Mapping and Assessing Climate Finance in Mexico: initial findings

Mexico presides over more climate money than any other country in Latin America. At least that is what we suspect. Our investigations point to US$ 2.2 billion in international finance received between 2009 and 2012, supplemented by an additional US$ 3.2 billion from the federal budget.

Verifying these figures would be a challenge, however, as conclusive data is hard to come by.

Since 2011 Transparencia Mexicana has been tracking climate finance in the country. Gaining clarity over what money was going where was intended as a first step towards shielding climate finance from corrupt influence. We couldn’t have anticipated how lengthy and gruelling this first step would become.

At last month’s UN climate talks in Bonn, Transparencia Mexicana gave a video presentation on the state of climate finance transparency in Mexico, based on our experiences monitoring money flows in the country.

This video sheds light on some of the key challenges we faced, including:

· Continuing confusion around what counts as climate finance
· De facto limitations on information disclosure, despite Mexico’s access to information law – particularly at the sub-national level
· High levels of secrecy of fiduciary agents responsible for channelling climate money – examples of which include Mexico’s national development banks.

As Mexico lays the foundations for its new national climate fund, these shortcomings must be addressed. The status quo presents too much risk that money – unseen and unmonitored – will be siphoned off, embezzled, lost or wasted.