Like many evaluators reading this, I am not a climate specialist but an international political economist, a Czech-American. Both my countries have polluted more than our fair share. Maybe like you, I feel responsible for those who polluted less but suffer more. Professionally, I focus on grassroots sustainability of ex post project evaluations, including those funded by the Adaptation Fund, and consult on environmental, social and governance ‘impact’. I worry that aid impacts sustained through ingenious local efforts will not hold up to climate shocks for which our aid was not designed, and funding is insufficient.

Where to focus? Knowing what aspect of evaluation interests you, shapes which aspect of the COP26 juggernaut to examine. Results gaps between promises made versus actual change accomplished are an evaluator’s daily bread. Were I an evaluator of environmental processes such as deforestation, ocean acidification/ biodiversity, CO2 emissions, I could evaluate along the lines of the recent publication edited by Juha Uitto (2021) Evaluating Environment in International Development. Abel Gbala, an Ivoirien monitoring and evaluation expert, offers a range of roles evaluators take on and two for climate change are

1. Evaluator as a ‘judge’ (following Scriven) to investigate and justify the value of an evaluand, supported by both empirical facts and probative reasoning;

2. Evaluator as ‘activist’, as argued by Bitar (2019), and Montrosse-Moorhead, et al. (2019: Chapter 3, 33) advocating for social justice and addressing the needs and interests of the vulnerable and disadvantaged.

Following the money and focusing on the centrality of justice and equity between rich and poorer/‘developing’ countries involves judging and being an activist with sharing results. This includes measuring how well the Global North has helped the Global South deal with the inequity in adapting to, mitigating or addressing the devastation of a range of climate change disproportionately caused by the Global North over two centuries. Notably, only small proportions of all financing get to indigenous and local communities (see Rainforest Foundation Norway, 2021; USAID, 2021). Evaluating to whom funding goes is vital for sustainable results.

Many promises are unfulfilled

The 2015 Paris Agreement (United Nations Framework convention on Climate Change, 2016) promised fewer climate-harming emissions, yet the 60 biggest banks have invested 3.8 trillion in fossil fuels (Project Regeneration, 2020). Paris signatories promised US$100 billion climate funding a year, but the COP26 showed massive shortfalls. Not only have an insufficient US$55–US$80 billion a year been given since 2013 (Timperley, 2021), but in a recent Financial Times article by Hook and Kao (2021), Amar Bhattacharya, of the Brookings Institute, stated, ‘In terms of real impact of climate finance, and efficacy across different donors, there has been no development impact or climate impact study done to date’. A German climate watchdog confirms a massive gap if and how US$80 billion in 2019 has been spent, noting, ‘The absence of a detailed, publicly available account of this financing . . . risks all sorts of omissions: donors mis-labeling their funding [as “significant” [impactful], or money being misspent, or an under-estimation of the true volume of money required’ (Subramanian, 2021). Evaluators and auditors are needed to confirm that funding was allocated, disbursed and had an impact on climate change needs.

Needs are tenfold more

India and African countries state they need US$1–US$1.3 trillion in finance by 2030 (Rathi and Chaudhary, 2021). This is not unreasonable, given that ‘developing’ countries ‘are currently shouldering approximately $70 billion per year costs of adapting to climate change’ themselves. The Global South also wants funds to be more evenly split between adaptation (now 25%) to help them deal with sea-level rise and extreme weather events and mitigation (now 75%) (Pontecorvo, 2021). Why the imbalance towards mitigation? Because mitigation is remunerative to investors, companies and banks, who offer loans for countries to switch to clean energy or sell ‘carbon-offsets’. As noted by Timperley (2021), ‘just $20 billion went to adaptation projects in 2019’ versus UN-estimated needs of US$300 billion. It is also essential to measure the effectiveness of finance once it arrives and help those in the climate field see how such investments’ efficacy can be improved.

Where to go to measure costs and finance? One priority for evaluators is to know where to look for data on finance and costs on sustainability and adaptation. This is spread over many national and international databases and reports, and across private and public institutions. Burmeister et al. (2019) have a useful table that summarizes the many finance sources that could be used by evaluators when trying to track actual expenditures and investments on adaptation.

Proof of promises is key

Oxfam’s Climate Finance Shadow Report 2020 (Carty et al., 2020) helps judges and activists see that while donors reported giving US$59.5 billion in 2017 and 2018, ‘the true value. . . may be as little as $19-22.5 billion per year once loan repayments, interest, and other forms of over-reporting are stripped out’. Eighty per cent was primarily given as loans, and a further 50 per cent of this was non-concessional, requiring higher repayments from emerging countries. In short, our climate ‘largesse’ is increasing their indebtedness. Another watchdog looks at the recipient side. Climate Governance by Transparency International (2021) traces in-country corruption of the funds received. The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board questions corporate ‘greenwashing’. Other evaluations remind multilateral and bilateral donors not to claim what they cannot substantiate. Aid promises ‘sustainable development’. Climate funds such as the GEF could be delivering, but Čekan/ová and Legro (2022) examined the GEF’s 2019 report claim that 84 per cent were sustainable post-project. ‘Can We Assume Sustained Impact? Verifying the Sustainability of Climate Change Mitigation Results’ showed no proof of ex post project fieldwork or research to substantiate it. Worse, ‘in the absence of sufficient information regarding project sustainability, determining post-project greenhouse gas emission reductions is not possible, because these are dependent on the continuation of project benefits following project closure’.

It is vital to monitor and evaluate the gaps between promises made and actual change. Gaps include between the finance needed by developing/poorer countries and what is delivered; provable measurements of the impacts and effectiveness of finance given; and the knock-on effects of support for climate action, including indebtedness. As evaluators, we need champions willing to listen, for no one has to listen to evaluators, but much like years of the climate-science IPCC, perseverance and public interest, plus our collective survival on the line, measurements increasingly matter and drive imperative change. Our planet, institutions and many promises and fewer results need all of us.

This article is also published in What should evaluation learn from COP 26? Views of evaluation practitioners,2022, SAGE Journals. Energy Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy & Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.