Impact evaluation and interventions to address climate change: a scoping study

Substantial and increasing amounts of funding are available for climate change interventions. This paper argues that to ensure effective allocation of these resources, the selection and design of climate change mitigation and adaptation interventions should be based on evidence of what works, what doesn’t, under what circumstances and at what cost. Currently the evidence base for bringing about behaviour change in the context of climate change interventions is minimal and there is a need for wider application of rigorous impact evaluation (IE) in the field. Climate change interventions have much to learn from experiences in the related fields of international development and conservation. The paper highlights some of the challenges faced when conducting IEs of climate change interventions and how these can be tackled. We argue that there are ample opportunities to conduct IE of climate change interventions. Increased financing of climate change interventions is urgently needed to mitigate global warming and enable countries and communities to adapt to its impact. However, if calls for increasing financing of climate change mitigation and adaptation by hundreds of billions of dollars a year are to remain credible, and gain and maintain support, evidence of the effectiveness of current spending is essential.