Contestations over the financial linkages between the UNFCCC’s Technology and Financial Mechanism: using the lens of institutional interaction

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to provide financial and technology support to developing countries, the Technology Mechanism (TM) and the Green Climate Fund of the Financial Mechanism (FM) were established in 2010. Since the notion of linkage between the TM and the FM first appeared in 2011, there have been two conceptual approaches to defining this linkage: one posits it as funding arrangements between the TM and the FM to implement the former, while the other frames it as institutional linkage, relating to technical and policy advice on funding activities under the Convention. Though cognizant of the necessity of linkage between the TM and the FM, developed and developing countries contest the specific design of this linkage, particularly over the design of funding arrangements for the flow of financial resources from the Green Climate Fund to the TM. Drawing on international relations theory concerned with institutional interaction, this paper explores why political contestation occurs and continues on the TM–FM linkage design. Because the linkage between or among thematic bodies under the UNFCCC is crucial for climate technology financing, resolution of political contestation over the design of the TM–FM linkage is especially important. Based on its theoretical exploration, policy recommendations to resolve contestation are considered.