ABSTRACT
The conceptual separation of financial support for mitigation from that for adaptation may strike some readers as counterintuitive. An agreement to attenuate climate change cannot be successful without the transfer of money and know-how from developed to developing countries to support low-emission development and adaptation to climate change. The rule on the transfer of finance to non-Annex I parties could be treated as a separate legal provision of international climate change law dealing specifically with financial support. Moreover, funding promises paltry, ad hoc, and largely unsourced. The evidence reviewed suggests that the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) parties have failed to comply with the general mitigation rule to the extent that it subsumes the Annex I states' obligations on mitigation finance. Financial assistance must also be supplied by Annex I parties to offset, in full or in part, the cost of compliance of developing countries with reporting obligations whose expense they cannot afford.
