Deadline: 06thjune 2016
Since 2008, the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) has been financing climate and biodiversity projects in developing and newly industrialising countries, as well as in countries in transition. In the early years of the programme, its financial resources came from the proceeds of auctioning allowances under the emissions trading scheme. To ensure financial continuity, further funds were made available through the Special Energy and Climate Fund. Both funding mechanisms are now part of the Federal Environment Ministry’s regular budget.
The IKI is a key element of Germany’s climate financing and the funding commitments in the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Initiative places clear emphasis on climate change mitigation, adaption to the impacts of climate change and the protection of biological diversity. These efforts provide various co-benefits, particularly the improvement of living conditions in partner countries.
Guidelines and Standard Indicators
Project application is open to applicants worldwide through an annual call for proposals. This two-stage procedure is designed to ensure that funding is awarded to ambitious projects with the most suitable implementing organisations. The following points apply in particular to BMUB-funded projects:
Designing an international climate finance architecture:
The IKI supports mechanisms for mobilising additional funding, private investments in particular, as well as sustainable business models for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation measures.
Innovation and the multiplier effect:
IKI projects should follow technologically, environmentally, methodologically or institutionally ambitious and replicable approaches that are transferrable and that achieve results beyond individual projects.
Transparency and Coherence:
The IKI supports its partner countries in making measurable, reportable and verifiable (MRV) contributions to climate change mitigation. BMU also participates in the international debate on MRV. On the one hand, it is continuously improving its own monitoring approach. The planning and monitoring of IKI projects follows the impact logic of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). On the other hand, the IKI also focuses on strengthening transparency and governance structures in international climate financing.
Learning from Experience:
Stakeholders active in the IKI use platforms such as workshops or online networks to exchange experiences and know-how and learn from one another. An independent evaluation of individual projects and the entire programme provide important insights for continuously improving the IKI.
Standard Indicators:
As from 2015, all new projects are to use not only the project-specific indicators, but also the overarching standard indicators that summarise the central impacts of the IKI funding programme. Each project reports on all standard indicators to which it has made a significant contribution.
IKI's standard indicators are:
Reduction indicator: Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and increase in carbon storage (as tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) in the project/programme area.
Adaptation indicator: Number of people the project directly assists with adaptation to climate change impacts or ecosystem conservation.
Ecosystem indicator: Ecosystem area (in hectares) that is improved or protected by the project’s activities.
Policy indicator: Number of new or improved policy frameworks for managing climate change and/or conserving biodiversity.
Institution indicator: Number of new or improved institutionalised structures or processes for managing climate change and/or conserving biodiversity.
Methods indicator: Number of new or improved methodological tools for managing climate change and conserving biodiversity. 
