stable.
This has a direct impact on food security, water supply and much more. With the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the United Nations adopted the first global agreement to protect nature and safeguard the natural basis for human life. The agreement was most recently reaffirmed and concretised at the 2022 CBD COP 15 with the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
In recent years, the International Climate Initiative has developed into a central programme for promoting climate action and biodiversity conservation. Through the IKI, Germany has been contributing to the protection of the climate and biodiversity since 2008, thereby fulfilling its international obligations within the international community.
Climate change and the loss of biodiversity are two global mega-crises that are closely linked. Effective solutions must therefore focus on interactions and synergies – and this is precisely what is reflected in the approach taken by the International Climate Initiative.
The activities from IKI projects range, for example, from advising policy makers on capacity building and technology partnerships to risk hedging through innovative financial instruments. It also includes studies, project preparation advice for infrastructure development, and investment instruments for climate change mitigation or biodiversity conservation.
To date, IKI has approved more than 950 climate and biodiversity projects in over 150 countries worldwide with a total funding volume of almost 6 billion euros (2008–2022).
The IKI finances projects run by organisations that implement measures together with developing, emerging and transitional countries within the four IKI funding areas:
- Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions: Setting the course for global climate neutrality by 2050;
- Adapting to the impacts of climate change: Strengthening resilience, making use of interconnections with mitigation and biodiversity approaches;
- Conserving natural carbon sinks with a focus on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+): Combating the causes of global warming and the destruction of natural ecosystems;
- Conserving biological diversity: Implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework.
Many projects normally involve more than one funding area.
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From the IKI’s first days, the areas were considered as a collective, and many projects were designed to be cross-sectoral. In this way, the IKI has provided and continues to provide important impetus for the implementation of ambitious climate and biodiversity policies in its partner countries.
This integrative approach has been fleshed out even further in the Strategy of the International Climate Initiative up to 2030. The IKI also incorporates alliances and processes that are important to the Federal Government into its funding structures. These include in particular the Climate Club, the Just Energy Transition Partnerships, the NDC Partnership and the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership.
The German government wants to maximise its impact on climate action and biodiversity conservation through its funding via the International Climate Initiative. To this end, it concentrates its funding activities on prioritised fields of action within the four funding areas.
IKI Interface Projects
The IKI works particularly close with its priority countries. The selection of the priority countries resulted from an evaluation of the IKI, which had indicated a stronger country orientation. These priority countries account for almost 50 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and are also home to the 25 global biodiversity hotspots. This means that IKI projects are particularly effective here because there is great potential for reducing greenhouse gases, adapting to the impacts of climate change and protecting biodiversity.
Currently, the IKI works particularly closely with Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam. In most countries, cooperation takes the form of larger, particularly bilateral project portfolios. Most priority countries also feature IKI interface projects, which maintain permanent project offices in the country’s capital city. Besides being commissioned with their own country-specific projects, these interface projects are also tasked with maintaining close contact to national environment and climate ministries as well as networking with other relevant ministries in the field of climate and biodiversity policy. Beyond this, the interface projects also provide a networking platform for all of the IKI projects within the country and region, to promote and benefit from the synergies. The IKI Interface is Ukraine’s partner in best reconstruction practices, contributing to recovery and building a new, sustainable economy. Climate change aspirations and biodiversity protection are integral to broader recovery efforts.