Standing Committee on Finance

The Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) was established by the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at COP16 in Cancún in 2010, with its functions further elaborated at COP17 in Durban in 2011. Its mandate is to assist the COP in exercising its functions with respect to the Financial Mechanism of the Convention, particularly in four areas: improving coherence and coordination in the delivery of climate finance, rationalization of the Financial Mechanism, mobilization of financial resources, and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of support provided to developing country Parties.

The SCF is composed of members nominated by Parties, with balanced representation between developed and developing countries, drawing on the UN regional groupings as well as Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Members serve in their individual expert capacity.

Among its recurring outputs, the SCF prepares the Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows (BA), which has been published roughly every two years since 2014 and is widely cited as a benchmark estimate of global climate finance. It also organises an annual SCF Forum on a thematic topic (past themes have included finance for forests, adaptation finance, and finance for nature-based solutions), and provides draft guidance to the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism — the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) — for adoption by the COP.

Following the Paris Agreement, the SCF also serves the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA). It has been tasked with reports on the needs of developing country Parties related to implementing the Convention and the Paris Agreement, and on the definitions of climate finance, both of which feed directly into negotiations on the post-2025 New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance.