Legal Readiness to Attract Climate Finance: Towards a Low-Carbon Asia and the Pacific

The Parties to the Paris Agreement have made ambitious commitments to combat climate change - both in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and climate resilience targets, as well as financial targets. In their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), most developing countries have made their commitments conditional on receiving international financial support. Developed countries and international organizations, in turn, have responded by offering various types of capacity development support. However, not enough attention has been paid to assessing the legal frameworks of the developing countries to identify legal barriers and opportunities for legal modernization to optimize options for climate finance to fund their NDCs. This article highlights some of these legal barriers and showcases examples from the Lao People’s Democratic Republic1 and the Republic of Fiji where the countries have embarked on legal modernization.