CENTERFORGLOBALDEVELOPMENTWho Should Pay?Climate FinanceFair SharesJONATHAN BEYNONAbstractThe scale,source,and allocation ofclimate finance have been contentious aspects oftheParis Agreement and its implementation.Central to these are questions of"fair shares":who might contribute what and whetherthe group of contributors should be expanded.New analysis presented here concludes that there is a case for non-traditional donorsproviding 20-30 percent ofany total,with this finding robust to a variety of differentmeasures of historical emissions,cut-offdates,and income.China,Russia,South Korea,Saudi Arabia,Taiwan,Poland,the United Arab Emirates,and Mexico consistentlyfeature in the top 20.Developed countries,however,should continue to take primaryresponsibility,with the United States shouldering at least 40 percent of the burden invirtually allscenarios.The politics of climate finance will continue to be difficult,butit is hard to escape the conclusion that both the United States and China will need toprovide more.POLICY PAPER 311.NOVEMBER 2023Who Should Pay?Climate Finance Fair SharesJonathan BeynonCenter for Global DevelopmentWith thanks in particular to lan Mitchell,Charles Kenny,Joe Thwaites,and Aman Srivastava for helpful comments onearlier draft,and to Ed Wickstead and Lee Robinson for support withthe modelJonathan Beynon 2023."Who Should Pay?Climate Finance Fair Shares."CGD Policy Paper 311 Washington,DC:Center for Global Development.https://www.cgdev.org/publication/who-should-pay-climate-finance-fair-sharesCENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTThe Center for Global Development works to reduce global2055 L Street,NW Fifth Floorpoverty and improve lives through innovative economicWashington,DC 20036research that drives better policy and practice by the world'stop decision makers.Use and dissemination of this Policy Paper1 Abbey Gardensis encouraged;however,reproduced copies may not be usedGreat College Streetfor commercial purposes.Further usage is permitted under theLondonterms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0SW1P 3SEwww.cgdev.orgThe views expressed in CGD Policy Papers are those of theauthors and should not be attributed to the board of directors,Center for Global Development.2023.funders of the Center for Global Development,or the authors'respective organizations.